Monthly Archives: April 2018

When we flew back to the US with our newborns, it was the easiest flight of my life. Even at 3 weeks, newborns do really well on airplanes — the droning background noise makes them sleep even more than usual. The cabin crew also loved the babies and were happy to go above and beyond to get us anything we needed. But we did make some critical preliminary preparations…

It’s hard to trust reported success rates at overseas clinics that have little, if any, oversight. My experience is that clinics in the developing world (e.g., Kenya, Cambodia, Georgia, etc.) have a pregnancy rate per embryo transfer of about 40% to 60% in general. That may seem like a very poor result, but it’s sometimes just enough…

Would-be parents always ask me about the risk that the surrogate may change her mind and want to keep their baby. Nobody questions if the parents may change THEIR mind and decide they don’t want the baby. Frankly, the possibility should be banned by law — we expect such protections for the parents, so why not for the surrogate?

You can take advantage of your local IVF clinic, conceive your embryos with a familiar doctor, and then transport the embryos to a country that’s more supportive of surrogacy. Couples do this all the time. But bringing embryos into the United States is a unique challenge.

Currently, surrogacy in Canada is illegal when a person profits from the intended parents. As with many places, “reasonable” costs can be covered, these can be made up of medical bills, loss of earnings from time off, maternity wear etc. The National Post in Canada reflected on a notion put forward by Anthony Housefather MP…
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In many countries, surrogacy programs pop-up because there are no legal restrictions and fewer barriers to entry for an opportunistic surrogacy agency. But just because surrogacy in “not illegal” in some country, that does not mean it’s secure. There are still plenty of risks in unregulated countries.

Hello Mark: The typical IVF cycle conceives 5 to 6 high-quality embryos, and you will attempt embryo transfer multiple times. Each attempt has about 82% likelihood of a pregnancy (73% in Mexico, 60% overseas). So assuming the egg and sperm donors are both healthy, it’s unlikely that you would not eventually achieve a pregnancy.

…Reputable surrogate programs charge payments only as milestones are reached… So if you perform an IVF cycle but no embryos result, you don’t pay for any embryo transfer or pregnancy. Likewise, if you have the embryo transfer but no pregnancy, then you don’t pay for any of the prenatal care or compensation to the surrogate. If the pregnancy ends prematurely (God forbid!) then you only pay the surrogate’s compensation for the period where she was pregnant.

The laws around surrogacy in the US vary from state to state in various fashions, some states do not permit commercial surrogacy, whereas others such as California do. Uprise RI published an article recently calling for the outdated laws in Rhode Island to be updated to ensure families from all parentage are treated fairly in…
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