Surrogacy in general

Due to unfavorable environmental conditions, as a result – problems with health, end of reproductive age or congenital diseases more and more people all over the world face with a problem of infertility. Some years before, it was really a complex challenge for fruitless couples. But medicine and science rapidly develop. And as for today there are a number of effective methods to solve the problem of infertility. Clinic of reproductive medicine BioTexCom offers the most radical methods of reproductive medicine to fight against infertility diagnosis, in particular, use of donor eggs, in vitro fertilization (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), embryo freezing and a surrogate motherhood.

Further we will speak in details about surrogate motherhood. Surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person. The surrogate may be the child’s genetic mother (called traditional surrogacy), or she may be genetically unrelated to the child (called gestational surrogacy). In a traditional surrogacy, the child may be conceived via home artificial insemination using fresh or frozen sperm or impregnated via IUI (intrauterine insemination), or ICI (intracervical insemination) performed at a health clinic. A gestational surrogacy requires the transfer of a previously created embryo, and for this reason the process always takes place in a clinical setting.

Types of surrogacy

Traditional surrogacy

Traditional surrogacy involves artificially inseminating a surrogate mother with the intended father’s sperm via IUI, IVF or home insemination. With this method, the child is genetically related to its father and the surrogate mother.

Traditional surrogacy and donor sperm

A surrogate mother is artificially inseminated with donor sperm via IUI, IVF or home insemination. The child born is genetically related to the sperm donor and the surrogate mother.

Gestational surrogacy

Gestational surrogacy is when the intended mother is not able to carry a baby to term due to hysterectomy, diabetes, cancer, etc., her egg and the intended father’s sperm are used to create an embryo (via IVF) that is transferred into and carried by the surrogate mother. The resulting child is genetically related to its parents while the surrogate mother has no genetic relation.

Gestational surrogacy and egg donation

This type is used if there is no intended mother or the intended mother is unable to produce eggs, the surrogate mother carries the embryo developed from a donor egg that has been fertilized by sperm from the intended father. With this method, the child born is genetically related to the intended father and the surrogate mother has no genetic relation.

Gestational surrogacy and donor sperm

If there is no intended father or the intended father is unable to produce sperm, the surrogate mother carries an embryo developed from the intended mother’s egg (who is unable to carry a pregnancy herself) and donor sperm. With this method, the child born is genetically related to the intended mother and the surrogate mother has no genetic relation.

Gestational surrogacy and donor embryo

When the intended parents are unable to produce either sperm, egg, or embryo, the surrogate mother can carry a donated embryo (often from other couples who have completed IVF that have leftover embryos). The child born is genetically related neither to the intended parents nor the surrogate mother.

Advantages of surrogacy

There are some aspects that make surrogacy better than traditional adoption:

  • The waiting time is much shorter. The process of adoption can often take the incompetent couples many years. When the surrogate conceives the waiting period is only nine months;
  • sometimes the prospective parents discover that they are infertile too late and cannot be accepted by an adoption agency because of they are too old;
  • the intended parents have the genetic relation to the child.

Very often, the issue of surrogate motherhood brings up several ethical questions, and the most common one is who has parental rights if the surrogate changes her mind to give the baby away?
The controversy appears when the carrier wants to keep the baby, especially if she is the child’s biological mother. If the intended parents and the surrogate mother signed the contract the couple has legal parental right to the child. If the agreement between them was of private character the intended parents may not have the possibility to prove that the surrogate carries their baby and the whole situation will be on her conscience.

Of course, there are medical, moral and psychological challengers in the process of surrogate motherhood. But their gradual solution and overcoming is a natural way of entering into our daily life of the new technologies, which – at the global level – help humanity to exist, and at private level – to be parents who have the happiness to keep on hands a long-awaited and favorite child.

Surrogate Compensation

While surrogacy is an incredible gift which surrogate mother gives another family, the compensation she receives can be a tremendous benefit to her own family as well. Surrogates have used their compensation packages to provide their own children with appropriate life, start businesses, or realize a lifelong dream. An important moment in the surrogacy process is legal agreements. So, before starting the surrogacy program make sure all documents were written in a correct form. Final price must be announced at once and in future there would be any huge additional payments. As for the prices of BioTexCom clinic you can find them in the “Our services” item.