What is Surrogacy?

Surrogate mothers (also called “gestational carriers”) provide the gift of unparalleled compassion for couples and individuals experiencing infertility. It is an arrangement in which a woman agrees to become pregnant for the purpose of carrying and giving birth to a child for others (commonly called “intended parents”) to raise.

The agency I founded, West Coast Surrogacy, focuses solely on gestational surrogacy. I feel passionately for this type of surrogacy as I have been a gestational surrogate myself. However, this is not the only avenue to surrogacy. There are two types of surrogacy: traditional and gestational.

• Traditional Surrogacy — An arrangement between the intended parents of the child and a woman who agrees to donate her egg(s) to be artificially inseminated with the sperm of the intended father or a sperm donor. In this type of surrogacy, the traditional surrogate is the baby's biological mother.
• Gestational Surrogacy — An arrangement between the intended parents of the child and a woman who agrees to carry the embryo(s) made from the egg(s) and sperm of the intended parents, or an egg donor/sperm donor. This process ensures the baby has no genetic relationship to the surrogate.