Up to 15% of female-male couples in the United States are considered infertile. That number is on the rise. And that number doesn’t include the thousands of same-sex couples who’d like to have a biological child, but can’t do so on their own.
Under the guidance of caring fertility experts Dr. Sharon Moayeri, Dr. Nidhee Sachdev, our team at OC Fertility offers many options to circumvent infertility, including gestational surrogacy. In gestational surrogacy, embryos are created outside the womb through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and then implanted in the uterus of a surrogate.
You may choose a surrogate who’s a family member or friend. Or you can choose to hire a carefully vetted surrogate. Either way, our team helps you with all of the medical, legal, and financial issues involved.
Is gestational surrogacy a good choice for you? The following are five benefits of using a gestational surrogate.
If you’ve thought that you’d never have a biological baby because you either weren’t born with a uterus (e.g., you’re male) or because your uterus was removed or is dysfunctional, surrogacy gives you another option. Same-sex male couples and women who can’t carry a baby to term or who don’t have a uterus can use a surrogate to carry their baby.
Women who may benefit from surrogacy include those with:
Biological females without functional uteruses who still have healthy ovaries can use their own eggs and their partner’s — or donated — sperm to create the embryos. Same-sex male couples can use their own sperm and a donated egg.
If you have a medical condition that would make it dangerous to carry a baby to term, you can still have a child through gestational surrogacy. Some conditions that may make your own pregnancy too dangerous to consider include:
Only you and your doctor know whether pregnancy would create a high-risk situation for your health. If you’re going to undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancer, for instance, you might opt to use a surrogate. You could also freeze your eggs for later use in your own — or a surrogate’s — womb.
About 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. Although 99% of women who’ve miscarried once never have another miscarriage, if you’ve had multiple miscarriages, you’re at high risk for another one.
To reduce your risk of miscarriage, you might consider gestational surrogacy. To further reduce the risk, we test the embryos for viability and health before implanting them in the surrogate. If your family has a history of chromosomal abnormalities that may trigger a miscarriage, we test for those, too.
If it’s important to you to have a biological child, gestational surrogacy may be the best and safest way to do so. We collect eggs from your ovaries, so the baby gets half of its DNA from you, the other half from its father. Or, if you’re a same-sex male couple, half of your baby’s DNA comes from your or your partner’s sperm, the other half from the egg donor.
Some women want to have biological children but don’t want to become pregnant or go through childbirth. Gestational pregnancy allows you to have a baby that carries your DNA, but relieves you from the physical burden of carrying the child yourself.
You may choose gestational surrogacy if your lifestyle makes it impossible to deal with the physical and time demands of pregnancy, delivery, and recovery. You may also choose surrogacy if you were pregnant before and suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum, or other conditions that severely impacted your quality of life.
Do you want to be pregnant without being pregnant? Discover more about how gestational surrogacy can make your dreams of a biological family come true. Call us today at 949-706-2229 or book an appointment on our website.
