

Becoming a Parent through Surrogacy
Surrogacy is a meaningful and beautiful family-building experience. While surrogacy can be a long, complex and emotional path to parenthood (it is often referred to as a “journey”), the moment you hold your baby for the first time is so overwhelming and incredible, it’s hard to put into words.

Why Parents Choose Circle Surrogacy
Your surrogacy agency is an essential partner on your journey to parenthood. Choosing Circle gives you access to a full-service program with highly-screened surrogates, dedicated interdisciplinary experts and a long history of success.
We offer a small agency feel with the resources of a large agency, and the ability to work across medical, legal, financial and programmatic teams to offer you the most comprehensive support for a well-tended journey towards parenthood.
Full-service Agency
Our team of experts have accumulated the most experience in the surrogacy space, leading to the highest success rate in the industry: 99.4% for those who had a baby from their first two transfers, or completed at least 3 transfers.
The Most Experienced,
the Highest Success
44% of Circle's staff has personal experience as a gestational surrogate or egg donor, or as intended parents through surrogacy, IVF or adoption. Because of this, we bring deep dedication and knowledge to serving you on your journey.
A Team That’s Been There,
and is Ready to Help
Every surrogate that is ready to match has been fully vetted in our 3-step screening process. We’ve helped hundreds of parents build relationships with their surrogates who truly feel like family by the end of the process, and we genuinely believe fostering this relationship is the best way to bring a baby into the world.
Healthy Relationships
With Surrogates

Considerations Before You Begin Surrogacy
Intended parents who choose surrogacy as their path should prepare for an experience that requires openness and honesty – with your clinic and agency, with your future surrogate, and with each other (if you have a partner). We will encourage a healthy and strong relationship with your gestational surrogate to help ensure as smooth a journey as possible by encouraging you to follow our MatchMade™ matching process.
Whether you are just starting on the road to building your family, or you’re exploring surrogacy after infertility challenges, we’re committed to supporting you at each step, guiding you through any bumps in the road and sharing our expertise and passion until you have your baby in your arms.

Your First Steps as Intended Parents
A surrogacy journey can seem a little daunting at first, and you may not know where to start. Through both our professional and personal experience with surrogacy as intended parents, we understand that taking that first step can be intimidating.
As you begin exploring surrogacy, we can simplify the early stages of the process into three easy steps:
Select a Surrogacy Agency
Select a Clinic Partner
Select an Egg Donor (If Needed)
Select a Clinic Partner
If you are coming to this journey having already selected a clinic, our team will be happy to coordinate with their care team. Circle has decades-long relationships with many clinics in the United States – both large and small – to support our intended parents.
If you have not yet selected a clinic – or if you are looking to find a new clinic – our team can help facilitate that process with you. Once a clinic is selected, your Circle team will manage the relationship and liaise with the clinic for your journey.
Select a Surrogacy Agency
We recommend selecting an agency as the first step you take for a few reasons. First, the wait time to match with a surrogate may take time, and the minute you officially sign on with an agency, you will be added to the surrogate matching list. Once your spot is secured, you can continue working on the other steps in the process while you are waiting. With so many surrogacy agencies to choose from, it helps to have criteria by which you can measure if the agency will be the right fit for you. We’ve put together this article to guide you in what to look for in a surrogacy agency.
The second reason for selecting an agency as the first step is that having the support of an agency can help guide you from the beginning of your journey. A full-service agency like Circle will provide support and guidance in choosing a clinic (should you need our expertise) and an egg donor (if one is required).
Select an Egg Donor (If Needed)
If you require an egg donor to build your family, you can begin the donor selection process. We recommend reviewing the bright, young egg donors from Everie, an egg donor program and partner of ours. Everie is a fresh and frozen egg donor program that supports thoughtful decision-making around disclosed donations and mutual matching. The experienced team understands the importance of selecting the right donor, and the impact that choice has on your future child(ren).
Our team is invested in your success on this family-building path, and we’re here to share our expertise and personal experience to assist you in this decision-making process.
According to the CDC, surrogacy has the highest rate of success of any fertility treatment. Surrogacy success rates are influenced by the IVF clinic you work with, the health and viability of the embryo you use, and the health and fertility history of your surrogate. In the U.S., fertility centers have a surrogacy success rate of about 75%, with the rate increasing up to 95% once the gestational carrier is pregnant.
Pursuing surrogacy independently is possible. It is time-consuming because you're responsible for many steps in the matching and planning process that the agency would otherwise handle. These tasks include finding and screening a surrogate, hiring an attorney, and coordinating with a fertility clinic.
If you use a gestational carrier, the surrogate does not contribute DNA to the baby. DNA comes only from the sperm source and the egg. If the eggs used in surrogacy come from an intended parent, then the baby will share DNA with the mother.
Intended Parents FAQs
Below are some common questions about becoming intended parents. You can read our full list of FAQs about the general surrogacy process from intended parents here.