Matching with Intended Parents
The matching process took a little over a month or so for me. I had a little bit of a complicated situation and that made it a little trickier to find a match. I kept getting nervous that it would never happen, but one day I got an email from Joe that he had a potential match for me! I was beyond thrilled! I was really nervous to have our match meeting over zoom, but as soon as it began, I was put right at ease. The couple I was matched with and I immediately clicked and Joe did an
Medical and Psychological Clearances
The process of going through medical and psychological clearance is a long road (at least for me as one-off circumstances kept magically appearing). Medical clearance started off with a physical exam with my OB. After I received that first clearance, I then was passed to the fertility clinic of my intended parents to start the second process of medical clearance. This consisted of bloodwork, drug screens, ultrasounds, and medical records review. The bloodwork for me personally had to be repeated a lot as “abnormalities” kept appearing such as thyroid, anemia, and chicken pox. Eventually after multiple specialists got involved in
Medical and Psych Screening
The “all-day” appointment started at 8am, when my husband and I met with the same social worker we had the prescreen call with. We were with her for about 2 hours or so, as she got to know us, our backgrounds and what made us want to pursue surrogacy. After we finished with her, we went over to give a urine sample-they needed to test for drug use, then I had to get a saline sonogram where they looked more closely at my uterus’ shape, size, and other characteristics and my ovaries. From there both my husband and I got
Matching!
The more I checked off my list the faster things moved towards getting a match until finally we were creating my profile! We went over some general details: was I okay carrying for same sex couples? Was I okay with carrying multiples? Did I want to be matched with a couple who did or did not already have kids? etc. Within a few days I had a potential match!! I read through their profile and decided I wanted to go ahead with a match meeting. Once the Intended Parents did the same, we scheduled a zoom meeting with the IP’s
Becoming a Surrogate
While I’ve always been curious and fascinated by surrogacy, I never truly thought about it as something I, myself, would be able to do. It wasn’t until after I had my first daughter and I had made more friends who were in same sex relationships, that it started coming up in conversation; I would semi-jokingly offer to carry a baby for them. They would laugh and say they’d think of me first if they ever decided to try to have a baby. But those conversations are what truly planted the seed that surrogacy could be an actual possibility. Fast forward a
It’s official, I’m MATCHED!
I got the most exciting news of my journey so far on March 25th - I’m matched! The matching phase for me went pretty smoothly. I started this phase February 23rd when Joe contacted me about a family he thought would be great for me, he told me a little bit about them and asked if that was a family I’d be comfortable with and I had said yes. He then sent my profile to them. They reviewed my profile and agreed to do a match meeting. Our first meeting went great! I absolutely loved them and knew right away
CNY Fertility & NYSC Facebook Live Video
https://youtu.be/JOxoXOdqXaU
Stick Baby Stick
The moment is finally here! I will finally be doing the embryo transfer. I started this process in October and the moment is finally here. I have had appointments to check my levels twice a week since the start of my period. While at the appointments the fertility clinic checked my lining thickness and progesterone ect. Levels to make sure my body is ready to be pregnant. Also, the intended parents opted to have HCG wash the day before the procedure which I found out through some research is supposed to make you extra ‘sticky’. In a week I will
The Legal Process
Once our match was official, NYSC sent me a list of attorneys that they suggest working with (though I did have the right to choose anyone I wanted, as did the dads), as well as the Escrow Agreement, which outlined the management of compensation and reimbursement going forward. It was a huge relief to have these third parties in place for the "business" side of things, so that I could focus on forming a relationship with my IFs. I let the agency know which attorney I wanted to work with and she emailed me the very next day! We set
