Becoming a Parent Through Surrogacy
Surrogacy can be a long, complex, and emotional path to parenthood, and every family experiences that journey differently. With 99.2% of our intended parents successfully bringing home a baby, we're committed to helping you reach that moment. When it comes, holding your baby for the first time is so incredible, it's hard to put into words.
Considerations Before You Begin Surrogacy
If you choose surrogacy as your path, you’ll prepare for an experience that requires openness and honesty — with your clinic and agency, your future surrogate, and your support person. We will help you build a healthy and strong relationship with your gestational surrogate to help ensure the best possible journey for everyone 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 further along in your journey, we’re committed to supporting you at each step, walking alongside you through any bumps in the road and sharing our more than 30 years of 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 come with a lot of questions.
As you begin exploring surrogacy, we can simplify the early stages of the process for intended parents into three clear steps:
Select a Surrogacy Agency
Select a Clinic Partner
Select an Egg Donor (If Needed)
Select a Surrogacy Agency
We recommend selecting an agency as the first step you take for a few reasons. First, matching with a surrogate takes time, and once you sign on with an agency, you can begin the matching process.
Once that process is underway, 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 help you understand what to look for in a surrogacy agency.
The second reason for selecting an agency as the first step is that the right agency can help you make early decisions with more clarity and support. A full-service agency like ours can help coordinate additional parts of your surrogacy journey, including guidance around choosing a clinic if needed and finding an egg donor if your path requires one.
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 relationships with nearly 400 clinic partners across the United States, many of whom we've worked with for over a decade.
If you have not yet selected a clinic, or if you are looking to find a new clinic, our team can help you understand your options and coordinate next steps. Once your clinic is selected, we will manage the relationship and liaise with the clinic for your journey.
Select an Egg Donor (If Needed)
Should you need an egg donor to grow your family, our team is ready to provide guidance and support. We offer an in-house egg donor database of thoroughly screened fresh donors. We also maintain trusted partnerships with third-party agencies and clinics if you prefer a frozen donor or are seeking options beyond our donor pool.
Why Parents Choose Circle
Your surrogacy agency is an essential partner on your journey to parenthood. Choosing Circle gives you access to a full-service program featuring the top 4% of highly screened surrogate applicants, dedicated interdisciplinary experts, and a long history of success.
Full-Service Agency
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 comprehensive support for a well-tended journey toward parenthood.
A Track Record You Can Rely On
Our team brings more than 30 years of experience to every journey. 99.2% of our intended parents welcome a baby home, measured across those who had a baby in their first two transfers or completed at least three transfers.
A Team Who's Been There and Is Ready to Help
Nearly 50% of our staff have been a surrogate, intended parent, or egg donor, or have grown their families through surrogacy, IVF, or adoption. Because of this, we bring deep dedication and knowledge to serving you on your journey.
Healthy Relationships With Surrogates
Every surrogate who is ready to match has been fully vetted in our three-step screening process. We’ve helped over 3,400 families build relationships with surrogates that many describe as feeling like family.
Our Parenthood Programs
We understand that every family is different, and grown differently, too. We offer the following parenthood programs to help as many individuals and couples as possible become parents:
Gestational Surrogacy Only
Gestational Surrogacy Plus Egg Donation
Surrogacy With Your Own Surrogate
Dual Journey
Review this helpful flowchart if you're not sure which program you need.
Gestational Surrogacy Only
This program is for intended parents who will create embryos with their own eggs and sperm or have already created embryos but need a surrogate to carry their baby. It's for those who turn to surrogacy for reasons like infertility, a medical diagnosis such as cancer, a genetic condition they hope not to pass on, or same-sex couples ready to grow their family.
Our team will walk alongside you through the entire surrogacy journey. We will work with your IVF clinic, match you with a surrogate whose values, expectations, and circumstances align with yours, and manage all aspects of your journey from the beginning through bringing your baby home safely.
Gestational Surrogacy Plus Egg Donation
This program is for intended parents who require egg donation to create embryos and need a surrogate to carry their child. For Surrogacy Plus Egg Donation, you will match with an egg donor and, in some cases, a sperm donor. For the egg donation process, you can choose to select frozen eggs or do a fresh egg donation cycle.
Once the eggs are retrieved or thawed, embryos will be created in a lab at your IVF clinic. The best embryos will be frozen, and one will be transferred to your surrogate.
Surrogacy With Your Own Surrogate (BYOS)
In some instances, you may have a family member or friend, or have found a match through surrogacy communities, who is willing to be your surrogate. In the case that you have found a surrogate outside of an agency, you have two paths available:
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First, you may choose to pursue surrogacy without the support of an agency.
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Second, even if you have found a surrogate on your own, you may still desire to have an agency manage all the logistics of your surrogacy journey.
This program offers different levels of support for your family. Speak with us to learn more about your options and costs.
Dual Journey
In a Dual Journey, intended parents have two surrogates carrying their children in staggered pregnancies. You can choose Surrogacy Only if you have your embryos created (or plan to create them) with your own eggs and sperm, or Gestational Surrogacy Plus Egg Donation if you need donor eggs to build your family.
This option is great if you hope to have more than one child through surrogacy. Your care team may recommend this over a single surrogate carrying twins.
Our parenthood programs were created to help as many families as possible. Our dedicated team can assist you in determining the best path towards creating your dream family. Please fill out our parent form to connect with us.
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 here.
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. At Circle, 99.2% of our intended parents welcome a baby home.
Yes, there are several ways to finance your surrogacy journey, including existing resources such as employer benefits and health insurance, secured and unsecured loans, medical financing, and grant or discount programs you may be eligible for. Visit our financing page and how to afford surrogacy post to learn more.
No. With gestational surrogacy, the surrogate does not contribute DNA to the baby. DNA comes only from the sperm source and the egg. If the eggs or sperm used in surrogacy come from an intended parent, then the baby will share DNA with the mother or father. Read this blog post for details about surrogacy and DNA.
Pursuing surrogacy independently is possible. It is time-consuming because you're responsible for many steps in the matching and planning process that an agency would otherwise handle. These tasks include finding and screening a surrogate, hiring an attorney, and coordinating with a fertility clinic.
We help build families for intended parents who have a physical or psychological medical need for surrogacy — including couples who cannot carry a pregnancy themselves, such as same-sex male couples. Each situation is different, and we’ll talk with you to understand your circumstances. Additionally, we partner with intended parents who are cancer survivors or are HIV-positive.
Age guidelines can vary based on your individual circumstances and medical factors. We evaluate each case individually, based on your health and personal circumstances. Contact our team to discuss your specific situation and eligibility.
Take the First Step Toward Building Your Family
Whether you're just beginning to explore surrogacy or are ready to move forward, we're here to help you understand your options and take the next step with confidence. From your first consultation through every milestone of your journey, you'll have dedicated support tailored to your individual needs.
Connect with us today to schedule your consultation and take the first step toward parenthood with Circle.