The dream of starting a family is a common one for many people. The majority of couples that go down this road will pursue the common method of allowing the woman to become pregnant and then welcoming a new child into their lives nine months later. Unfortunately for other hopeful families, this path is either too risky or impossible.
Some women have medical issues, like a heart condition that would put both them and an unborn infant at extreme risk throughout a pregnancy. Other women have had surgical procedures, like hysterectomies that remove the uterus to stop cancer, that make it medically impossible for them to conceive naturally. It’s here that surrogacy can be a solution.
\Surrogacy is where another woman with the appropriate childbirth experience and medical recommendation agrees to become pregnant on behalf of a hopeful family. Once the pregnancy runs its course and the baby is born, the child is united with its hopeful family, and a new life begins.
However, sometimes surrogacy is better handled by surrogate mothers in another country. But why and how would this need to occur?
Providing More Choice
The decision to become pregnant and upend daily life until a baby is born, only to bring that newborn to waiting parents, is a massive undertaking, physically, medically, emotionally, and psychologically. The majority of women prefer not to do this, understandably focusing on their own family life. This can make finding a suitable surrogate candidate challenging. What can make it even more challenging is the willingness to do this on a voluntary basis if that’s all the law permits in a given region or country.
While surrogacy is legally permitted in many parts of the world, the types of surrogacy allowed to be practiced vary. The most common is “altruistic surrogacy,” where women volunteer themselves and receive only money to cover necessities such as living expenses as the pregnancy progresses and medical coverage and supervision in the stages leading up to birth. The alternative, a “compensated surrogacy,” allows for significant financial recognition of the surrogate mother’s role, which can make a huge difference in the lives of women qualified to do so. As a result, the availability of suitable surrogate mother candidates in countries, states, or provinces that permit compensated surrogacy is often significantly larger than in areas that don’t by orders of magnitude.
In other words, hopeful families that want more choice in who they can select as a surrogate mothers may need to work with surrogate mothers in another country to achieve this goal.
Establishing Connections
Fortunately, the proliferation of the Internet and the emphasis on remote communication in the wake of the global pandemic have made it easier than ever for collaborations between surrogacy agencies and surrogate mothers or other surrogacy organizations abroad to collaborate. Some countries already have extensive experience working in the international arena for the purposes of surrogacy and thus already have well-established networks and partnerships not just within their domestic market but in other nations as well.
For example, Georgia is a nation in Eastern Europe that has modernized its constitution to recognize the rights of hopeful parents with regard to surrogate pregnancies. It is also a country that permits compensated surrogacies. As a result, it has a large availability of surrogate mother candidates that have been medically evaluated to be both medically and psychologically viable for a surrogate pregnancy, thanks to their past experience having already had children of their own.
This means that agencies in other countries that collaborate with Georgian surrogate candidates or the agencies and other organizations that administrate surrogacy candidates will find a country and business culture already conversant with participating in the global marketplace. Currency differences will not be an issue. Legal contracts with precedents are already in place that covers all eventualities, and language and communication issues aren’t a problem as long as major Western and Asian languages are on the table for communications.
Working With Organizations
While it’s always possible for individual hopeful families and even surrogacy agencies to work with individuals in other countries, it’s always recommended to speak to and collaborate with established organizations. These larger, more formalized groups, such as surrogacy agencies with an international focus, have already established their communications, financial and legal protocols. When they handle inquiries about services, legalities, and medical issues, they have extensive experience handling all of these things and are comfortable communicating them to an international market.
It also means a much greater measure of safety and success. A registered organization has legal and contractual obligations to observe to ensure they remain in operation. A single individual has only their word to go by and may not have an extensive list of past references and experiences to prove their experience and intent.
Local surrogacy agencies working with surrogate mothers abroad can increase the possibilities for everyone. But this only succeeds when partnering with the right people and groups.