If you’re gay dads beginning the surrogacy process, by now you’ve likely discovered that there is a lot of information to cull through. Where do you start? What things could potentially go wrong? And what might go better than expected? In short, it’s a lot to dig through. And as my husband Kevin knows all too well, with all these details, I pretty much go from zero to panic mode! But fear not, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Kevin and I read through the typical baby books, recommended by parents. Yet, none really broke down the gay surrogacy process. While not totally shocking, most of the books — while interesting — were from the women’s perspective of being pregnant (What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Work. Pump. Repeat., and What to Eat While You’re Pregnant). Umm, I have no idea why we have that book. Though, I did feel slightly guilty drinking Diet Coke while perusing it.
We’re all busy and the last thing you want to do at the end of a long day is figuring out the process. And if you’re like us, you end up putting off the surrogacy process altogether since you don’t even know where to start. That’s when Kevin — the ultimate list maker extraordinaire — decided to break it down into 3 simple steps. This certainly isn’t every part of the process. Rather it’s the big picture overview.
Gay Dad Surrogacy Process in 3 Steps:
- Step 1: Select a fertility clinic with a high success rate with LGBT couples. We go into more depth in an earlier blog post here. If you haven’t read this post, we recommend you start there and come back to this story.
- Step 2: Pick an egg donor. This is what we’ll cover in this blog post. There’s more to this step than you might initially think. For example, does it matter or not if she looks similar to you? What genetic medical conditions should you consider for the health of your baby? And do you really want that supermodel/Harvard valedictorian egg? This is where you and your partner need to have honest, and maybe tough conversations.
- Step 3: Choose your surrogate. Once you get some viable eggs on ice, you should start figuring out the woman to carry your baby. We’ll cover this in greater depth in a later blog post.
Today’s Post: Step #2: Pick An Egg Donor
You got the fertility clinic selected. And all your “stuff is up to snuff” (aka my husband’s code for “the sperm are swimming!”). So now you’re ready to pick out some eggs. So I gotta tell you, this part felt so surreal to me. And it honestly felt a little like I was on an online dating app as we perused the different ladies on the site.
My husband and I met long before the dating apps became a thing. So it was sort of like our guilty pleasure in reading all these profiles. There were of course heart-warming stories of women who really just wanted to help couples who couldn’t conceive on their own. And I truly believe most of the women felt that way. But clearly we enjoyed reading some of the weird profiles. Or some of the brutally honest profiles, like the one detailing her first STD. Umm, TMI? You are trying to sell those eggs, right? Or another who listed “smoking pot” as her hobby. You know, crocheting, swimming, lighting a bong… It wasn’t her current hobby. But you know, it made us laugh just thinking about telling our kids one day, “You know, your mom had a lot of hobbies… but her favorite was just lighting up.” But I digress…
How Do You Pick an Egg Donor Agency?
There are several ways to approach the egg donor process. However, Kevin very strategically decided that we should not commit ourselves to any agency until we found a right match with an egg donor.
Several egg donor agencies require you to commit with them upfront. But you limit yourself to just that one agency. There are a lot of agencies out there, with many specializing in specific traits like ethnicity or education. Some agencies even market themselves as having model-like donors.
We ended up finding our egg donor with A Perfect Match. They were very easy to work with — and we felt their online database was straightforward, allowing you to sort egg donors by the attributes you’re looking for. They also offer surrogates. However, we went with another agency that had a higher volume of surrogates to select from.
In general, the typical egg donor payment costs around $8,000-$12,000. It can go up from there, depending on specific high-demand, or difficult to find attributes. For us, it was finding a donor who looked similar to us and was healthy. If you’re looking for a Nobel Prize winner or valedictorian from Harvard, you’ll be paying for those eggs!
What are the Tough Questions You Need to Ask About the Egg Donor Process?
This is where you and your partner really need to be on the same page. It might feel selfish. It might feel weird. But there are things that each family must discuss openly and honestly so there are no surprises later. For example, do you or your partner have a recessive gene that could produce a potentially harmful trait for your offspring? If so, you should eliminate the egg donors who also carry those traits. Does it matter if the babies look like you? In our case, my husband and I look pretty similar. We decided to try for twins (one from each of us) and wanted them to look like siblings. It’s a personal decision. And it might not matter to you. But we felt strongly that people considered them our children equally. And we are not telling our friends or family which child is genetically ours.
Here are some of the other questions we thought of —
- What traits matter the most for you? For us, we liked the general idea of someone who seemed to enjoy learning. It didn’t matter to us on the school. Also, we liked the idea of someone who was close to her family.
- Does she live a healthy lifestyle? We didn’t care what she ate. But preferred someone who wasn’t a party girl.
- Has she recently traveled to a country with a health risk? It seems like an odd question to ask. But if your donor was recently in a country with say a high-rate of Zika infections, this will significantly slow down the process since your donor will need additional screening.
- Does the agency allow you to see video of the egg donors? What you might read on paper, might come across completely different over video. We narrowed down our egg donors to 3 people, and the video helped us decide.
- Does your agency allow you to connect with your selected egg donor? We set up a Skype call with our egg donor, who was completely okay with that. Honestly, it made us feel so much better with the decision.
Finally, our parting advice. Don’t drag your feet if your gut tells you that you’ve found the perfect egg donor match. There are a lot of intended parents searching these databases. And these ladies can get snatched up fast!
And there you have it. You’re two steps into the process now and now you just have to tackle the surrogate part. Still looking for advice? Check out all of our parenting resources here. Afraid your social life will disappear now that you have babies on the way? Read our travel stories on fun travel ideas even with babies in tow.
