Navigating the Emotional Journey of Surrogacy

Embarking on the surrogacy journey is an extraordinary and significant decision. It involves a complex, emotionally charged, and often lengthy process. As an intended parent, you may feel the urge to expedite the process, but it is crucial to approach surrogacy thoughtfully and deliberately. Here are some insights that will hopefully help you navigate this journey with ease and grace.

Some intended parents may underestimate the importance of the relationship with their gestational carrier. However, a strong, respectful relationship with her is essential. She plays a crucial role in your life, and your commitment to this relationship before it begins can set you up for success.

Choosing a gestational carrier involves more than proximity or lifestyle habits. Consider her views on critical issues such as termination and medical testing. Discussing these matters with your attorney can provide a framework for handling potential problems.

Here are some aspects to consider: 

• Termination and medical testing: Clarify how the carrier feels about these issues. If a problem arises that affects the carrier's health, you may want to frame it as her decision to terminate. If it concerns the fetus or embryo, thinking of it as the intended parents' decision can be very helpful.  After all, the intended parents will need to raise that child. This framework can help you avoid attempting to discuss or anticipate every possible scenario, and as we know that is not possible anyway. 
• Pumping: Determine if you want the carrier to provide colostrum or pump breast milk, which is after the baby is born. 
• Delivery room presence: Decide if you want to be present in the delivery room and discuss this with your carrier. 
• Relationship dynamics: Understand the carrier's preference for closeness and contact. Some may want frequent visits and communication, while others may prefer more independence.

Regular communication, such as weekly Zoom or FaceTime calls, is crucial. This relationship is often likened to an arranged marriage, requiring intentional efforts to grow. Initially, the relationship may develop naturally; after all, you are both excited about the same thing—your future baby. However, as time passes, things can change.

Once the pregnancy stabilizes, there will be fewer subjects to discuss. You won’t be consumed by legal agreements, doctor visits, and tension-filled moments waiting for results. While it is a nice time since the pregnancy is going well, the relationship is no longer new, and the initial “getting to know you” is over. You now may ask her about doctor’s visits, and she may tell you how she is feeling. It is possible to talk about the pregnancy a great deal. After all, the pregnancy is the thing that unites you. While this makes sense because that is why you are both connecting, it can leave her feeling like you are no longer interested in her life, and she can feel objectified. At the same time, you are not having those initial conversations when the relationship was new, and you were feeling smitten with each other. This can lead you to feel more distant at a time when you want to feel even closer. After all, your baby no longer looks like a piece of rice on the ultrasound pictures; you can now see your baby’s face, and your baby is in someone’s body far from you.

If we can think about other relationships where we get to know someone, we see it works best when we see them face-to-face. Think about the last time there was a new employee at work. Perhaps you didn’t pay much attention to them, but after seeing them in the hallways, at the holiday party, and in the washroom day after day, you start to feel more comfortable around them. One day, months later, you sit next to them in a meeting, and they don’t feel “new” to you anymore. This is because you saw them face-to-face over and over.

The same is true with your relationship with your surrogate. If you schedule a weekly Zoom or FaceTime call, you see each other face-to-face each week. It may seem like a lot, but before you know it, you may be exchanging recipes and family stories. Soon, a foundation will be formed in the relationship, and by the time you get to the middle of the pregnancy, you will have a bond.

Not only will this bond help you stay close during the quiet times, but all of those discussions will give you nice memories to record and share with your future child (take a look at My Lifebook or this issue's article about family storytelling for examples of books created for this purpose). This plan can also shield you from a potential problem. If something goes wrong, and hopefully it doesn’t, it is very difficult to have a heart-to-heart with someone with whom you do not feel close.

Consider the future relationship with your gestational carrier. Your child may want to meet her one day, so setting a positive precedent now is important. The “baby fog” is real, and you may be not only exhausted but consumed by well-meaning family and friends when you arrive home. Before you know it, you may forget to reach out to your carrier. She may feel this intense connection to you (carriers often feel just as connected or more to their intended parents than the baby), having spent so much time communicating with you over the past year or more, and then all of a sudden feel like she fell off a cliff. To avoid this, it can be helpful to put reminders in your phone to call or text her or send pictures of you and your family with the baby. Nothing will make her happier.