How to Choose the Right Surrogacy Clinic

With surrogacy, there are many decisions to make and the decisions do ultimately impact one another. Perhaps one of the most important decisions is choosing the right IVF clinic to give the best treatment options possible for intended parents.

Sometimes intended parents are already working with a clinic when surrogacy is recommended as the best option to have a baby. In other cases, the intended parents know well in advance that surrogacy is their path to parenthood. Whatever way intended parents arrive at surrogacy, and sometimes it is a complicated and emotional process to navigate, choosing the right clinic makes all the difference in having a successful surrogacy journey. Some of the factors to consider are unique and specific to surrogacy journeys.  We will focus on these factors next.

1. Success Rates: Perhaps the single most important piece to consider when choosing a clinic is the live birth success rates. Many intended parents do not know that success rates are readily available to the public and are the fastest and most effective ways of ruling out underperforming clinics. More importantly, locating the most successful clinics. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Society for Reproductive Technology (SART) provide success rates that are clinic specific. In particular, if you will be using your own eggs, focus on the singleton births per live egg retrieval information. The results are typically divided by age categories so you can gauge your potential success if choosing the specific clinic. If you are using donor eggs, there is also live birth rate information for patients using donor eggs. You should give special attention to whether you will use a donor or your own eggs since the success rates can vary significantly based on the type of eggs used.
   
   
2. Experience with Surrogacy: Clinics differ significantly in the number of surrogacy cases they handle per year. Larger clinics that specialize in third party reproduction may have 700+ cases per year while a smaller clinic not necessarily focusing on third party reproduction may have just a few cases. It is not the total number of cases that matters but the proportion of cases given the clinic’s size. In the CDC success rates, there is a category for the percentage of embryo transfers using a gestational carrier. This category will provide a realistic snapshot of the level of experience clinics have with surrogacy cases.
   
   
3. Location: When you consider clinic location in the surrogacy journey, it is important to keep in mind both the clinic’s proximity to the intended parent(s) and to the surrogate. There will be multiple clinic appointments for the intended parents, and significantly more if you are using your own eggs. Distance to the clinic makes a huge difference in whether you can complete the required appointments in a timely manner. On the flipside, the clinic’s proximity to the surrogate impacts the ease and cost of travel for the surrogate to complete the medical clearance and embryo transfer appointments. Also, if she is not local to the clinic, the surrogate will also require a monitoring only clinic close to her home to complete the monitoring appointments locally. Of course, this is an additional expense for the intended parent(s). For this reason, it is not rare to hear of intended parents using two clinics – a clinic local to where they are for the embryo creation and a clinic near the surrogate for the embryo transfer procedures. The intended parents ship the embryos from one clinic to the other.
   
   
4. Cost: Just as success rates and experience with surrogacy cases can differentiate clinics, you should also consider clinic costs. There is a wide range of costs for clinics, and since clinics do not readily provide the information on their websites, it may take additional research to find out. One piece to keep in mind is that some clinics have shared risk programs for surrogacy. If there is not a live birth as a result, the intended parents will receive a full refund of the procedure costs. Another thing about cost is that your insurance plan may cover a part or all of the medical procedure costs at a specific clinic. Before moving forward with a clinic, ask if the clinic is in-network for your plan and what is potentially covered.
   
   
5. Philosophy: Every clinic supports intended parents in different ways and it is important to make sure that your specific needs are met. While smaller clinics provide a more personalized approach, larger clinics tend to have more resources generally. Overall, a clinic’s level of communication and support with their patients can be very different.

In addition, there are specific aspects of the clinic philosophy that may be important to intended parents.  For instance, if a clinic favors single or dual embryo transfers especially if you are considering multiples. If you are thinking of using a donor, is there an in-house donor program. Also, how expansive are donor options and how long is the wait for the egg retrieval with a specific donor. Although all clinics follow the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s surrogate guidelines, the clinic’s medical requirements for surrogates may still vary greatly. A clinic that is more cautious may provide more security in the journey but it will typically take longer to find a surrogate that fulfills the additional requirements.

If you are using a known surrogate (friend or family member), then she may not qualify at specific clinics, so it is best to find out the requirements in advance. It is also a good sign if the clinic is transparent about their medical requirements for surrogates so that all parties – you, the surrogates and surrogacy agency staff – can be on the same page about eligibility from the beginning.

We encourage all prospective intended parents to contact Capital Surrogacy and learn more about the journey. Please complete the short contact form, we cannot wait to hear from you!