What is Gestational Surrogacy?

Gestational Surrogacy developed as a result of the convergence of a number of medical innovations that came into being at around the same period of time.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

IVF came into practice in the late 1970’s. The procedure consisted of removing a mother’s egg, collecting the father’s sperm, and combining them in a lab to create a fertilized embryo. The fertilized embryo was then placed back into the mother’s womb where, hopefully, it developed like any other embryo leading to the birth of a healthy baby.

The technique was developed as a way to cope with a certain type of infertility. This was the case where a woman was unable to conceive due to an obstacle of some sort to the traditional method of impregnation. The mother’s fallopian tubes might be blocked by scar tissue. The father may have a low sperm count. And so on. IVF used surgical and medical technologies to overcome the specific challenge.

Traditional Surrogacy

Surrogacy had existed prior to this time, but it was referred to as traditional surrogacy. The eggs used to create the embryo were the mother’s own. The mother carrying to term was the biological mother of the baby.

This sometimes made it difficult for the surrogate to give up the child after birth. A mother was being asked to give up her own child. The emotional toll was severe. In some cases, the birth mother would seek to keep the child for herself and reject the transfer to the contractual parents. A famous case that gave publicity to the subject was the Baby M case in New Jersey in 1987. Many people, including lawmakers, were not even aware of the practice prior to that case. There were no legal procedures to handle such a situation.

Gestational Surrogacy

IVF was successful at helping to improve chances of fertilization, but it had not yet addressed another challenge: the mother could not carry the embryo to term. Continual miscarriages, threats to the mother’s health, and other situations occurred to cause repeated failure and heartbreak.

By the late 1990’s, medical science had developed a response. They developed a technique to implant a fertilized embryo into another woman’s uterus. This gave rise to the practice known as Gestational Surrogacy.

The surrogate who gives birth to the baby now has no biological connection to that child. This has proven to eliminate much of the emotional hardship involved in the process of transferring that baby to the Intended Parents, especially if they provided the eggs and/or sperm for the baby.

The methods and processes used in Gestational Surrogacy have continued to improve since that time, increasing the number of successful births and happy families. Governments, mostly at the State level, have come to address Gestational Surrogacy and enact laws governing the progress. Unfortunately, the laws can vary widely by state, creating a crazy quilt of regulations, which only adds to the challenges facing Intended Parents. The laws can affect and nature and very validity of the surrogacy agreement, so it is important to understand the differences.

Arizona Miracles has responded to this challenge by creating our Cross-State Surrogacy® product.