Requirements
The first step of any candidate for surrogate mother is acquaintance with the requirements for participation in the program. Stork Service center specialists ask women to forget the idea of intentionally deceiving by providing data they know to be untrue. Medical and other relevant personal information is carefully checked.
General terms:
- Age from 20 to 35 years old
- Presence of one or more children without congenital anomalies and other significant health abnormalities
- No criminal record for committing a serious crime
- Lack of precedent for deprivation or restriction of parental rights in the woman’s past
- Capability
Medical conditions:
- Previous deliveries without cesarean section and without premature birth
- Absence of contraindications to fetal bearing and natural childbirth
- A normal state of mental health, confirmed by the evaluation of a specialist
- Absence in the past or present of drug and alcohol dependence
- Normal general health
- Lack of syphilis, HIV, hepatitis B and C, confirmed by the results of tests
- Absence of infectious diseases that are transmitted sexually
- Fertile condition of the endometrium, confirmed by the conclusion of a specialist
- Absence of cystic formations of urogenital organs, myomatous nodes and polyps of the uterus
- The presence of antibodies to rubella, that is, immunity against this disease
In addition to meeting the above conditions, Stork Service center specialists take into account the woman’s moral and ethical motivation. The future surrogate mother needs to be aware of the importance of helping childless parents in acquiring a long-awaited child.
Legislation
The laws of Georgia allow surrogacy. Stork Service center operates entirely in accordance with the legal system of the country. The entire complex of legislative norms governing the scope of surrogacy is available on the websites of the Parliament of Georgia and the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Protection.
The adoption of legal norms on surrogacy took place in Georgia in 1997. Thanks to many years of legal practice, an effective mechanism for protecting the rights of all participants in such legal relations has been determined. A favorable legal climate in the sphere of surrogacy is the reason for participation in the programs of foreign citizens. The Stork Service Center is focused mainly on providing services to potential biological parents from foreign countries. As a result of this specific activity, surrogate mothers receive a sufficiently high financial reward.
According to the law, gestational surrogacy can be practiced in Georgia. A woman who carries a baby does not have a biological connection with him. Fertilization occurs in the laboratory. For this purpose, the ovum is taken from the biological mother/donor and the sperm of the biological father/donor. A surrogate mother can not simultaneously be a donor of oocytes. This would be a violation of the requirement that there is no genetic link between surrogate mother and child to be born.
The father and mother of the child, born as a result of surrogacy, are recognized as biological parents – a married couple who, according to the agreement, provided their/donor genetic material. To legitimize the fact of parenting, the surrogate mother is to fill out a special form immediately after the birth. The essence of the document is the consent of the woman to write the biological parents on the child’s birth certificate.
Guarantees
For the surrogate mother, the support of the Stork Service center is an opportunity to avoid many risks and disturbances. At all stages of the program, women can count on accompanying qualified doctors, lawyers and psychologists. In the period of pregnancy and immediately after childbirth, payment of monetary compensation is ensured. These funds are not part of the reward. These funds are for the purchase by a of quality food, vitamins, and special clothes for pregnant women for the surrogate mother, also covering other expenses related to pregnancy.
Experienced legal specialists at the Stork Service center care about creating a surrogacy contract that is reasonable for both parties and in accordance with the laws of Georgia. This document describes the obligations of potential biological parents to a surrogate mother. Unplanned circumstances that require additional expenses from the couple are also indicated. Among them are: emergency medical care during pregnancy, abortion for medical reasons, premature birth, and Caesarean section due to unforeseen complications of health.
Contraindications
The participation of a woman in the program of the Stork Service center as a surrogate mother should not pose a danger to her own life or health, nor the child to be born. The specialists at the Stork Service center carefully consider the candidacy of every woman. In addition to medical conditions, psycho-emotional and social factors are considered in the program.
Basic list of contraindications:
- Age less than 20 or over 35 years
- Lack of her own children and potential unwillingness to transfer the baby to biological parents
- Presence of hereditary and other serious diseases
- Disagreement of the official husband on the wife’s surrogacy (refusal to sign the corresponding document)
- Physiological obstacles to fetal birth and childbirth (deformities of the uterine cavity, benign and malignant tumors of the genitourinary system)
- Acute inflammatory diseases of any location
- Mental disorders, adherence to bad habits, alcohol and drug dependence
- Presence of premature delivery in the past
- Low levels of blood clotting
- Presence of syphilis, hepatitis, HIV
- Absence of immunization against rubella (absence of antibodies to the causative agent of the disease in the blood)