The Surrogacy Journey Overview

“Where do I begin?” This is a question Frank often gets asked during consultations with Intended Parents. It is a very important question and, depending on who you ask, will come with a variety of answers. Let’s discuss what Frank recommends for Intended Parents and break down what your surrogacy journey with Golden will look like, step by step. Because while creating a family can be a long journey, it is a journey that no one should do alone, and an experience that everyone deserves. 

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Welcome to Surrogacy Talk with me, your fabulous host and family building expert, Frank Golden. I'll be talking about surrogacy, IVF, and making babies. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Surrogacy Talk. I am Frank Golden, the agency director and founder of Golden Surrogacy, one of the nation's leading surrogacy agencies. Today, I have a fantastic topic that I would like to discuss with all of our intended parents out there. Oftentimes during my consultations, I always get asked to describe what the surrogacy process entails when working with Golden. And so I'd like to walk you through what some of the first steps are. Now, the first question always is, "Where do I start?" or "How do I start the journey?" And that's a very important question. Oftentimes, if you're speaking with a fertility expert, they'll say, "Start with my clinic." If you go the legal route, an attorney might say, "Start with attorneys." And then some agencies may even say,"Start with us here at the agency." The right answer there is to stop and put a budget together. Okay. Because if you start with a clinic, for example, if you are a couple or a single individual going through this process that needs to create embryos from scratch, you may be in a situation where perhaps your first egg yield or your embryo creation process is not super successful. Maybe you need a new donor or a secondary retrieval, and that's okay. These things happen, but you don't want to have already put a deposit down with a surrogacy agency and then go, "Oh no, I can't afford to continue with a second donor, and I've already given a bunch of money to the agency." Now, once you have put together your entire budget for your surrogacy journey and you can go through any eventuality, whether that be on the embryo creation side or the surrogate search then great. Congratulations. You are ready to begin. And in this situation, I typically recommend to start with an agency like Golden where we can go through the process and determine this is what your budget is. And these are the service providers that would fall within that budget. We want you to select a reproductive endocrinologist and a clinic that you trust and also then to verify that they do meet those budgetary requirements that you have given us here at the agency. Now, getting started with the agency, once you've made that choice, this is what the next steps are going to look like. The first part is we will go ahead and send you out all of our agency documentation, retainer agreement, background checks, the boring stuff. Okay. Once we get that out of the way. This is when the fun starts. We schedule your orientation call, and before that call takes place, we have you complete your intended parent profile. This is so important. This is for you to be able to convey to us who you are, whether you be a couple or a single individual. This is how we get to know you so that we can find you the right match. Once your profile is complete. We then have that orientation call and we go through all of the components of your profile to make sure that we've conveyed to you that we understand exactly what it is that you are looking for in your surrogacy journey. This is very important. We'll go ahead and send you a recap email with also a timeline to outline when you might expect your surrogate match. Now, this would conclude where we are with the journey thus far at the surrogacy agency standpoint. You're kind of waiting for your surrogate, you've been given a timeline. Great. Now, going back to the clinical side of things, if you are an intended parent, that was creating embryos, these are things that you would be working on concurrently. The goal here is that by the time the agency locates your perfect match and the surrogate side, you already have your embryos ready to go. And what do I mean by that? I mean, they are created, first and foremost, they've been tested, and they are cryogenically preserved on storage or on ice, as we say in the industry, and they are ready to go. That way, once your match is located, we don't have any hiccups on that side. Now, the matching process, this is so important and you're probably wondering, "Oh, my goodness, I'm going to be so nervous. I'm matching with this person that I don't know." Let me just say, here at the agency, we try to alleviate all of that additional stress that you may be thinking about."Is this person qualified? Oh, my goodness. Has she been vetted?" The good news is here at Golden, we do all of that prescreening in advance because as a former intended parent, I know that heading into the match, you are very nervous about if she's qualified. And so the surrogate goes through all of the pre screening. We send all of her information to your reproductive endocrinologist and they give us a preliminary approval before you even see her profile. So at this point, it really is about the match, getting to know her, reading through her profile, having that match conference, and really getting to know each other. And what's important to know about this process is that your care team here at the agency is guiding you every step of the way. We will send out a complete match called guide. We will have a preparatory call with you to make sure that you fully understand what's kind of expected in that process. And we can game out potential questions and really alleviate any concerns or just the nervous jitters that you may be feeling heading into that match call. Now, moving on, once we have an official match and all parties agree to move forward together, the next step would be to have your surrogate visit your clinic. This is the first opportunity where she's able to meet with your reproductive endocrinologist and then have them conduct whatever the remaining screening is. At that point, it's usually a saline ultrasound and then some additional required blood work. Once we have that official seal of approval, we are ready to jump into legal. Everyone is matched. Your surrogate has been officially approved by the clinic, and now we just need a contract. We have you covered. Here at Golden, we do not have attorneys in-house. It is always best practice that the attorney representing your best interests and that of your surrogate come from the state where your surrogate lives and is going to give birth. Only these reproductive law experts are completely familiar with all of the family building statutes surrounding an agreement in that state. And so for that reason, we work with only a network of the absolute best professionals in the industry. During this process, we will facilitate helping you retain legal counsel, as well as reviewing the first draft with you to ensure that the contract coincides with all the documentation that you may have signed here at the agency, as well as ensuring that we know you are going to have a smooth experience from a legal standpoint from beginning all the way through contract finalization. That is very, very important. Legal typically takes somewhere between four to eight weeks. We always try to set that expectation because attorneys may be backlogged with previous cases, or we might have hit the legal phase during the holiday season. Four to eight weeks is what we typically recommend, and we are doing everything we can to move you through that process in an expeditious manner. Now, you've graduated through the legal phase, what next? You're probably wondering, "Can we do the embryo transfer?" Not quite yet. There's just a couple more steps. Once we do have a finalized contract, your attorney is going to send over a document to your clinic called The Legal Letter of Clearance. This essentially lets the doctors know that there's a proper legal contract in place and the surrogate then is authorized to begin medical procedures. At this point, your clinic will put together a medication calendar for your surrogate that corresponds to her cycle and scheduling. It's typically a 15 to 20 day protocol of a combination of medication and what we call monitoring appointments whereby your clinic is checking hormone levels as well as conducting ultrasounds on a remote basis and we're transmitting that data back to the clinic at the end of that cycle you will have a tentative embryo transfer date if all looks well, and I am optimistic that it will, and then we have your embryo transfer. This is a very momentous time in your surrogacy journey. Intended parents, I always recommend, even if you are not local to the clinic, please go. Go to that embryo transfer. This is like the date of conception, and we want you there to celebrate this milestone with your surrogate. I cannot state this heavily enough. You want to be there. At this point your embryo transfer was a huge success. Your surrogate is pregnant. Congratulations! The rest of the journey your care team is monitoring your surrogate, making sure she's attending her O.B. appointments, checking in on her. A very important component of the surrogacy journey is communication between you and your surrogate. So we will have regularly scheduled what we call check ins to ensure that we have a cohesive relationship where we have dialog. You are checking in on your surrogate, she is giving you status updates. This is very important. And if you ever need help and you're wondering how do I initiate dialog with my surrogate, that's what we're here for. We are constantly by your side guiding you every single step of the way. And there you have it. These would be some of the key steps when going through a surrogacy journey with us here at Golden. And I really hope that you found it helpful. And that is all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. I would love to hear your thoughts or if you have additional questions that you would like me to address in future segments, you can send me a tweet @GoldenSurrogacy or slide into the DMs@Golden_Surrogacy on Instagram. And I would love to hear from you. And I am Frank Golden reminding all of you that Everyone Deserves a Family.