There’s one thing that is unavoidable when it comes to the decision to start a family. This requires a massive investment of time and money. When a child is born, money will be needed in the years of food, clothing, health, and dental care the child may need. Beyond that, of course, is also the funding necessary to save up for school or buy gifts for birthdays and holidays.
However, for some, traditional pregnancy and childbirth are already steep medical and financial hurdles. A couple may have medical considerations, such as a heart condition that puts the woman and baby at risk in the event of a pregnancy. Or maybe life-saving surgery such as a hysterectomy to fight ovarian cancer means the woman no longer has a uterus with which to bear a child. This means that the only alternatives for starting a family are either adoption or surrogacy. If the choice is made to go with surrogacy, this means there may be far more initial investment required even before the child is born. Here’s what costs must be considered and how some of that expense can be mitigated by choosing surrogacy abroad in a city like Tbilisi in the country of Georgia.
The Costs
Affordable Surrogacy – There are numerous expenses associated with surrogacy, both in time and money. The biggest are living and medical expenses. Finding someone who agrees to be a surrogate mother can cost nothing for people willing to spend the time themselves. However, even if money is saved in the search for a surrogate mother, that surrogate mother, once found, needs to be cared for. After she becomes pregnant, it’s only fair for the hopeful family to pay for any medical expenses she will have. And of course, as the pregnancy progresses, the surrogate mother will be unable to work or fend for herself, meaning her living expenses must be cared for as well if a hopeful couple wants to ensure their baby is receiving nutrients on a regular basis to grow into a healthy baby.
These costs become even more significant if a hopeful family decides to use the In Vitro Fertilization technique. More commonly known as IVF, this is a procedure where the hopeful family donates their own egg and sperm for fertilization in a lab. Once the fertilization has been confirmed as successful, the egg is then implanted in a surrogate mother. The baby that is born is a “traditional birth” in the sense that the DNA of both hopeful parents will be present in the child, with the only difference between the gestation and birth occurring in the body of another woman. Genetically, however, the child would truly be a mix of the hopeful parents.
Reducing Costs
Time versus money is always a balancing act, and entrusting a surrogacy agency to find a surrogate mother is always a safer, more efficient choice, even if it costs money to do so. Trying to locate a suitable surrogate mother who is in good health and is psychologically fit to carry a child to term and then pass that child onto the hopeful family can take months or even years unassisted. If a hopefully family isn’t willing to waste that time, a surrogacy agency must be paid for.
Going abroad to places like Tbilisi in Georgia becomes a cost-effective surrogacy solution that allows a hopeful family to invest in more premium services. Tbilisi is the capital of the East European nation of Georgia, situated on the east coast of the Black Sea. It is a modern nation, with world-class facilities for business and medicine. Its location, far from the economic policies of the United States, means that while there are equivalent levels of medical technology and personnel available here, the cost is considerably less than what people would pay for equal treatment in the United States.
Premium Service Without Premium Cost
One of the best ways to reduce costs is to streamline processes. A lot of time and more money is spent when different services are required to complete one overall goal. For example, building a home will require the services of electricians, plumbers, and contractors. It takes more money and time to bring in each service and slot them into the required construction phase.
The same is true with a surrogate pregnancy. Rather than going to one agency to find a surrogate mother, another to handle the actual care during pregnancy, and a legal office to ensure things like citizenship are all in order, a better way to do it is to have everything under one roof.
Some agencies act like “one-stop shops,” saving hopeful families both time and money by having every essential service available when needed, with no need to start up a new hunt for a new service. Everything from vetting and certifying a surrogate mother to arranging the facilities for IVF to handling the legal concerns is all taken care of.