You’ll work with invaluable professionals throughout your surrogacy journey, one of those being a surrogacy clinic. A surrogacy clinic ensures that you and your surrogate are ready for the surrogacy medical process.
Contact a surrogacy professional today to get the surrogacy process started.
Although the surrogacy clinic will help you complete the surrogacy medical process, a surrogacy agency can help you:
- Find the right clinic to work with
- Make sure you’re prepared for the surrogacy medical process
- Support you during and after the surrogacy medical process is complete
Continue reading for a helpful surrogacy clinic Q&A.
1. What Do Surrogacy Clinics Do?
Surrogacy clinics handle all the medical steps of the surrogacy process. Your surrogacy agency wants to ensure all your needs are met during the medical process, so they outsource this part of your surrogacy to medical professionals.
2. When Do I Start Working With a Surrogacy Clinic?
It’s common for intended parents to start working with a surrogacy clinic before they work with a surrogacy agency. This is because surrogacy clinics can help determine the following:
- If you and your partner can use your gametes to create an embryo
- If you need to use donor eggs or sperm (or both) to create an embryo
3. What Services Do Surrogacy Clinics Provide?
Surrogacy clinics provide quite a few essential medical services to intended parents and surrogates. These services include:
Medical Screening
During the medical screening process, the surrogacy clinic will check you and your partner to make sure you’re able to create a healthy embryo together. You may already have worked with a fertility clinic if you’ve experienced infertility.
In addition to testing your gametes, some surrogacy clinics also will help you complete the psychological screening that’s mandatory for the surrogacy process.
Sperm and Egg Harvesting and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
Because the surrogate you work with will be a gestational surrogate (meaning they are unrelated to the baby), the surrogacy clinic will transfer the embryo to the surrogate’s body once it has formed. This process is called IVF.
During IVF, the surrogacy clinic will:
- Sync the cycles of the surrogate and the intended mother (or egg donor)
- Harvest eggs
- Use the intended father’s sperm sample (or sperm donor) to combine with the eggs
- Create the embryo
- Transfer the embryo to the surrogate
Pregnancy Testing
After the embryo transfer process, the surrogacy clinic will monitor and test the surrogate and monitor embryo’s implantation into the uterus.
Once a healthy, stable pregnancy is confirmed, the clinic will transfer the surrogate to the care of an OBGYN for the remainder of the surrogacy.
4. How Do I Find a Surrogacy Clinic to Work With?
There are a few ways you can find a good surrogacy clinic to work with.
An Already Existing Relationship
You and your partner may already be working with a surrogacy clinic because you’ve tried IVF within your partnership. If this is the case, you can continue working with this clinic.
Through Trusted Referrals
You can ask family and friends for suggestions or can ask your family doctor for advice.
Through a Surrogacy Agency
Surrogacy agencies work with outside professionals like family attorneys and surrogacy clinics to ensure their clients have the smoothest surrogacy journeys possible.
5. Should I Work With a Surrogacy Agency, too?
Yes. A surrogacy agency can provide you with many services and benefits. Some common surrogacy agency benefits include:
- A surrogacy professional: This person will help you throughout your surrogacy journey. They will provide practical and emotional support.
- Surrogacy screening assistance: Surrogacy agencies can help you schedule and support you through the medical and psychological surrogacy screening process.
- Assistance finding a surrogacy clinic and attorney: As mentioned before, surrogacy agencies often work with surrogacy clinics they trust to make sure your surrogacy process goes smoothly. Agencies also work with family attorneys who can help you create your surrogacy contract.
- Surrogacy plan building: Your surrogacy plan will outline how you want the experience to go.
- Surrogate match-making: Surrogacy agencies already work with pre-screened surrogates ready to start the surrogacy process.
Start Your Surrogacy Journey Today
Surrogacy clinics and surrogacy agencies are essential to any intended parents’ surrogacy journey. Reach out to a surrogacy professional today to get all the information you need to start the surrogacy process.
