This is the latest in a series of informational posts I’ve been doing on the gestational surrogacy process. This is for those of you who might be where I was about 5 years ago, weighing the options you have for becoming a parent… or for those who are merely curious about the process. This time, I’m sharing my advice on what questions you need to ask your surrogate before deciding if you’re a good match.
To the rest of you, I apologize. More peepee poopoo jokes next time, I promise.
Meeting with a potential surrogate is like the most awkward first date imaginable. You’re face-to-face with a woman you barely know, and both of you spend most of the time talking about making a baby together. Talk about rushing things.
There are probably a million things you want — and need — to know. I’ve seen some websites that suggest you approach your surrogate with a massive checklist of questions, many of which are not exactly subtle, like:
“Do you smoke?”
“Are you sexually active?”
“What were the results of your last pap smear?”
Sure, those are great things to ask… if you want the surrogate to throw a drink in your face and slap an instant “No Vacancy” sign on her womb.
Remember, this isn’t a job interview. She can reject you, too, and if you treat her like an employee or a menial laborer, she probably should.
Don’t worry, if there are any red flags, they’ll turn up in her medical and psychological exams, and you’ll be made aware of them by a professional, neutral third party.
When you sit down face-to-face with a potential gestational carrier, try to empathize with what she’s going through. After a huge amount of deliberation and soul searching, she’s decided to do something incredibly generous, terrifically inconvenient, and more than a tiny bit risky, for a virtual stranger. She’s nervous to meet that stranger, but also a bit thrilled.
Then you come in and ask about her pap smears.
So what should you discuss in your first meeting? First and foremost, it’s time to take the mystery out of your relationship and just get to know each other. If things go well, you’ll be creating a life together.
That being said, it’s not exactly a first date. You need to check your compatibility on some pretty weighty matters.
If you’re working with an agency, much of this subject matter will be covered by them, but if not, these are the questions you need to ask, in increasing order of unpleasantness.
1. What made you want to be a surrogate?
No one’s going to reply, “I need the money,” and if they do, you should probably run away as fast as you can. Sure, the money is a nice perk, but with all a surrogate goes through, she’s going to earn that cash, and it is a limited sum. No one’s getting rich as a gestational surrogate, so it’s a safe bet she has bigger motives.
Our surrogate heard a report about gestational surrogacy on the radio when she was 19, and it made her cry. She turned to her mother and said, “Someday, I’m going to do that for someone.” Once she’d completed her own family, she googled surrogacy agencies, and that’s how she was eventually paired with us. It was such a sweet story, and it told us so much about who she was as a person.
Raising this basic topic is a great way to get to know your surrogate and to show her that you appreciate the sacrifice she’d be making on your behalf.
2. What were your other pregnancies like?
Again, the medical exam will clue you in to any relevant technical info, so try to keep this as light as possible. How bad did her babies kick? Did she get morning sickness? You may not know very much about the surrogate at this point, but you know she’s been pregnant before (at least in most cases, since most gestational carriers have a proven history of successful pregnancies).
You, on the other hand, in all likelihood have never been and never will be pregnant. Show some curiosity and empathy by asking her to describe exactly what she’d be going through for your benefit. This is also a great way to show you appreciate the sacrifice she’ll be making on your behalf.
And if you find out pregnancy makes her crave pickles and ice cream, file that away. Someday, when she’s carrying your child, you’ll know just what to put in her care package.
3. How do your friends and family feel about you being a surrogate?
Surrogacy is physically and emotionally demanding, and no one can do it alone. Make sure she has a good support system, people who care about her who appreciate what an amazing thing she’s doing. If she’s religious, it’s very helpful if her spiritual leader is on her side as well.
This is especially important for gay intended parents. If your surrogate has a homophobic husband or goes to a gay-unfriendly church, you’re not off to a good start. Someday soon, she might find herself at the Wal-Mart in her tiny town when a woman comes up, points at her belly and says, “Aww, lucky you!” She’ll have to reply, “Oh, he’s not mine. I’m having this baby for George and Steven.” Is she ready for whatever may come next?
Let her know what kind of homophobia you’ve faced and how you’ve persevered. It can be very difficult for a (most likely) straight woman to willingly expose herself to homophobia, but that’s what she’ll be doing by having a baby for a gay couple.
One surrogate my partner and I met with had previously carried a baby for a gay couple, and she hadn’t encountered any resistance, so we knew she’d be fine this time around as well.
4. Are you comfortable with me/us being in doctor’s appointments and the delivery room?
Sorry, guys, when you came out of the closet, you probably thought you were exempt from discussing (and possibly seeing) ladyparts. Not any more. Obviously, let the surrogate know that you’ll respect her privacy as much as possible. But one of the main benefits of having a baby with a surrogate is being able to participate in all the exciting prenatal moments, like finding out the baby’s sex or seeing him or her for the first time on a sonogram monitor.
Most surrogates will fully anticipate and welcome your participation in the process, but raising the issue in a polite and respectful manner will set the right tone for when those intimate moments inevitably arise.
5. What kind of communication would you like to maintain after the birth?
There’s no correct answer to this. Some surrogates and intended parents want to stay in close touch. Others might want to be your Facebook friend so they can see pictures of your kids growing up. Still others may be content merely to get a holiday card every December. As long as both parties are on the same page, anything can work.
My advice is to offer up a safe but minimal amount of contact. If you and your surrogate hit it off (as we did with ours), you can always have more contact than you planned.
It’s important to reiterate that your surrogate will have no legal rights to your child. Once your baby is born, you are well within your rights to cut off all contact with the surrogate and never see her again. I’d imagine that kind of clean break only really happens in extreme circumstances. Most people and their surrogates form a bond through the process and want to stay in touch afterward.
Once your child is old enough to understand how he or she came into the world, they’ll likely be curious about who their surrogate was, so it helps if you’ve kept up the relationship.
6. How many fetuses are you willing to carry?
My partner and I were very lucky to have twins with our surrogate, but it made the pregnancy considerably harder on her. She was confined to bed rest for most of the third trimester and there were a few scares where we thought she might be miscarrying one or both of the fetuses, which meant some late-night trips to the emergency room.
Thankfully, everything worked out okay for us, but the more fetuses involved in your pregnancy, the higher the risks. A woman carrying triplets is almost always put on bed rest. It’s not surprising then that many surrogates limit the number of babies they’re willing to carry to one or two.
If you were hoping for octuplets, in other words, you’re out of luck.
7. Would you be willing to undergo a selective reduction?
Here’s where the questions start to get really dicey.
Even if your surrogate only wants to carry one baby and you only want to have one kid, you may still want to transfer multiple embryos to increase the odds that one of them attaches.
So what happens if your surrogate becomes pregnant with two or three embryos? In that case, she may undergo a selective reduction, where excess embryos are removed from her uterus at a very early stage, leaving only the number of babies you’re willing to have.
We interviewed a surrogate who had undergone this procedure with a previous pregnancy and, for various reasons, didn’t want to go through it again. She was asking that we not transfer more than two embryos, so she could be mostly assured she wouldn’t have to carry more than twins.
Some IPs plan to transfer as many embryos as they can, then reduce down to just one or two if too many of them take. That’s fine if the surrogate agrees to it, but not everyone will be comfortable with that.
This is obviously a very tricky ethical situation, so for everyone’s benefit, it’s important to make sure you’re on the same page.
8. If we were to decide, due to complications with the fetus, to terminate the pregnancy, would you be willing to do so?
You and the surrogate are both entering into this agreement with the same goal: to make a baby. Neither of you wants to think about terminating a pregnancy, because that goes against the very reason you’ve come together.
However, everyone knows that things do sometimes go wrong, and the baby will be yours, not hers, so if there are complications and you become concerned with what your child’s quality of life would be, it should be your call to make.
There are people — surrogates and intended parents alike — who would never terminate a pregnancy under any circumstances. That’s fine, of course, but if you feel that way, it’s good to have a surrogate who would defer to your judgment in the case that your feelings change.
Again, no one wants to think about the worst case scenario. You both want a healthy baby. So bring this up now, and then forget about it. Hopefully, it won’t end up being an issue.
9. What concerns do you have about us or this process?
You never know what your surrogate may be thinking or how you may come across to her. She might have a special request that’s very important to her or a fear she’s working to get over.
Our surrogate had two requests: One, she wanted an epidural, because she went without one when her son was born and didn’t want to do that again. And two, she wanted to make sure that she wouldn’t be handed the baby in the delivery room. When doctors first handed her her son, that’s when she bonded with him. To make sure to establish the right boundaries, she didn’t want to see the baby until later on, when she was in the recovery room.
Let her know that her concerns are important to you, and in case she does have a vastly different idea of how the birth should go, it’s better to find out now rather than a trimester or two into the pregnancy.
Hopefully, you’ll find plenty of common ground with your surrogate on these topics, because once you’ve discussed them and agreed about the important things, you’ve earned the right to never discuss them again. In all likelihood, you won’t have to, and now that you’ve gotten past the tough stuff, you can talk about things that don’t really matter: what her favorite sports teams or TV shows are, what kind of sense of humor she has and what she thinks of the baby names you’ve picked out.
Then, finally, you’ll know for sure if you’ve found “The One.”
jerry-mahoney.com 
This is such an interesting post. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. As a parent, I completely understand the need to have your baby be legally your own, with all the ramifications, even before it is born. I wouldn’t want to depend on anyone’s good will more than I absolutely have to, where the life and welfare of my kids are concerned.
At the same time, as a women who has been pregnant and given birth twice, the thought of losing autonomy and control over my own body, choices and, possibly, emotional wellbeing to such an extent is, simply put, incredibly frightening.
I have the highest respect for everyone who decides to go through with surrogacy. It must be such an emotionally and psychologically complex and challenging situation. I can only imagine the amount of strength and self-reflection it must take, and on both sides.
Thanks for the comment. I totally understand and respect your perspective on surrogacy. I would never suggest that it’s for everyone. If my own daughter wants to be a surrogate someday, I will be very proud of her. If she feels like you do and decides it’s not for her, I will be just as proud.
Surrogates are very special people. I know ours was. I’m so grateful to have her be a part of our lives, and I think she’s a wonderful role model for our kids. I’m guessing the large majority of women we know would not be good surrogate candidates, and I love them, too.
Funny coincidence, I was just thinking the very same thing in regards of my own daughters. (Surrogacy is not legal where we live, now. But it might well be by the time they’re adults.)
For someone to go through with Surrogacy is an incredible task. I believe too that it is physically and emotionally difficult to go through that type of situation. It could also be difficult for the child when he/she grows up later in life, knowing the process that happened. I am not against surrogacy, but I would not do that with my child if that opportunity presents itself to me.
Thank you so much for this post. We will be going down the surrogacy path in 2-3 years (need to get house, savings, etc squared off first!) and it can’t happen fast enough 🙂 Our situation is a little different – surrogacy has only just become legal where we live and the costs are astronomical, plus it is illegal to pay the surrogate, so we will need to go overseas. We won’t have the benefit of ongoing contact throughout the pregnancy but this set of questions will definitely come in handy!
Glad you enjoyed the post. Best of luck with the surrogacy process. It is definitely long, expensive and exhausting, but when things work out, the payoff can’t be beat. 🙂
Thanks Jerry – we’re also certain that the road to parenthood, no matter how steep or rocky, will be more than worth it… I’m just impatient to get started! Wishing you and your family a wonderful festive season and new year xo
I am glad that you decided to do this post. I remember being a part of a discussion while still at university (a long time ago) when a friend was deciding to become a surrogate for her brother. The situation is not the same but the concept is and I remember thinking that I could never be a surrogate, I was terrified that at the end I would not be able to hand the baby over to its parents and I would feel an undeniable loss. Now, years later I am a settled mother of two with a changed perspective. I don’t think that I would have the same outlook if I didn’t already have children. My best friend is struggling with motherhood, if asked I would be a surrogate for her in a heart beat. It would be a privilege for me to help her and her husband or any couple gay or straight to become a family. My children are a gift as all children are and to be able to hand them their child at the end of 9 months would be an incredible thing. Thank you for the post.
Thanks so much for this comment, Pam. It feels so good to know that this post is reaching people who are genuinely interested in this subject.
Look, I’m hardly one to push a person I don’t know toward a major life decision, and like I said, surrogacy isn’t for everyone, BUT let me just say that I suspect it would be very difficult for your friend to approach you about being her surrogate, if that’s even crossed her mind. If you’re serious, you might think about approaching her and raising the subject yourself. Again, I don’t know you or your friend or exactly how close your relationship is, so maybe that wouldn’t make sense. Just wanted to throw it out there. Whatever the case, you clearly have a good heart and are a wonderful friend for even thinking about it.
Hi Pam. I just read your comment made in 2012 and it made me wonder if you had been approached by your best friend or any other parents (gay or straight) who would like you as a surrogate? Here in Victoria, Australia it’s illegal to advertise a Surrogate which makes it difficult to find a person willing to assist a struggling couple (such as us). After reading your comment though, it reminds me that there is always hope in this world that we may find someone who is caring of others most important life needs/wants when starting a family 😊😊
Hi Brendan,
I did in fact have a rather awkward conversation with my friend about being her surrogate. Its funny we have been friends since we were kids and I am a pretty open person especially with my friends so I had envisioned the conversation a lot differently. However, this is a very personal discussion and I probably should have known better. She and her husband were very touched at my offer and even though we have not pursued that avenue of parenthood with them the offer is still there for them. They were both adopted into incredibly loving homes and are pursuing that avenue first. There are so many children in need of love and great parents that they have decided to become a family by opening their hearts to a child that way.
Except for that conversation with them I have not been approached or approached any agencies seeking to offer being a surrogate to anyone else. Its not that I am opposed to the idea of an agency or have changed my mind about surrogacy I simply have just not moved forward on it. I still believe being a surrogate and helping a couple become a family would be the most amazing and probably the hardest thing I could do.
Don’t give up hope. Its easy for me to say that because I am on the other side of the equation and from having this conversation with my friends I do understand some of the frustrations that you may be feeling. Its a hard conversation to start with close personal friends and I imagine it must feel almost impossible to start with strangers and then not know how to even approach or start the conversation in the first place if you can’t even advertise for a surrogate. Being a parent is the best, most wonderful, hardest, sometimes the worst job in the world. One minute you feel like a super hero and then the next you feel like the bottom of the barrel. For me its the greatest, worst thing I have ever done. I hope you get to experience that too! My best wishes to you in becoming a family. I strongly believe that there are people out there who would be happy to help you reach your goal, I just wish I knew of a way to help you find them.
I was fortunate enough to spend 6 months backpacking in your beautiful country a long while back and I met some of the most amazing people there. I hope to one day bring my children back there so they can experience some of what I did.
I wish you all the best of luck!
Thank you for the advice Jerry. I appreciate your thoughts and will definitely take them to heart. We have been friends since we were kids and I think you are right no matter how close you are to someone this subject would be hard to bring up. Both she and her husband were adopted and may very well go that route as well but I would like to be able to help her if surrogacy is an option they would like to look at. We live very far apart now, Northern New England and Florida so the distance and timing would be difficult. Again, I am so glad you have chosen to write about this topic and thank you for sharing your thoughts they have been insightful.
A friend of mine has four children. When she still had three, a family friend of hers was trying to get pregnant, to no avail. My friend offered to be the surrogate, with the full emotional support of the intended parents, and her own husband and her daughters, who were young teenagers at the time. She said it was such a wonderful experience, she and her husband decided to have a fourth child, and had a little boy. She doesn’t regret a thing; if anything, it made her family closer and her marriage with her husband stronger for being a surrogate
I enjoy your posts and think you’re a hell of great parent. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the great reads. I nominated you for the “very inspiring blogger award”: http://multifariousmeanderings.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/very-inspiring-blogger-award/
I think any woman who manages to be a surrogate is incredibly brave. I was going through your questions, and frankly I don’t think I could ever do it. I would have too many feelings about everything, and what it boils down to, is it’s not my child.
On the flip side, I don’t think I could have someone be a surrogate for me either. I think if I had difficulty conceiving or maintaining a pregnancy, it would just be too painful to watch someone else carry my baby.
3single.com is a great site. It also has live chat so you chat to other people online. Good luck.
whoah this blog is magnificent i like studying your posts.
Keep up the good work! You already know, many persons are hunting round for this info, you can aid them greatly.
Whhat i do not realize is actually how you are not actually much more smartly-liked than yoou may be now.
You’re vety intelligent. You already know therefore significantly with regards to this matter, produced me personally consider it frlm a lot of varied
angles. Its like men annd women aren’t involved except it’s one thing to do with Girl gaga!
Your personal stuffs excellent. At all times take care of
iit up!
My husband and I are considering going down the surrogacy route after finding out I cant conceive naturally. We have chatted about this long and hard as well as the option to adopt or IVF. I just wonder if there are any women who are going to raising or are, bring up their husbands child from a surrogacy situation ( where their eggs aren’t used) Yes you do really want a child desperately (as I am) but how does it feel to be sharing the child with another woman?
Wendy,
I can’t say from personal experience but I am discussing possibly becoming a surrogate for a lovely couple near me who would be using the IF’s sperm and donor eggs. I imagine it wouldn’t be near as difficult with me being a gestational carrier as it would be if I were, say, a traditional surrogate.
Yes, I have feared that some unexpected emotions may pop up after pregnancy is acheived. Will she find herself upset that I’m carrying her husband’s child, and this child has no genetic link to her? I think this is why it’s important that I’m not a traditional surrogate. I think she’s thought long and hard about how her feelings would be towards the pregnancy.. and they already have frozen embies waiting.. I’m sure she wouldn’t have gone through this much of the process if she wasn’t OK with it.
And you wouldn’t be sharing a child with another woman. That child will be YOURS.. yours and your husbands. YOUR name will go on the birth certificate. YOU will be mom. The surrogate will not be giving the baby AWAY to you, but rather she will be giving the baby BACK to you. 🙂
I had a friend who was a gestational surrogate 2 years ago. The couple had asked if they could see her nude prior to her being the surrogate and signing the contract. They wanted to see how compatible she was with the bio mother (they already wanted certain eye,hair color height, weight. I wonder how common this is