How to Choose the Best Surrogacy Agency

Gestational surrogacy is a beautiful way to grow a family. It’s also highly emotional and complicated. That’s why you need to know what to look for in a surrogacy agency, whether you’re the intended parents or you want to become a gestational surrogate. You need an experienced, caring and impartial agency to help you navigate the various legal, ethical, physical and emotional challenges headed your way.

Surrogacy is emotional for the intended parents (IP) and for the gestational surrogate. By the time IPs come to a surrogacy agency they have exhausted all their options. They have usually experienced deep loss: loss of life from repeated miscarriages or still births, loss of dreams that starting a family would be easy, loss of friendships that fell away as their fertility struggle took on a life of its own. Often, the desperation to be a parent after so much heartbreak can lead a couple to make well-intended but poor decisions with unforeseen consequences.

Surrogacy is emotional for the surrogate, too. She is a deeply generous and caring woman who wants to help a couple finally hold their child in their arms. In her kindness, she may do anything the intended parents ask — even if it puts her at risk. Often, she knows she is “good at being pregnant,” and enjoys the experience of pregnancy (for the most part). But there is much more to surrogacy than the pregnancy. Most people don’t realize how different it is to be pregnant with another couple’s child.

In addition to the pregnancy itself, there are other topics to consider: how will her community handle her decision, how will she explain her pregnancy to her children, how could it affect her marriage or her friendships or her job?

It is for these reasons — and many more — that IPs and surrogates should not try to broker their own surrogacy arrangements or choose the first surrogacy agency they find on Google. Surrogacy without an agency can lead to devastating mistakes on both sides.

Reasons to Use a Surrogacy Agency

A surrogacy agency is like a general contractor.

Surrogacy agencies understand the big picture from start to finish and bring all the required specialists together, at the right time: legal, financial, medical and psychological. Your agency will help manage all the moving parts and provide unbiased, expert support along the way.

A surrogacy agency can protect the best interests of the surrogate and the intended parents.

The surrogate bears the physical risk to her own health and body, while the IPs bear the financial risk of paying for the procedures and the emotional risk of trusting their future child to someone else’s body. An agency helps both parties navigate the ups, downs, twists and turns of this complex journey.

A surrogacy agency can recognize and respect the deep emotions involved, but help both parties make decisions that are not guided by emotion.

The intended parents’ ache to have a baby can lead to desperation and clouded decision making. The surrogates’ selflessness and kindness can enable those poor decisions. That’s why it’s so important for an unbiased agency (and separate legal teams) to be involved from the beginning.

A reputable surrogacy agency will help keep the children’s best interests in mind.

Often, it’s easy to focus solely on a healthy pregnancy and baby. But that baby will grow to become a child, a teenager, an adult. It’s important to consider what that baby will think and feel about their origins as he or she grows up. The surrogate’s other children will also be affected, both during the pregnancy and after — when mom does not bring the new baby home.

The best surrogacy agencies will look at both the short-term and long-term future and help guide these decisions for everyone involved.

Qualities of the Best Surrogacy Agencies

Currently, there are no licensing requirements for surrogacy agencies. That’s why it’s so important to know what to look for in an agency and what separates the best surrogacy agencies from the downright shady.

An Office

A reputable agency should have a physical presence with a professional office. They won’t just disappear when you need them the most. If you find a surrogacy agency that doesn’t have an office, this could be a red flag that they are brand new or that they are looking for quick cash.

Good Industry Reputation

A reputable surrogacy agency is engaged in the industry. Look for agencies who belong to professional organizations like American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), Society for Ethics in Egg Donation and Surrogacy (SEEDS), and Resolve National Infertility Association.

Referrals

A reputable agency will have referrals from past clients and will be happy to connect you to people who can speak directly to their experience.

Experience & Process

A reputable agency will help you know what to expect. They will provide a road map for the process that includes ethical, legal, mental and physical health considerations.

Responsive & Professional Communication

A reputable agency communicates with you, even if the news may be hard to hear. They will respond to your phone calls, emails, texts in a timely manner with professionalism and compassion.

Intended Parents’ Guide to Choosing a Surrogacy Agency

Follow these guidelines to find the best surrogacy agency and surrogate for your intended parent journey.

1. Find a surrogacy agency that requires independent legal representation for both you and the gestational carrier. There should be two lawyers involved. Always. Insist on this.
2. Make sure the gestational surrogate AND her partner have had a proper psych screening.
3. Insist on meeting the gestational surrogate in person before engaging in a legal contract or medical procedure. This should be facilitated by the agency or a mental health professional. In other words, it shouldn’t just be you and the gestational surrogate.

Surrogacy Agency Red Flags for Intended Parents

To avoid an unreputable surrogacy agency, follow these guidelines.

1. Avoid anonymity. Nothing about gestational surrogacy should be anonymous. There must be a relationship between both parties.
2. Avoid surrogacy agencies who don’t screen for financial stability. Do not choose a surrogate who is financially unstable. Find a gestational carrier who is providing the service for altruistic reasons—not for financial gain. In other words, her main source of income should not be gestational surrogacy, and her motivation for surrogacy should not be about how much money she will make. A good agency will screen for this.
3. Do not work with a surrogacy agency whose surrogates do not speak your language. Everyone must be capable of communicating without a translator. How else will you know if they are being treated fairly? How will you know if what you are both saying to each other is being accurately translated?
4. Do not work with an agency who does not require the gestational surrogate to tell her own children about surrogacy. Children have the right to know what is happening with their mom and the baby who is growing inside her. They should not be lied to or treated as unimportant observers of the pregnancy. Their lives are affected when mom is pregnant, too.
5. Do not choose a surrogacy agency who will allow you to continue fertility treatments while pursuing gestational surrogacy. Gestational surrogacy must be your final resort, when you are absolutely finished with your own infertility treatments. Do not have another embryo implanted while your surrogate is also undergoing treatment. Not only does this rob your surrogate of the experience of carrying a baby for you, but it creates unnecessary and painful complications for both children.
6. Do not choose a surrogacy agency who will allow you to use two surrogates at the same time. Gestational surrogacy is not a time to hedge bets or spread out risk across a couple of potential surrogates. It is a relationship between you and your gestational carrier.

Gestational Surrogates’ Guide to Choosing a Surrogacy Agency

Follow these guidelines to find the best surrogacy agency and surrogate for your gestational surrogate journey.

1. Find a surrogacy agency that requires independent legal representation for both you and the intended parents. There should be two lawyers involved. Always. Insist on this.
2. Make sure the intended parents have had a proper psych screening. They need to have met with a mental health professional to explore what it means to use a surrogate in the face of not having a baby.
3. Only choose an agency who requires intended parents to have a legitimate medical reason for choosing surrogacy, such as a chronic health problem, absence of a uterus, impaired uterus, or cancer. (In other words, gestational surrogacy should be their only remaining option. It should not simply be “more convenient.”)
4. Insist on meeting the intended parents in person before engaging in a legal contract or medical procedure. This should be facilitated by the agency or a mental health professional. In other words, it shouldn’t just be you and the gestational surrogate.

Surrogacy Agency Red Flags for Surrogates

1. 1. Avoid anonymity. Nothing about gestational surrogacy should be anonymous. There must be a relationship between both parties.
   2. Avoid working with an agency who doesn’t speak your language, who doesn’t speak the language of the intended parents, or whose intended parents don’t speak your language. Everyone must be capable of communicating without a translator.
   3. Avoid an agency who requires you to travel out of the country for medical procedures or to meet the intended parents.
   4. Avoid being talked into a medical procedure you didn’t previously agree to. For example, agreeing to a single embryo transfer, and then being talked into transferring two embryos thereby increasing your risk of a high-order multiple pregnancy.
   5. Avoid a surrogacy agency that allows their IPs to use two surrogates simultaneously. Choosing surrogacy is not like gambling where you want to spread the risk around or try to increase your odds. They should be committed to you and your journey.
   6. Avoid a surrogacy agency whose IPs are still trying IVF cycles, or who are pregnant. You should not be robbed of the chance to help another couple have a child. This situation can also create difficult situations for the children who are conceived.
   7. Avoid any situation where you feel you are being coerced. Go with your gut instinct. Don’t do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.
   8. Avoid an agency that does not hold your compensation in an independent escrow account for disbursement to you throughout your surrogacy journey. Using the IPs’ attorney, or the agency’s own escrow agent to disburse your compensation is a conflict of interest.

Final Advice on How to Choose the Best Surrogacy Agency

Talk to more than one agency, their surrogates, and their parents. Every agency will have a different personality. They’ll have different protocols and methods. Carefully weigh the pros and cons.

You’ll be working with them through very personal, emotional decisions. It’s important that you feel comfortable with them.

You should know without a doubt that you can trust them to have your best interests at heart.

At Hope Surrogacy, we want you to have the best surrogacy experience possible. We pride ourselves on being ethical, compassionate, experienced and professional. Contact us to learn more about becoming a surrogate or an intended parent.