I'm still waiting to hear from the agency to be matched with a surrogate. The agency told me it usually takes 6-8 weeks. It has been almost four weeks so I'm wondering if I'll get a call any day. Could be tomorrow...could be 2 months from now. We'll just have to wait and see.
In the meantime I called two of the lawyers who handle surrogacy cases in Illinois. Both of them seem good and knowledgeable and answered my questions well. So I'm sure that either one will be fine. I got a little more information about how all this works.
After I pick an egg donor I will have a contract with her and that only takes about a week or two to make. That contract is pretty straightforward. The surrogate is a longer process. After I get a potential surrogate from the agency, if I think I will like her and she thinks she will like me, we will meet. The meeting will be with the psychologist so we're not two strangers thrown into a room together. If, after the meeting, we think we like each other, we both go to our lawyers and the negotiating begins. That contract usually takes 3-4 weeks to finalize. Not bad.
One lawyer has a checklist of things to consider for the surrogate. She is sending it to me. Some of the big issues are things I have considered, but I'm sure there will be more issues I never even thought about that are on her list. Illinois has some of the strongest laws in the country that protect the parents. Other states range from not bad to surrogacy being completely illegal. My surrogacy agency won't get a woman who lives in those states (at least I think they won't). But some surrogates live just over the border in Wisconsin or Iowa. My concern is that the surrogate will go into labor or need an emergency C-section and will be brought to the hospital 10 minutes away in her home state instead of 30 minutes away in Illinois and that could cause some minor issues. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it causes more paperwork and legal proceedings. Plus I have to deal with the fact that the hospital she goes to may be out of the insurance network. So I'm hoping to get a surrogate from Illinois. If I'm matched with someone outside the state I'll have to seriously consider if it's worth the small risk or if I'd rather wait til a surrogate from Illinois is available.
One example of how Illinois is so good is that when my baby is born the birth certificate puts my name down as the father and for the mother it just says "gestational surrogate" so there is no identified mother.
This week I'm going to try to call the two doctors who were recommended and figure out how that process works.
Moist Banana Bread
3 months ago
How interesting and timely, because right now my husband and I are looking into surrogacy out here in WA state! Funny how peoples' live weave in and out and cross here and there and just when you think you're the only one (or couple) out there consdering something as "non-traditional" as surrogacy, wondering about how you would explain that to a child or how friends would react you intersect again with someone grappling with the same issues. Out here in WA they only allow "compassionate" surrogates, meaning it has to be a friend or relative who accepts no money. On the other hand, Oregon, about 2.5 hours away, allows paid surrogacy and has strong laws. So you're pondering knowing the egg donor, and we're pondering knowing the surrogate vs. a strictly "business" arrangement. It certainly is a different era we live in.
ReplyDeletePS: Not that anyone has offered, but then again, we haven't really told anyone what we're thinking. That's a conversation I'm not quite sure how to start, "So, how's it going? Planning on doing anything with your womb for the next 9 months?" ;)
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