How to choose the best surrogacy agency for intended parents?

We know you might be feeling anxious, tense, and excited all at the same time, adding panic and more worries is the last thing we would place on your list, hence we have listed below a few factors and questions that you must ask surrogacy professionals while consulting with multiple surrogacy agencies. This blog will aid you to choose the best surrogacy for yourself.

We are here to answer your worries

Before we begin with the factors to determine the best surrogacy agency, let us solve your doubts and worries, keep reading. We have mentioned a few common questions that most intended parents have while they are in their research phase.

Is selecting a surrogacy agency essential? Can I directly choose the top fertility clinic?

Well, you can connect with fertility clinics and seek guidance from IVF specialists but a fertility clinic only takes care of medical procedures for surrogacy that includes IVF procedure – retrieval of eggs and sperm samples from donors and or intended parents, performing screening tests, and embryo transfer procedure. But fertility cannot help you meet a surrogate mother or manage other essential surrogacy procedures.

Whereas, a best surrogacy agency is a liaison between all the individuals involved in the surrogacy procedure. An agency is responsible for finding a suitable surrogate mother, taking care of the surrogate mother and your baby, managing all the uncertainties in the middle of the journey, helping intended parents meet the surrogate mother, and in addition providing legal protection with thorough guidance of documentation.

How do I select the best surrogacy agency?

After struggling for a few years, when you have decided to conceive using a surrogate mother, the next vital stage is to find a suitable or best surrogacy agency for yourself. Now, the question is how can one find a surrogacy agency that is trustworthy and reliable? We know, multiple professionals are offering similar surrogacy services with claiming best practices, hence the selection process can be daunting.

With understanding the process of surrogacy treatments, intended parents must determine whether they provide legal protection to intended parents surrogacy and surrogate mothers. And, understand the cost of the treatment, and compensation to be given to your surrogate mother.

To determine whether an agency is, your first task is to consider these factors:

• Their relationship with a fertility clinic
• Whether they provide psychological screening and counseling to intended parents as well as to surrogate mothers.
• Understand the team of the surrogacy agency, as team members are the ones coordinating with you throughout the journey.

What factors should I consider when finalizing the best surrogacy agency?

The stress-free way to achieve your parenthood through surrogacy is only through a trustworthy surrogacy agency that provides everything under one roof. From performing screening tests to linking intended parents surrogacy with experienced lawyers, a surrogacy agency looks after everything catered to your surrogacy needs.

When you consider a particular surrogacy agency, it’s important to understand their surrogacy service offerings, if in case they do not provide a particular surrogacy service like legal services or finding donors, make sure they connect with a qualified expert that is trustworthy and can help you proceed with the procedure effectively.

We have listed below a quick guideline to seek while considering a surrogacy agency:

• Cost for a particular surrogacy program, what are the things included in the surrogacy cost?
• Does a surrogacy agency have legal services in-house?
• Will they help you connect with a lawyer if they don’t have in-house legal services?
• How many years of experience do you have?
• Do they help you select an insurance plan for your surrogate mother?
• Can they provide you with their prior client’s and or surrogate’s reviews?
• How good is the relationship with their fertility clinic?

Questions to determine while surrogacy interview

We hope we have answered your initial worries. Now, you can begin shortlisting a few surrogacy agencies. Remember until and unless you don’t meet various agencies you won’t understand their services and their offerings. Don’t worry, we have mentioned below the kind of questions you can consider or ask during your surrogacy interview.

How do you select surrogate matches? Is it safe for me to work with these matches?

To understand whether the surrogate mother is reliable to work with you must ask a potential surrogacy agency a few questions like what is the screening process with the surrogate mother? What are the criteria to finalize a surrogate mother? How long does this process take? In addition, one of the main questions you can consider is how do an agency minimize the financial, legal, and medical risk for intended parents surrogacy. If, in case a prospective agency denies telling you risk or says that there is no risk in the surrogacy journey, do not trust that organization ever. A good agency is someone that educates you about all the risk factors and there is no hindrance kept.

What kind of services does a prospective agency provide?

Every surrogacy professional and organization has different criteria and services to offer. But there are a few factors that an ideal surrogacy agency must provide.

• Screening test
• Matching services of donors and surrogate mother
• With a good communication flow between all the individuals involved in the surrogacy journey, agency experts must provide the right information to intended parents from attorneys and doctors so that they don’t have to keep track of every phase.
• Counseling services to parents and surrogate
• Legal protection

Before you begin a journey with an ideal or the best surrogacy agency, ensure you are aware of these factors so that you are safe and free from unwanted panic and stress.

What if uncertain complications occur during my surrogacy journey?

Just like any other pregnancy, uncertain complications or issues can occur in the middle of your surrogate pregnancy. Like medical or clinical complications, problems with the relationship between parents and surrogate, failure in embryo transfer, and many more such situations. If any agency tells you, there won’t be any uncertainty or everything will happen as per our schedule or planning then it’s a big red flag, reject the agency right there!

An agency must have an action plan in a particular situation. How does an agency protect intended parents surrogacy from sudden circumstances or complications? An experienced surrogacy agency must know although complications are rare protection or few precautions must be taken to proceed with a successful process.

How do you provide legal protection to intended parents surrogacy?

Although most surrogacy agency have an in-house availability of attorney, the ones that do not provide in-house lawyers must refer you to experienced attorneys to avoid unwanted legal hurdles in your surrogacy agency. Also, an agency must provide separate lawyers to parents and surrogate mother as well.

The surrogacy agency must educate you about the legal procedure, and the relationship between the attorney they refer you to. And ensure, you are aware of what kinds of legal services the attorney services are offering, what will be the parent’s responsibility, and ask for the attorney fees as well.

Although, even if an agency does not look after the legal process, they must walk you through various factors of surrogacy laws so that parents have a clear idea about the legal journey. Also, ask your agency how they coordinate and assist you to communicate with attorneys and when you can meet them.

If in case any agency suggests you use only one family lawyer between you and your surrogate mother. Do not trust them, the parties must have separate legal representatives to ensure complete legal protection.

How long have you been assisting individuals or couples with intended parents surrogacy?

Most of the parents are confused with a popular agency are probably ideal surrogacy agencies for me, well that’s not true. The only factor you must consider is, the agency must have a consistent record with positive results. But can I determine whether the agency is good enough to consider?

An agency must have a few years of experience and expertise in surrogacy, and they must have former surrogates and happy parents that can speak for the agency’s services. Also, ensure whether they provide surrogacy treatments overseas and they are aware of and provide legal protection in different states.

You must do your research, and ensure their previous clients are happy with their services and treatment. And if an agency does not provide complete statistics and its history, keep looking for other agencies.

How many staff members does a surrogacy agency have? And how available are they in uncertain situations?

The surrogacy journey is quite tedious and IP’s may lose their patience with an international surrogacy journey, as it is more time-consuming. Hence, it is extremely important to ensure that there is someone available from the agency to support you and give personal attention. If in case, agency size is minor then the expert or specialists will devote their time and effort to the IP’s with each phase of surrogacy.

Ask the agency during the interview about the agency’s hours policy. What happens with an emergency like a surrogate going into labor around 2 or 3 am? How frequently does the agency provide updates throughout the process to Intended Parents surrogacy?

A good agency must personally help IP’s with their availability and assist you to communicate with the surrogate mother, attorney, and lawyer. To determine all these factors, you must get in touch with previous clients of the agency.

Few additional factors to determine the best surrogacy agency

There are a few must-have factors to determine in selecting the best surrogacy agency for IP’s. While you are on the search for various agencies, keep these factors in mind.

Cost and fees of surrogacy treatment

Don’t just ask for the cost range but a detailed estimate of the expenses connected to the process. Also, look for the level of services they provide with a certain cost and compare the service and cost with other agencies. Agencies where staff are well-trained, educated, and experienced, may have high surrogacy costs.

Usually, the total surrogacy cost includes compensation for a surrogate, donor’s fees, fertility clinic costs, attorney fees, and many other expenses which an agency must walk you through in detail.

Screening process

Ask the prospective agency about the screening process with the parents and surrogate mother. Make sure, the agency performs a thorough psychological and medical assessment of a surrogate and asks whether they meet a gestational carrier in person, or else you can’t blindly trust the agency or the carrier, or else you are at risk with a matching surrogate who isn’t reliable.

Also, ensure the agency performs financial and criminal checks on potential surrogate candidates. Also, understand the percentage of applicants they connect with to get an idea of how selective the agency is!

Concluding words

The best surrogacy agency assists parents plan the surrogacy journey with the correct resources like fertility clinics, doctors, donors, surrogate mother, and lawyer, you will be assured of a hassle-free journey. But, selecting the right surrogacy agency is a must.

Consider all the facts we discussed above, make sure you do your research, and seek advice from parents who have conceived healthy babies via surrogacy. However, you will come across various factors about the surrogacy journey. Don’t confuse yourself with the loop of elements ruling around the internet, keep looking for an ideal agency and trust your instinct.