So you know you want to become a parent with the help of a Gestational Surrogate, now what? No two surrogacy journeys are the same and knowing what to do next depends on which type of Intended Parent you are. In this Surrogacy Talk, Frank will help you identify which type Intended Parent you are and what that means for your journey moving forward. The surrogacy journey is a complex process with many different phases that all have the potential to slow down your journey and get you off course. With the right agency by your side, you can rest assured knowing you are on the journey with an experienced guide who not only has a road map but will walk with you every step of the way.
So you know you want to become a parent with the help of a Gestational Surrogate, now what? No two surrogacy journeys are the same and knowing what to do next depends on which type of Intended Parent you are. In this Surrogacy Talk, Frank will help you identify which type Intended Parent you are and what that means for your journey moving forward. The surrogacy journey is a complex process with many different phases that all have the potential to slow down your journey and get you off course. With the right agency by your side, you can rest assured knowing you are on the journey with an experienced guide who not only has a road map but will walk with you every step of the way.
Welcome to Surrogacy Talk with me, your fabulous host and family building expert, Frank Golden. I'll be talking about surrogacy, IVF, and making babies. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Surrogacy Talk. I'm Frank Golden, the agency director and founder of Golden Surrogacy, one of the nation's leading surrogacy agencies. Today, I have a very important topic to discuss with all of you intended parents out there and before I begin, I would like to remind you that if you find this topic helpful, please be sure to follow us on all of our social media handles. Now, let's jump right in. Today, I'm talking about where to begin. During all of my consultations, intended parents often say,"Frank, where do we begin? We know surrogacy is right for us. We just don't know where to start." Now, the answer really depends on which type of intended parent you are, first and foremost. And by that, I mean, if you already have embryos created at a clinic, great. You are ready to go. We will have a discussion to determine how many embryos you have and how embryo quantity can play a very important role in matching timeline and expectations. But for the most part, you are set. If you are in that category, at this point, it's time to discuss retaining our services and getting started on your surrogate search. However, if you are intended parents that need to start from scratch and create embryos where by selecting a donor and going through that entire process, the answer does vary. Depending on who you speak with, a clinic may recommend that you start with them to get your embryos created. An agency may say, "Start with us." And the attorneys may say,"Well, actually hire good sage legal advice and counsel so that we can review all of your documentation." And then you're left wondering "Oh my goodness, everyone said, start with us. So what do we do?" The right answer is you need to stop and assess your finances. Here's the thing of a surrogacy journey. If you're starting from scratch, it's important to understand that in every phase of a journey, you may have a financial setback or repeat costs. So you need to understand what everything may cost first and then tack on an extra 20% buffer for the "what if" scenarios. If you are creating embryos, and we know that having three genetically tested embryos at the end of the day is the minimum and the gold standard that we always look for, if for some reason your egg donor does not have a large enough yield or the eggs do not all fertilize, or the embryos that are created do not all test normal, or the quantity is just not sufficient for your family building needs, you might have to repeat that entire process. And that is what I mean when I say you may have some repeat costs or financial setback. In that situation, it would be terrible if you had already paid the agency to begin a surrogate search and then you have a setback on the embryo creation side that would cause you to have to pause everything and reassess your finances at that phase. We don't want that to happen to you. Therefore, like I said, stop, assess what your budget is, and then tack on an additional 20% for scenarios just like that. Now, if you do have all of your finances sorted and you are prepared to potentially weather any sort of storm at any phase of the surrogacy journey, then I would say definitely hire the services of a reputable surrogacy agency like Golden to go into our matching matrix or a.k.a. our queue, because finding your surrogate is the part of the process that takes the longest amount of time. So you would go in our matching matrix and concurrently retain the services then of a fertility center and create your embryos. The goal being by the time the agency is ready to present your surrogate match, you have your embryos created, they've been tested, and they're in storage and ready to go. And that would be what I typically recommend for intended parents to get started on your surrogacy journey. That's all I have for you today. I hope you found this topic immensely helpful. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, or you'd like me to discuss a different topic in the future, I would encourage you to DM on Insta. We are @Golden_Surrogacy, or you can send tweets @GoldenSurrogacy. And once again I am Frank Golden reminding all of you out there that Everyone Deserves a Family.