1. Compare Agencies and Join the One That Fits You Best

Surrogacy is a life changing opportunity, and as such it deserves consideration and time to ensure you are confident with the decision you make on which agency you want to share this experience with.
We recommend that when you are comparing agencies you focus on four criteria:

1) The guarantees offered to you as Intended Parents.
2) The supports that are available to Surrogates.
3) The level of professionalism.
4) How well the agency values match up with your own values.

2. Request a Consultation

When you are done comparing agencies you may find you would like to get in touch with us, this can be done through phone, email and mail; A member of our team will contact you to address any questions you may have and go over some of the basic details of our program with you. If you choose to begin your journey with Gestacy we will schedule you an appointment with our Director so we can help you decide if Gestacy is the best option to help you build a family.

3. Join Gestacy

After your consultation, hopefully you decided to join us. (Thanks a lot if that’s the case!) You will be asked to complete a form in order for us to get to know more about you and what you need and expect from your surrogacy journey. This information will help us understand why you have chosen surrogacy and help us to match your preferences with potential surrogates.

4. Plan Your Journey and Choose Your Attorney and Clinic

Once you have decided to join, we will begin planning your journey with you. We will look at several factors in choosing both your best partners your Surrogate: Financials, timing and guarantees. Setting the road map of your surrogacy journey will take some time, but it is important that we take the time to choose the perfect partners and that you are aware of both the risks with surrogacy and the guarantees that Gestacy has to offer you. We are happy to work with any clinic or attorney that you prefer, or we can refer you to one of trusted partners.

5. Retain Gestacy and Begin Searching for a Surrogate

Once we have a clear plan, it will be time to formalize our role in your surrogacy journey. We provide a clear and concise contract which states what we will do for you and our distinctive guarantees:

1. Refund Guarantee: if no match is produced within 4 months.
2. Rematch Guarantee: there is no additional cost should a new surrogate be needed through the process .
3. New Baby Guarantee: until you are able to hold your new baby.

6. First Steps with Your IVF Clinic

At this stage we plan out your clinical procedures, this will vary depending on your personal and journey characteristics. Most families decide to begin the IVF process to develop their embryos in parallel with the surrogate matching process, others may already have their embryos ready for transfer, while others may need to ship their embryos to the clinic chosen for embryo transfer. Regardless of choice or circumstances we will help arranges all these steps with you new IVF clinic to ensure that things transition seamless for you.

7. Choosing Your Egg / Sperm / Embryo Donors (Only if needed)

If needed, Gestacy is here to assist you in choosing your donors. We work closely with several egg, sperm and embryo donation agencies, but we are always happy to work with a clinic’s in-house donors, if that is preferred.

8. IVF

If you don’t have your embryos ready from previous cycles, Gestacy will assist you through the entire IVF process, to ensure your embryos are ready when your surrogate is ready for transfer. If you are using your own eggs, we will be happy to assist you in coordinating your stimulation (which in most cases can take place locally). Once the IVF process is completed you will have a clearer picture of how many viable embryos you have ready for transfer. If the matching process is not completed by this time this is often helpful in speeding up the process.

9. Choose Your Surrogate

Once you have formally joined Gestacy, we not only will be working with you to prepare your embryo(s), we will also be active in finding the perfect surrogate for you. This usually is not a long process (between a few days and a few weeks), but can take longer depending on what you are looking for in a surrogate and your personal traits. At Gestacy it’s the surrogate who makes the first choice, and you can then decide whether to accept them as your surrogate, this is to ensure the surrogates comfort level throughout the journey.
We will show you various profiles of potential surrogates that have chosen you; Once you have chosen the surrogate you wish to use, we will arrange a Skype call so that you can meet her (unless you prefer to meet her in person, which is not common but is 100% acceptable). A member of the team will be on the Skype call with you, to ensure a pleasant and smooth flow of conversation. (And translate if needed) We want everybody to feel comfortable!
After the meeting, you will have a better idea if she is the woman you want helping you to build your family. If you are still unsure, we are there to help you make the final decision and answer any further questions you may have.

10. Celebrate the matching and begin communicating with your surrogate

Once you have matched we encourage you to communicate freely with your surrogate. Every surrogate and family will have their own preferences regarding how much contact they want to have, or if they prefer to let the relationship take its own course. We will assist you in these first steps of communication in order to make sure that everyone feels comfortable.

11. Medical and Psychological Screening

Part of every surrogacy journey is both you and your surrogate will go through a complete screening to make sure the surrogacy journey is safe for you and the future baby. Before a surrogate is accepted by Gestacy, we will have reviewed her medical records and reproductive history. The medical screening done after the matching is simply an exam to confirm that the surrogate will be ready for the embryo transfer at the perfect moment.

12. Insurance Review

Because of the complexity of surrogacy, a safe journey requires proper medical insurance. We will go over and explain the surrogate’s insurance situation with you before matching. After you are matched, an insurance specialist will review her situation in great detail so we can be sure that you won’t have any unexpected and unnecessary medical costs.

13. Contracts

The contract stage is delicate and should be navigated carefully. Both you and your surrogate will have different legal advisors and we will seek to make sure no misunderstandings occur during this stage. Several topics that will have been discussed during the matching process will now be formalized: compensation, insurance, values regarding invasive procedures, etc.

14. Medical Treatments

Once all the paperwork is complete the doctor will put the surrogate on fertility medication, to attempt to ensure a successful pregnancy with the first embryo transfer. Our team, as well as the clinic’s team will support you through the medical treatment process, so that both your surrogate and you feel safe and supported.

15. Embryo Transfer and Pregnancy Test

The surrogate is ready, the clinic is ready and so are you. This is when the great day takes place. We will support you and make sure the embryo transfer takes place during the best possible conditions. Once transferred, you will have to wait between 10 and 15 days to confirm pregnancy. Everyone at Gestacy will be keeping our fingers crossed with you!

16. Medical Follow-Up

During the first trimester the pregnancy will be monitored by an IVF clinic that is local to the surrogate, after which the surrogate will be seen by a local OB of her choosing.
We will help to arrange all medical appointments, and our team will be there to help inform you and assist you in any medical concerns and decisions that may arise.

17. Emotional and Material Support Through Pregnancy

Both you and the surrogate will be supported by our team throughout the entire pregnancy. We will be with you to listen, guide and inform you during your pregnancy as we understand that pregnancy can be and emotional and long process for both surrogate and parents.
All our benefit packages include housekeeping for the third trimester to help keep the pregnancy safe, pleasant and healthy.

18. Parental Court Order

Most of the jurisdictions we operate in provide pre-birth orders, which are filed and accepted around 24 weeks of pregnancy. This court order gives full custody of the child to you, the Intended Parents. You will be legally recognized as the parents before the baby is even born.

19. Delivery Arrangement

When delivery is approaching, we will begin ironing out all the details to make sure that both your baby and the surrogate are 100% protected and the delivery takes place in a safe and desirable manner. We do our best to accommodate you and your surrogate´s needs through the delivery process: whether they include a standard delivery in the hospital of alternative options such as home or water delivery. We will also make sure to have emergency plans in place for preterm or high-risk deliveries.

20. Delivery

During the contract and matching stages you and the surrogate will decide whether you as the Intended Parents will be present in the delivery room or if she will make the final decision regarding this closer to her delivery date. You will have all of the medical assistance needed to make this a safe moment. From the moment the baby is born, all medical decisions will be your sole responsibility.

21. Child Registration as U.S and International Citizen (If applicable)

Immediately after delivery, we will work in coordination with your attorney to make sure the baby is registered. Every baby born in the U.S. is granted the U.S. nationality, and we will assist you in getting a U.S. passport, birth certificate and Social Security number. We will also coordinate with your local attorney to assist you in registering your baby at your country´s embassy if you are not a U.S. national.

22. Back Home

Gestacy will help you arrange your trip home, which may include communicating with the airlines to make sure your baby has a perfect space in the plane, changing flight dates, etc. We will also make sure you have all documents in place for a safe and legal trip back home.

23. Bills and Compensation Review

Once the surrogate’s post delivery bed rest is over, all the compensation has been provided and all reimbursements are completed, we will do an audit for all the financials of the process, so you can close the financial chapter of your journey. It is important to understand that recovering all the pending bills you may have in the U.S. may take a few months, because we audit all medical bills and some bills can take months to arrive.

24. Follow-Up

We will be there for you as long as you wish. We will follow up with you from time to time if your comfortable with that. You may also wish to continue participating in our growing support community. We will be happy to help you whenever you need and in any way that we can!