When you wish to implement a surrogacy programme, it is important to make sure that the surrogate mother you have chosen to carry your baby is a reliable and safe person willing to do her best to give you a healthy child. The selection process is really of vital importance because the surrogate mother is the one who is responsible for your baby’s physical and mental health. Having a broad experience in the surrogacy area, we are now able to offer you a few options to consider:
1. Finding a surrogate on your own
You can find surrogate mothers among relatives, friends or acquaintances. Don’t be afraid of sharing your problems with close people because they might offer you their help and assistance. We know a lot of cases when a close friend or relative became a surrogate. It is not only the psychological aspect which is favourable when picking this option. Relatives usually do not charge for their services, and offering them a small sum of money as compensation might even hurt them. Yet this option has certain disadvantages, too.
For example, the surrogate mother often does not realize how important her role is in this process. That might entail some psychological conflicts. A surrogate who carried a baby for a friend of hers would sometimes break off contact with that friend forever because she ‘does not value her’ (by giving her gifts that are not sufficiently expensive, refusing to go on vacations together and so on) though she (the surrogate) ‘had sacrificed everything to make her life happy’.
Another disadvantage of that option is that it is not so easy to see your close friend being separated from the baby to whom she has become so attached.
And still other drawback of that option is that the surrogate would sometimes not give up the baby for the intended parents.
2. Mediators
These ones are a way worse than any friends. Dishonesty of mediators has long become the talk of the town. For example, a witty lady once offered surrogate services that would be provided by a friend of hers to four separate couples, squeezing money out of them to cover some ‘medical expenses, screenings, tests, accommodation and meals in Moscow’ of that so-called surrogate mother. She charged all the four ‘clients’ quite a nice prepayment and then disappeared.
3. The Internet
This is an efficient and modern way to find a surrogate.
‘Could become a surrogate mother for your baby. Healthy, clean, responsible, two children of my own. $8,000. Will be at your place at your request. Only need money to cover the travel expenses and tests’.
The Internet is full of similar ads. Infertile couples that cannot have babies naturally may even sometimes find a seemingly decent lady to make them happy, but in most cases they are left disappointed. Usually the candidate’s state of health leaves much to be desired. Surrogate candidates found through online sites sometimes have infectious diseases that can impede pregnancy. Some of them can’t bear children at all because of their previous illnesses. Moreover, there has been a recent raise in surrogacy frauds in the Internet. Generally, it’s the same swindler acting under different names. You can find information on surrogate swindlers and their ways to cheat credulous intended parents here. Usually they stick to the following strategies:
Poor thing. She lives in a deep provincial town, and the employer won’t pay her enough money. She hardly makes both ends meet, and of course she has no money to do the tests. She asks a potential client to make a 10,000 rubles transaction on her account to make a preliminary examination and to cover the travel expenses. If the intended parents insist on carrying out the examination in Moscow, coverage of the travel expenses will do. Afterwards, however, upon getting the money, she usually disappears, ‘falls ill’ or ‘becomes pregnant’ from her legal husband.
Mrs. Traveler. She will come to Moscow with her children as often as you want to. You pay for her accommodation, medical examination and then she goes back home to see her sick aunt without coming back. Some single women even manage to find a boyfriend while staying in the capital.
The sickly one. She will tell you she is in excellent health but she’d like to go through another medical examination in Moscow just to make sure. In fact, she knows perfectly well that she is not well, and she actually comes down to Moscow to see some doctors only, to go through a medical examination at the expensive medical centre you have chosen and to cure her chronic and venereal diseases. Upon recovery, she suddenly disappears. There was a woman suffering from leukemia who deliberately came to Moscow for several times to have different treatments for money of separate parents.
Marker. She finds out all the information about the intended parents, their passport data, finds out their plans for the forthcoming months (as if she needed to know all these things to adjust the surrogacy programme in the best way for them), sometimes she even invites herself to dinner to give them her little gifts, well, what she’s doing is actually ‘scouting’. Then she quits the game and her friends-burglars play their part here.
Hanger-on. She just likes staying in Moscow for your money. Thus, she is not really interested in achieving pregnancy and doesn’t follow the doctor’s prescriptions trying all her best to impede pregnancy. She gets money compensations for unsuccessful attempts to become pregnant or for the pregnancy interruption (that she provoked on her own) — no doubt, that’s a nice way to earn one’s living.
The Cuckoo Lady. Some ladies who are eager to achieve pregnancy on the first attempt and get all the compensations at once sometimes decide to ‘ensure the embryologists’ work’ by having an intercourse with their husbands or lovers. And sometimes it is from them that they become pregnant. So, before paying the hired surrogate mother make sure she is not going to leave a little cuckoo to your family nest.
Simulator. Soon after the transfer, when it becomes clear that pregnancy has not been achieved, the surrogate leaves quickly for her provincial town where a pregnancy test done by the local ‘healers’ surprisingly indicates that she’s pregnant. However, she can’t go back to Moscow – the ‘doctor’ prescribes that she should stay in hospital. The intended parents receive some strange documents with blurry stamps on them. However, if you pay the surrogate on a regular basis, the papers might be the authentic ones. You can even sometimes receive some results of an ultrasonic examination that detected you baby’s heartbeat. And then you learn that the pregnancy has somehow ‘resolved’ – well, just bear in mind this sometimes happens in provincial towns. And if you should like to come to see the surrogate, don’t be surprised to learn that she is not pregnant anymore. However, the worst thing that might ever happen is real delivery – when a bribed obstetrician delivers a baby from an alcohol-addicted woman saying the baby is yours.
The Shy Lady. A nice ready-for-everything young lady can carry your baby for $5,000. She is very nice-looking, always smiling and ready to do whatever you wish her to do – up until she becomes pregnant. When this point comes, her family-member accidentally dies or gets married, or her brother’s wife delivers a seventh child, or her house is burnt down to ashes and so on. Well, certainly, all these ‘calamities’ involve some more expenses – a nice accommodation in Moscow or somewhere nearby will just do. Sometimes it so happens that the surrogate knows a Prince Charming who is currently on a business trip and thus she has no place to stay in Moscow. When he left, she had nothing to do but to turn to you for some money! Oh poor thing! If you do not find such heartfelt circumstances convincing enough, she then says she has to make an abortion to start on a new surrogacy programme. By threatening you to kill the baby, she can really make you do whatever she wants to. However, you will understand that she’s been cheating you when it is too late.
Alimony squeezer. Upon delivery, she drastically changes her opinion of you and refuses to give ‘her dear child’ up for you. It is nobody but she that can take the proper care of the little baby!
Well, that wouldn’t be so bad if upon the delivery she didn’t file a suit to find the baby’s father — it’s no good bringing up a baby without a father! And the father then has to pay alimony. However, it is not only the alimony that the surrogate is after. The baby then becomes the father’s heir and if something bad happens to the father, the baby then by law inherits his property. The surrogate (now say just ‘mother’) will represent the baby in court. By the way, if something bad happens to the baby too, that’s his mother who will inherit everything.
The ways to cheat credulous intended parents mentioned above are not the only ones that swindling surrogates follow. One can avoid being cheated only by consulting a specialist.
4. Law company
There is no need to speak about the advantages of this option as they are evident enough. And that’s quite logic – what can be better than signing a contract and then getting your baby from the maternity clinic in a year? The only drawback of this option is a relatively high fee for the services provided, but you’ll lose much more if you start implementing a surrogacy programme on your own.
First of all, you should fix the price of the programme, the terms of payment and the guarantees the chosen company provides. When signing a contract, remember to study it carefully. You could also ask a specialist to have a look at it. You could inquire for how long this company has been engaged in this field, think whether the promises given by the company you’ve turned to are feasible. If that company’s employees guarantee successful pregnancy at the first attempt, charge cash for their services or refuse to cooperate with the medical centre you have chosen, try to persuade you to do something that you initially do not want to do or suggest not making a relation-test of the baby upon delivery, you’d better think carefully whether or not you’ve chosen the right company.
Just keep in mind that when trusting an unknown person with your baby’s destiny, don’t hesitate to ask as many questions as you want to. Failing to ask a simple question might turn out into a huge loss.