Ask the Surrogacy Experts

“Medical procedures make me very nervous and I’m worried about the success of our IVF and embryo transfer. If we decide to have a surrogacy program in North America and our surrogate doesn’t get pregnant, how much would we have spent on surrogacy costs in total?” — Mark & David

 

Dear Mark.

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.

There are some incremental expenses throughout (for example the surrogate is entitled to a small fee to undergo the fertility injections). So to know how much would be returned to you, we would need to know exactly at what point the process stopped.

Roughly speaking here is what you would pay if you performed your IVF cycle but were not able to complete the embryo transfer…
• Consulting Fee
• Clinical Fees
• Egg Donor
Likewise, if you have asked for a surrogate to be matched but no embryo transfer was performed, you would also pay:
• Surrogate Matching Fees (in total)
If the surrogate were signed but she did not receive any embryo transfer, you might also be asked to pay:
• Escrow setup
• Contract drafting, review and execution
• Surrogate life insurance and review
• Surrogate signing fee
Finally, if the surrogate had undergone the FET but did not become pregnant, you might be asked to pay:
• Surrogate fee for embryo transfer
Of course the cost of each of these items depends on the specific program you choose.

I hope this helps. Thanks.
— Bill

 

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