You have choices when thinking about adding to your family. So
why utilize a surrogacy agency instead of an independent surrogacy arrangement?

Some intended parents  independently locate their own surrogate
mother and manage all the legal, medical, financial and travel details
themselves. As you will be dealing with the various emotional aspects of the
pregnancy plus all the logistics, an intended parent can easily get
overwhelmed.

A reputable surrogacy agency will conduct thorough background
checks and screen potential candidates for any medical and psychological
issues. With an independent arrangement, you may not locate the ideal candidate
for you and your family plus you may expose yourself to a lot of negativities
and risks.

Closely working with Shared Conception or another surrogacy
agency will often eliminate a vast amount of stress, grant you access to the
most thoroughly-screened surrogate mothers, and even arrange financial and
legal assistance. Naturally, a surrogacy agency also provides consistent
psychological and emotional support as well.

A surrogacy agency arranges doctor appointments and possible
travel arrangements that need to be scheduled once the perfect surrogate
mother, for you, is chosen. A surrogacy agency 
will also expertly manage all the logistics involved such as finding
legal counsel, any administrative details, and assist with financial agreements
including, but not limited to, escrow services.

If, by chance, you have already chosen a surrogate and now need
help navigating the entire surrogacy process, a surrogacy agency is always
available to help you and your pre-designated surrogate as much as needed.

While the entire surrogacy process may be potentially daunting, a
surrogacy agency’s goal is to make the arrangement as simple and as enjoyable
as possible. Shared Conception is always at your service and can provide
emotional support while guiding you through each stage of the surrogacy
journey. We are here for you!

Let’s envision that you all, the intended parents, and the surrogate mom have met, entered into a contractual relationship and developed a mutual respect for each other. Now it’s almost time for the birth! Let’s talk about the pre-birth and hospital considerations.

-Discuss with your surrogate mom how she sees the birth experience and what she wants from you. Also discuss any labor/delivery desires or fears with us at Shared Conception.

-Establish an efficient contact plan so your surrogate mother can easily reach you when “it’s time!” Arriving at the hospital and being seen as a “team” from the beginning will help hospital staff relate to you as a unit. Staff will be more accommodating and flexible on your behalf if they see you as a respectful team.

-Find the balance with your surrogate mother regarding “supportive presence” and “hovering”. Ask her questions about her needs rather than make assumptions.

-Know hospital policies about who may attend the birth, what happens if a c-section is required, ID bands, staying at the hospital overnight, nursery or “rooming-in” policies. Shared Conception will help address these issues.

-After the birth, you will follow the baby to watch the bath, and first exams. Please check back with your surrogate mother often to give her a report and see how she is doing. Some surrogate mother’s feel left and lost at this point and remain concerned about you and the baby.

-Feel free to send flowers to your surrogate mother! We are also happy to arrange sending them.

-Take lots of pictures – pictures help surrogate mothers re-experience what happened so fast and allows them to better complete the emotional process. Plus pictures are fun to share and help others to celebrate. A lack of pictures is a regret.

-It is a joy for your surrogate mother to see you both with the baby. Spending time together in the hospital room or bringing the baby from the nursery to your surrogate mother’s room is important. If you come and go from the hospital, keep your surrogate mother informed.

-The hospital birth certificate clerk will assist you in completing the birth certificate and getting it to County Birth Records. If you need a passport before leaving you must request an expedited process. Completion of both documents will take approximately 10-15 business days. You need a certified Birth Certificate before getting a passport.

-Years of experience proves that it is BEST if a surrogate mother (with her family) and baby/babies (with new parents) leave the hospital at the same time.

-A pediatrician will see the baby at birth and prior to discharge. You may also want to check with this doctor prior to flying home. A written note from the doctor is nice to have if the airlines want documentation regarding flying with a newborn.

-Post birth contact can be difficult when contact changes from very frequent (prior to the birth) to infrequent or no contact after leaving the hospital. Our best advice is to call when you arrive home with the baby and tell your surrogate mother when you will call next. If comfortable, invite her to call if she wants – she knows you will be adjusting to a new schedule. Let communication gradually decrease as she recovers and gets back to her routine. Abrupt changes in communication can create misunderstandings.

Shared Conception is fully committed to expertly and compassionately guiding you through the pre and post-birth hospital considerations. Call on us, we are here to help.

In order for
Shared Conception to  provide a
successful surrogacy agreement, it is important that the Intended Parents be
flexible, emphatic and ready to respond to this exciting  surrogacy situation with resilience,
excitement and strength. This is why
we will gently ask questions about how the intended parents make decisions, observe
how they treat their surrogate mother and the staff of a surrogacy agency, as
well as review their lifestyle history which usually helps to reveal
personality traits.

For us, It is extremely important to find out and assess how the
Intended Parents came to the choice of having a baby through surrogacy. The
majority of Intended Parents prefer surrogacy because:

– They wish to have a child / children, who would be related to
at least one of them genetically,

– They may also wish to take part in the pregnancy as well as in
the delivery process,

– They desire to know and feel comfortable with the birth mother
of their child / children;

– They need to avoid all possible fears regarding the possibility
of returning the infant / infants to his or her surrogate family,

– There is lack of adoption opportunities in the state or
country, in which the Intended Parents reside.

The next important part of getting to know the Intended Parents
is their perception of the surrogate mother and their desire for the surrogacy
contract. It is extremely important for the peace and resolution of all
surrogacy agreement participants, if the Intended Parents will cordially
interact with their surrogate mother as well as trust her, like her and be
appreciative of her. The difficult and intense process of achieving conception,
the long pregnancy term, as well as the future years of reflection will
certainly be based on the Intended Parents being comfortable with their
potential surrogate mother.

Here at Shared Conception we believe it’s important to get to
know more about the intended parents’ beliefs and plans for the future.
What are they going to tell their child /children, and what will they tell
other people? Answers such as these can help us see the couples’ resolution and readiness for this amazing
journey on which they are about to embark!

We are not just another surrogacy agency.  At Shared Conception, we sincerely strive to
be successful in fulfilling your dreams and work hard to ensure that everyone
is emotionally healthy and satisfied. As a result, we consistently do our
research to keep our pulse on the psychological state of surrogate moms and
even their kids. Here’s some of the info we found.

• 
  A
  study by the Family and Child Psychology Research Centre at City University,
  London, UK, concluded that surrogate mothers rarely had difficulty
  relinquishing rights to a surrogate child and that the intended mothers showed
  greater warmth to the child than mothers conceiving naturally.

• Anthropological
  studies of surrogates have shown that surrogates engage in various distancing
  techniques throughout the surrogate pregnancy so as to ensure that they do not
  become emotionally attached to the baby.

• Many
  surrogates intentionally try to foster the development of emotional attachment
  between the intended mother and the surrogate child.

• Surrogates
  are generally encouraged by the agency they go through (such as Shared
  Conception) to become emotionally detached from the fetus prior to giving
  birth.

• Instead
  of the popular expectation that surrogates feel traumatized after giving birth
  to the child of the intended parents, an overwhelming majority describe feeling
  empowered by their surrogacy experience.

• Although
  surrogate mothers generally report being satisfied with their experience as
  surrogates there are cases in which they are not. Unmet expectations are
  associated with dissatisfaction. Some women did not feel a certain level of
  closeness with the couple and others did not feel respected by the couple.

• Some
  women experience emotional distress when participating as a surrogate mother.
  This could be due to a lack of therapy and emotional support throughout the
  surrogate process. Shared Conception willingly provides that support as needed.

• A
  2011 study from the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge
  found that surrogacy does not have a negative impact on the surrogate’s own
  children.

• A
  recent study (involving 32 surrogacies, 32 egg donations, and 54 natural
  conception families) examined the impact of surrogacy on mother/child
  relationships and those children’s psychological adjustment at seven years
  old.  Researchers found no differences in
  negativity, maternal positivity, or child adjustment.

We are a transparent surrogacy agency that will be compassionately
straightforward with you,  and everyone
else involved, as we help make your familial dreams come true! Call on us.

Women who decide to become surrogates often say they love being pregnant and experiencing the miracle of birth, but they are finished having their own children. They also genuinely want to help a couple have a child.



While surrogates are paid for their time, it’s rare to find a surrogate who is only in this for the money. Due to psychological screening, women who are thinking primarily about compensation are likely to be turned down early in the process.



Surrogacy is not a get-rich-quick scheme; it’s a compassionate way to help bring life into this world and build a family that otherwise could not happen.                                                                        

Gestational Surrogacy is a legal arrangement where a woman agrees to become pregnant and deliver a child for a contracted third party. This unique and amazing woman, typically referred to as the ‘carrier’ or the “surrogate,” carries the pregnancy to delivery after having been implanted with an embryo. Through our surrogate mother program, Shared Conception deftly arranges and coordinates gestational surrogacies, whereby embryos are created with eggs from the intended mother (or egg donor) and the sperm is from the intended father (or sperm donor). These embryos are implanted in the surrogate by a process called in vitro fertilization (IVF). The surrogate is a carrier only and has no biological connection to the child.



A woman might decide to use a surrogate for several reasons.

-She may have medical problems with her uterus.

-She may have had a hysterectomy that removed her uterus.

-There may be conditions that make pregnancy impossible or medically risky, such  as severe heart disease.

-Other women choose surrogacy after trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant with a variety of assisted-reproduction techniques (ART), such as IVF.



Surrogates have also made parenthood an option for people who might not be able to adopt a child. Reasons could include:

-Their age

-Their marital status

-Their sexual orientation

-A disability



Whether the intended parents will be with the surrogate during or after the birth will depend on agreements between them, hopefully decided upon earlier. Some surrogates will be happy to have the parents present, while others may request privacy for all or parts of the labor. Shared Conception will efficiently help in making these arrangements.



Assuming a happy and healthy birth occurs, the parents should get to hold the baby soon after the birth. Surrogacy is certainly a feat that impacts all parties involved. It is a dream that becomes a reality when reality didn’t seem possible!





 

At Shared Conception we sometimes get asked,  “Who are these intended parents? Who
comes looking for a surrogate?”

Intended parents are police officers, executives, teachers,
attorneys, stay-at-home moms, single dads, athletes and possibly even the
person you pass in the grocery store or who is sitting next to you in the park.
Intended parents are ordinary people desiring an extraordinary circumstance so
they can complete their family.

There are a few categories intended parents sometimes fall into.
First, there are couples who have had problems getting pregnant on their own.
Whether because of past medical problems, or not being able to carry a baby to
full term, some women’s bodies simply cannot produce a baby.

Other women who come to Shared Conception, or any other surrogacy
agency, have had medical issues such as having her uterus removed or not being
born with a uterus.  Other women may have
a disability which prevents them from reproducing. These women look toward
surrogates to fulfill their wishes of having a biological baby.

Some couples try IVF treatments without success. This can
sometimes be a costly and highly emotional avenue to take in order to have a
baby. If successful treatments are not met, these types of intended parents
also look toward surrogates to help.

For gay men, surrogacy is a way to conceive a child that is
biologically connected to one or both partners through the process of
insemination or IVF. While less common, a lesbian couple may also use a
surrogate mother if one or both partners are unable to produce an egg to be
fertilized or unable to carry a child to term.

Whatever the case, a surrogacy agency, such as Shared Conception,
is ready to help intended parents fulfill the vision they have for their
family!

Match – “to be equal to (something or someone) in quality or
strength; to make or to be harmonious.” What perfect definitions to
describe how the  staff at our surrogacy
agency matches our intended parents and surrogate mothers! We want to ensure
that the surrogate and the intended parents are certainly equal in inner
strength and that the surrogate has a harmonious pregnancy.

Shared Conception’s objective is that the surrogate and intended
parents interact in an extraordinarily comfortable environment and that both
parties build a good, solid rapport and partnership. That said, we strive to
pinpoint your core beliefs and innate desires so that everyone is
mentally comfortable and relaxed throughout the pregnancy.

If you are comfortable with the surrogate we present to you, we
will immediately contact them. If they, too, are interested in moving forward,
Shared Conception will coordinate a three-way phone conversation between you,
the intended parents, the surrogate and a member of our team. If all parties
agree to move forward, then the next step is to arrange a face-to-face meeting
so everyone can discuss the partnership and expectations.

This is such an exciting time in the life of you all and the
surrogate. Imagine all the hopes, dreams, expectations and anticipation all
wrapped up into the actual match between two families? Simply amazing!

Becoming a surrogate mother is an amazing and unforgettable journey that is a gift to yourself and to the Intended Parents. In order to erase any mystery or fear of the process, our surrogacy agency, Shared Conception, has created a timeline overview.

-The Surrogate Mother Process

– Application and Evaluation

-The Matching Process

-Psychological Screening and Evaluation

-Medical Screening

-Legal Process

-The Embryo Transfer

-Pregnancy and Delivery

The Initial Surrogate Mother Process

-Start by completing the online Information Request or call Shared Conception (713-622-1144) to schedule an initial phone consultation.

-If we both decide to proceed, we will email or mail you our application packet, which also requests 2-4 pictures of yourself, as well as inquire about your medical history, psychological history, lifestyle, and preferences related to surrogacy.

-If your application is accepted, Shared Conception will contact you to gather more information about you and your family. Upon review, you will be contacted about your potential participation in Shared Conception’s Surrogacy Program. We will then start a series of meetings via phone, Skype or in-person so we can get to know each other better.

-If all goes well, and we are mutually pleased with each other, Shared Conception will present you with our Agency agreement which spells out both parties rights and responsibilities and gives us permission to present your profile to prospective intended parents.

-Next, we will start gathering medical records from your previous pregnancies.
-If you have medical insurance, we will also ask that you send your insurance benefits information to us. We will help you review your health insurance policy to ensure, we will assist you in finding a policy. The intended parents will be responsible for the premium.

-While your insurance and medical records are being gathered, Shared Conception will simultaneously conduct a thorough criminal and residential background check.

A few notables:

-Try not to miss any of your medical appointments.

-Call us immediately when you go into labor. This will be a very special day for you and your Intended Parents!

-Each match is very different, thus we promise to consistently and clearly communicate with you throughout the entire experience.
Surrogacy is a very rewarding experience for you and your family and our staff will do everything possible to make sure you are completely satisfied with this unforgettable process!

To be honest, the real question is not whether Shared Conception
will  accept you into our program, but
whether being a surrogate mother is the right choice for you. We thoughtfully
spend time helping each potential surrogate  decide if becoming a surrogate mother is the
right choice for her and her family and whether this is a good time in their
lives to begin this journey.

Based on our years of experience, we, at Shared Conception, have
identified three  requirements which are
just the foundation to begin the screening phase as we journey towards a woman
becoming a surrogate mom.

1. Age factor–  a
woman between  the ages of 21-38 years
old is a good the maturity to deal with and understand the intricacies of surrogate
parenting and the effect her decision may have on her own children. The upper
age limit is based solely on medical considerations, and the link between age
and high risk pregnancies.

2. Have a child of her own. Shared Conception believes
that only someone who has gone through a pregnancy, felt a child move, and
given birth can understand “bonding” and know if she can become a
surrogate mother and relinquish the child to the Intended Parents. In addition
to having given birth, we require that she must be actively raising her child.
We believe that only a woman who has experience in parenting a child and
understands what it takes to be a parent, can be a surrogate mother.

3. Financially secure. Since money should not be the major
motivating factor in deciding to become a surrogate mother, anyone on welfare
or receiving state assistance, is excluded from our program.

In a nutshell, we need to ensure this potential surrogate mom has
the support of her family and that her children understand that she is not
“giving away” a sibling.  At
our surrogacy agency, we thoroughly screen our candidates to determine their
psychological health and are confident with our choices.  Contact us for more information on becoming a
surrogate mom through Shared Conception!

You’ve waited all year for those moments. And now that the gifts have been unwrapped, the relatives have left and the tree has been taken down , the time has come to pack up the holiday mementos and move on.
Whether it’s caused by feelings of guilt from overindulgence, unmet expectations, or a return to loneliness, depression after the holidays is a common condition. So common, in fact, that there is even a name for it – the “post-holiday blues.”
As surrogate mothers or Intended Parents, symptoms of depression can include mild unhappiness to more troublesome symptoms such as insomnia, irritability, inability to eat or overeating, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and anxiety. These symptoms are common when you are a surrogate mother and pregnant or when you are an Intended Parent and riddled with anxiety AND anticipation. It’s a lot to deal with and your surrogacy agency will be right beside you throughout the pregnancy and delivery.

Here’s how to survive the blues and get back on track for 2014.

1)Expect some letdown. One day you are laughing with friends, eating your mom’s famous cheesecake, and snuggling in front of the fireplace; the next day you are back to work. It’s normal to feel a little bummed that the holidays are over, but you don’t have to let those feelings consume you. That’s why you need to…

2)Make plans. As a surrogate mother, pamper yourself at home or at a spa. As an Intended Parent, book a mid-winter adult weekend getaway while you can! Give yourself something to look forward to so that you feel better about leaving the holidays behind.

3)Make healthy choices. Even if you feel like you are just going through the motions, make a conscious effort to eat well and get a little exercise during this period. It will do your body and your mind a world of good and keep you from spiraling downward.

4)Go public. After all of the socializing of the holidays, it’s common to want to hideout when you feel the holiday blues approaching. But staying connected with family and friends will help you move on from the holidays and once again enjoy your day-to-day life.
The post-holiday blues are temporary and fleeting. Your surrogacy agency is always happy to refer you to a licensed professional as needed.

 Keep on moving forward as we enjoy January and get ready to launch into the new year!