Consultation Number Two
We had our second surrogacy consultation yesterday, this time with a doctor who runs a fertility clinic that has a surrogacy agency affiliated with it. The doctor has a child through a surrogate and so was able to give us a lot of very practical advice from personal experience.
We both liked him very much and concluded the phone meeting feeling further encouraged about the process and our chances.
Still, it's all very overwhelming.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had recently with a co-worker who is planning her wedding. She and her fiancé visited several possible venues and were having a hard time comparing them and making a decision. One supplied the wedding cake; another didn't. One had a food-and-beverage minimum; another had a minimum number of courses. One had better valet-parking rates; another had better liquor prices. She put together a detailed spreadsheet but still couldn't come up with apples-to-apples comparisons.
Surrogacy-planning is similarly confounding.
Some surrogacy agencies are attached to fertility clinics; others aren't.
Some fully pre-screen all of their surrogates; others do minimal screening until after you're "matched" (which means that you could very easily become unmatched if the surrogate doesn't meet the requisite medical, psychological, and financial standards or pass the background check).
Some agencies charge $10,000 for their services (separate from the surrogate's fee, the legal fees, the insurance premiums, and, of course, all of the medical costs); some charge twice that.
Some insist that you buy separate health insurance for the surrogate; others maintain that the surrogate's own insurance is sufficient.
Some recommend that we have the surrogate travel to New York for the transfer; others say that we should bring our frozen embryos to the surrogate.
And all of them have their own networks of preferred providers, whether it's lawyers or fertility doctors or egg-donation agencies, so we are getting referrals upon referrals.
This has turned out to be a very iterative process, with each step sending us forward and backward at the same time.
As a result, we've concluded that we need to be running two searches in parallel: one for the agency, and one for the fertility clinic.
Because having the perfect surrogate won't do us any good if we don't have the right embryologist(s) and reproductive endocrinologist(s). And vice versa.
Next up: Consultation Number Three. And Four. And Five. . . .
We both liked him very much and concluded the phone meeting feeling further encouraged about the process and our chances.
Still, it's all very overwhelming.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had recently with a co-worker who is planning her wedding. She and her fiancé visited several possible venues and were having a hard time comparing them and making a decision. One supplied the wedding cake; another didn't. One had a food-and-beverage minimum; another had a minimum number of courses. One had better valet-parking rates; another had better liquor prices. She put together a detailed spreadsheet but still couldn't come up with apples-to-apples comparisons.
Surrogacy-planning is similarly confounding.
Some surrogacy agencies are attached to fertility clinics; others aren't.
Some fully pre-screen all of their surrogates; others do minimal screening until after you're "matched" (which means that you could very easily become unmatched if the surrogate doesn't meet the requisite medical, psychological, and financial standards or pass the background check).
Some agencies charge $10,000 for their services (separate from the surrogate's fee, the legal fees, the insurance premiums, and, of course, all of the medical costs); some charge twice that.
Some insist that you buy separate health insurance for the surrogate; others maintain that the surrogate's own insurance is sufficient.
Some recommend that we have the surrogate travel to New York for the transfer; others say that we should bring our frozen embryos to the surrogate.
And all of them have their own networks of preferred providers, whether it's lawyers or fertility doctors or egg-donation agencies, so we are getting referrals upon referrals.
This has turned out to be a very iterative process, with each step sending us forward and backward at the same time.
As a result, we've concluded that we need to be running two searches in parallel: one for the agency, and one for the fertility clinic.
Because having the perfect surrogate won't do us any good if we don't have the right embryologist(s) and reproductive endocrinologist(s). And vice versa.
Next up: Consultation Number Three. And Four. And Five. . . .
posted by Jody Rosen Knower at 7:42 PM
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