Is Surrogacy Expensive?

Brent Love is the newest addition to the Hope Surrogacy team and a new dad through surrogacy! Here, he faces the finances of surrogacy and the truths he learned from his journey.

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So, the first thing anyone ever asks when they meet me and my new baby is, “Isn’t she just the cutest?”

“Yes!” I nearly shout. “Yes, she totally is! She is literally the cutest human alive today.” Most parents feel this way about their sweet babes. I just can’t help myself. SHE’S CUTE!

Now, here’s the second thing they want to ask and (almost) never do:

“Was it expensive?”

Surrogacy pro tip: no parents likes to be asked this question.

No one likes to be asked this question, and it’s not because it’s a terrible thing to ask. It’s definitely not because there is any shame involved. It’s because it is really, really complicated. Here are a few reasons why:

Every journey is different.

My husband and I are two men, and neither of us have a uterus. That means, for us, an egg donor was involved as were scientists who created our embryos. Then there was the doctor, a financial specialist, a lab technician, and more. And money to pay for services.

Other people who become parents through surrogacy are straight couples, one of whom can donate eggs. So, take the same list as I mentioned above, minus the egg donor. Money is still exchanged but there is no egg donor fee.

Other parents already have embryos in storage but come to surrogacy because carrying their baby isn’t an option. This is different, too, and in the end, this won’t add up to the same total cost as my husband’s and mine.

At just the right time you’ll meet with an agency like Hope Surrogacy who will match you with an incredible surrogate. There is a fee for the agency who matches you with your surrogate, and your surrogate will also give a fee. Pretty normal, and all well up front so you can make the decisions you need to make right when you need to make them.

From egg donation, surrogacy fees and professional services, there are so many variables that there just isn’t a one-size-fits-all number. That’s why this second truth is so helpful:

A secret most people don’t know: You never pay for surrogacy all at once.

Many people think of the lump sum of surrogacy, as if there is a total to pay all at once. There isn’t. Instead, there are payments throughout the process, all along the way, and if you hit a bump in the road, you don’t go back to the start. You keep moving forward!

When you meet with your guides at Hope Surrogacy, they’ll help lay out a calendar of all the financial expectations they have access to (and I’ll give a shout out to Leanna at Center for Reproductive Medicine who helped us with a fantastic medical financial timeline along the way, too!).

When all this is laid out in front of you, you realize, yes, this is expensive, but it doesn’t all come at once. You never pay for surrogacy all at once. You pay a bill for embryo storage. You pay a bill for the embryo transfer. You pay the surrogacy fee in installments. Your agency fees come in installments. It’s not always easy, but if you plan, you can meet the bills and save in between.

“Is it expensive?” is the wrong question.

Answering that question – “Is it expensive?” – is hard to answer because we all know it’s not about the money. If you are considering surrogacy, you realize this. You know in your heart that the baby of your dreams is priceless.

Surrogates know this, too. The surrogates we meet through Hope Surrogacy know that there is no price on parenthood. They know this because they are all parents. That’s why they decided to become surrogates– they have beautiful children of their own, and they want to help other parents build the family of their dreams.

When people ask, “Is it expensive?” what they really want to ask is, “How possible is surrogacy, financially? For me? For someone I know?”

Surrogacy is not about money. Along the way you’ll meet a lot of people who’ve made it their life’s work to help people like you build families – scientists and doctors and surrogates and caseworkers and people like the team at Hope Surrogacy. On that journey you’ll pay for the science and the time and the labs and the services that all add up to you having a baby.

We’re here to help. We’re here to remind you that it’s possible. We’re here to remind you that this journey is about so much more than money, something bigger, something beautiful. It’s about family.

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If you’d like to get in touch with us and talk about the surrogacy journey and how much it costs, you can contact us here. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Brent Love is the newest addition to the Hope Surrogacy team. We’re so excited that he’ll be sharing stories from his surrogacy journey on our blog. Have a story to share or a question you’d like us to answer on the blog? You can email Brent at brent@hopesurrogacy.com.

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