Deciding to begin the surrogacy process is exciting. After all, you’ve likely spent months, even years, dreaming about starting your family. For the first time, it finally feels like it’s within reach. So what do you do now? When a couple decides to select a surrogate mother for their child, there are always a lot of questions about how to develop a successful relationship with your surrogate.
Surrogacy — or third-party reproduction — involves intended parents selecting another woman to undergo IVF to become pregnant with their child. This woman will carry the baby to term and then deliver it. This is a beautiful, but intensely personal process. Because of this, a relationship between a surrogate and intended parents can often lead to a life-long friendship. However, this also means that emotions are flying high and, even with the best of intentions, developing a successful relationship with a surrogate can be delicate.
How Can You Establish and Maintain a Successful Relationship With Your Surrogate Mother?
The most obvious answer is to treat each other with care and respect throughout the process. For more specifics, though, here is a closer look at what you can do during each phase.
The Matching Process
As intended parents, surrogacy will first involve an extensive screening and matching process. It will include a lot of paperwork and a lot of time spent selecting the surrogate who will be a good match for your family. During this time, you’ll likely speak with several potential surrogates, and you’ll both be making decisions about whether or not to choose the other.
This process can feel a bit like choosing teams for dodge ball, bringing up a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. However, it is possible to navigate the process with grace. These tips can help.
1. Be Honest
If you want your surrogate to be transparent with you during the matching process, then it’s important for you to do the same. Don’t be afraid to speak up and ask the questions that are on your mind. Don’t avoid answering your prospective surrogate’s questions, either — avoiding questions or remaining intentionally vague because you aren’t sure if she will like your answers is a bad habit to get into when you’ve got almost a year of communication laying ahead of you. At this point, your goal is to begin to establish a good relationship with the surrogate mother who will carry your child.
2. Avoid Pressuring Your Surrogate
Yes, honesty is the best policy, but there’s a difference between being honest and over-sharing. Avoid telling your surrogate that she is “your last hope” or “your only hope.” Even if this is the case, she doesn’t need to feel like she will be letting you down if she decides your family is not the best fit for her. Just as you had the freedom of selection, so does she.
If the surrogate you selected decides to work with another family instead, it’s also important to refrain from responding to her decision with unkind words. Please know that she did not make her decision lightly and, in most cases, her decision has nothing to do with you personally. Just as you need to choose a surrogate who will fit well with your family and lifestyle, she must choose intended parents she feels the same about. Thank her for her consideration and resolve to try again.
3. Have Realistic Expectations
We always encourage our potential parents to remain optimistic about the outcome of their choice to pursue surrogacy. However, finding the right surrogate may take time. Even when you do find her, it may take some time for the process to move forward or for her to conceive. There may even be complications during pregnancy. Stay hopeful, but don’t become too emotionally invested in your surrogate and the process that you become frustrated and angry at your surrogate if things move slowly or don’t work out exactly the way you planned.
When you find a surrogate and she agrees to carry your child, it’s important to remember that she isn’t agreeing to be at your beck and call over the next nine months. Before she even becomes pregnant, establish healthy boundaries for communication and involvement between you and your surrogate. You may not be able to anticipate every single issue that will arise during the surrogacy journey, but by recognizing and verbalizing your own expectations, you can smooth out the process and put your surrogate at ease.
Your fertility team can — and should — aid in establishing boundaries and incorporating them into your legal agreement with your surrogate. It may seem uncomfortable to include wording in a contract about your presence in the delivery room, but establishing that expectation now is better than getting to delivery day and discovering that your surrogate has completely different expectations.
Above all else, remember that your surrogate is a human being. She is committing to being pregnant for the next nine months but also has a life and family of her own, that she needs to attend to. She will be on medication, tired and she may even encounter intense morning sickness. Make sure your expectations are respectful of her and what she is about to go through. It may be difficult to agree to only talk to her once a week, but by doing so, you are allowing her to rest and relax at a time when she needs it the most.
Surrogate Relationship During Pregnancy
Once your surrogate becomes pregnant, your excitement will grow — this is completely normal and healthy! At this point, you should have established boundaries with your surrogate and expectations about the pregnancy, but many potential parents find it difficult when they realize that they have very little control over their surrogate and her pregnancy. Contrary to what Hollywood might have you think, you can’t be there to hover over her to encourage her to make wise food choices or take her vitamins or get enough rest.
How can you support your surrogate without being overbearing? And how can you stay involved and enjoy this pregnancy, too?
1. Put Yourself in Her Shoes
Stop and think about what your surrogate is experiencing. She is pregnant, which means morning sickness, late-night cravings, fatigue and weight gain. She may be a working professional or a stay-at-home mom spending her day caring for her other children. She may have help or, in some cases, may be flying solo. Whatever her specific situation, take some time to think about what she’s facing and the challenges that she is overcoming on a daily basis. Yes, she agreed to do this. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve understanding and compassion from you. Use that compassion to dictate your interactions with her throughout the pregnancy.
2. Be Honest About Your Expectations
Many of these expectations were established from the beginning of your surrogacy agreement, but there’s no way to anticipate everything that’s going to come up during pregnancy. That’s why it’s a good idea to take regular stock of everyone’s feelings and expectations. This isn’t our way of saying that you can say and do whatever you want. But if there’s something you want — such as to feel the baby kick or attend an upcoming doctor’s appointment — it’s okay to voice that desire.
3. Be Respectful of the Feelings of Everyone Involved
There’s no better time to invoke the Golden Rule than during the surrogacy process. Treat others the way you’d want to be treated. Imagine how you’d feel if you were in your surrogate’s shoes. How would you want people to approach you? How would you expect them to talk to you? What boundaries would you want in place? Once you’ve imagined those things, then take them into account whenever you are interacting with your surrogate. When you’re tempted to text her for the third time that day or ask if she’s getting enough exercise, stop and ask yourself how you’d feel if someone was approaching with that behavior. Then proceed — or refrain — accordingly.
4. Trust the Surrogate to Take Care of Your Baby
We get it. It can be really hard to know that someone else is carrying your baby, and there’s not a thing you can do to protect them. Sometimes intended parents struggle with the lack of control that they feel during the pregnancy. It’s tempting to bug your surrogate with questions about her diet, the amount of rest she’s getting and whether a weekend trip to her aunt’s farm is safe for the baby. As tempting as it is, refrain from those kinds of conversations. Trust your surrogate to consider your baby’s health and well-being on a daily basis. After all, she knew that was her job when she agreed to do it.
One thing that can be helpful to remember is that a previous pregnancy is a requirement for any woman to become a surrogate. So, your surrogate has already had at least one successful pregnancy. She knows how to take care of herself — and the baby. She knows what red flags to look out for. And she knows what behaviors to avoid. Trust her to apply the same knowledge and common sense she used with her own children to this pregnancy, too.
5. Establish Reasonable Expectations for Communication
If you’re open to it, a relationship with your surrogate can make the process smoother for everyone. We love to see our intended parents bond with their surrogate, experiencing each pregnancy milestone with shared joy and anticipation. However, even the best of friends need to apply common sense when it comes to communication. As an intended parent, you are entitled to some communication from your surrogate. But you need to have an open an honest conversation early on about what that looks like. Do you expect to be updated weekly? Do you expect communication only after doctor’s appointments? Do you want to be included in those doctor’s appointments?
On the flip side, just because your surrogate chooses to work with you — and even enjoys talking with you — doesn’t mean she wants to field your phone calls or text messages four times a day. She is still living her own life, working her own job and, in many cases, raising her own family. She is not expected to make herself available to you any time of the day or night.
Ideally, expectations about communication should be established as part of your legal agreement before your surrogate ever becomes pregnant. However, these will shift throughout the pregnancy, so it’s a good idea to remain vigilant and aware of the times you may become anxious or be tempted to be a nuisance. If you feel like those guidelines need to change, consult with your fertility team and let them help you determine whether an adjustment needs to be made.
6. Establish a Birth Plan
Don’t wait until the last minute to make a birth plan. Many expectant parents want to be in the delivery room — or at least down the hall during the delivery — but you need to communicate with your surrogate to find out what she wants. This is important whether you live across town from your surrogate or across the country so that you can make arrangements to be present. This is also a good time to talk about whether or not your surrogate will be open to pumping breast milk to aid in feeding the baby after birth, as well as reiterate any expectations for contact post-partum.
Surrogate Relationship After Delivery
Long before your baby comes into the world, it’s important to talk with your surrogate about the role she will — or will not — play in your family once your child is born. For couples who are working with a family friend or relative as their surrogate, it’s reasonable to expect that their surrogate will continue to be involved in their child’s life. But for couples who are working with a surrogate who wasn’t connected to their family prior to the pregnancy, it can be difficult to know what kind of relationship they’ll have after the delivery.
How do you navigate the post-partum relationship with a surrogate?
1. Talk in Advance
There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, but we always recommend talking about this long before the baby is born. Both sides will have wishes and expectations for how this relationship will look, and sometimes, those expectations may not initially match. If the two visions are not in line with each other, discuss a reasonable compromise. Once you’ve reached one, work with your fertility team to put everything in writing. It may be uncomfortable to do this, especially if you anticipate ongoing communication with your surrogate and now consider her a good friend, but it’s still important to make sure everyone is honest with each other and establishes clear boundaries from the beginning.
Whatever you decide, make sure you are committed to respecting the agreement you and your surrogate establish. In some cases, surrogates welcome contact with their families over the years — in the form of emails, photos or even a visit — but this isn’t always the case. Respect her wishes and the agreement you’ve made.
2. Remember That She Just Had a Baby
Just because a surrogate isn’t going home from the hospital with a baby doesn’t mean she isn’t experiencing all of the same post-pregnancy issues every woman faces. She will be tired and sore. She may experience post-partum depression. Allow her the space to recover from pregnancy and birth. Respect her need for distance if she asks for it. Even a surrogate who wants some involvement with your family after delivery may need some time to recover before she sees photos or hears from you. Honor her wishes and put her health and personal needs above your desire to connect.
Surrogacy and Western Fertility Institute
At Western Fertility Institute, we carry an 86 percent surrogacy success rate. What does that mean? It means our team of doctors is really good at what they do — but it is more than a medical procedure. Successful surrogacy involves compassion and care of intended parents and potential surrogates alike. We are proud to provide our patients with an experienced team of medical professionals, as well as counselors and advisors who will walk with you through every step of the process. If you are considering surrogacy to start your family, contact us today.
Sources
https://www.westernfertility.com/third-party-reproduction/
https://www.westernfertility.com/contact-us/
https://mom.me/baby/35277-what-postpartum-experience-really-surrogate/
https://www.mysurrogatemom.com/intended-parents/
https://surrogate.com/surrogates/how-to-find-intended-parents/building-a-healthy-relationship/