When Intended Parents select a surrogate mother, they tend to pay more attention to their physical appearance. Therefore, experience has taught us that the IVF doctor should select and assign a surrogate mother to the program after doing a careful physical examination to determine her health. Surrogate assignment takes place two weeks before the preparations start. The case coordinator will send the parents a detailed profile and pictures of the surrogate mother along with a screening sheet; parents can then make the final decision about the candidate.
It should be mentioned that during the surrogate mother’s preparation, there is always a slight possibility of her being substituted by another. There are various reasons for this and substitution takes place only to maximize the chances of success. Using an alternate surrogate mother may be implemented due to factors such as: endomtrium thickness, sudden bleeding during her preparation, not being synchronized with the egg donor or the Intended Mother, or other medical reasons. Parents are always made aware of the change and are immediately updated about the replacement candidate’s personal details.
In the event of a first cycle failure parents are faced with two common scenarios. The first is that they may have frozen embryos left from their previous fresh cycle and can transfer them to the surrogate mother; the second is that they do not and they must have another fresh egg donor cycle done, or the intended parents need to be prepared again.
Fortunately, one agency payment for the surrogacy program covers three trials, which means that for the second and third trials parents do not pay an agency fee for the surrogacy service; they only need to cover the actual expenses for the surrogate mother’s preparation.
For example: if parents transfer frozen embryos for a second/third trial the cost is 3200 USD. If they do need to go for a fresh cycle it depends on the number of surrogates they use and thus payment depends on the package they have selected. Parents should note that the agency payment will be waived and they must only cover the surrogate mother’s preparation cost and fresh IVF expenses as well.
Parents first send an enquiry to the main contact person through our website; thereby providing inform about specific requirements they have, as well as the dates they are willing to participate in the program.
Once the dates are negotiated, parents begin the donor selection process. In order to select a suitable egg donor, parents must visit our website at: www.newlifegeorgia.com. A case coordinator will give them login details to access the database. After that, by clicking on the database link parents can view all available egg donors; donor pictures and personal profiles are attached to each of them, parents can easily review their medical history, previous donation history, current occupation, education, and so on. The questionnaires are very informative. However, we always encourage the parents to ask for any additional information available about the donor to help them make their final decision.
After that, parents send us copies of their passports and we then sign the contract. The contract can be exchanged electronically; there is no need to send the original hard copies to us. Parents make the first payment according to the invoices we send. After receiving payment we do a full screening of the egg donor and make sure we are ready to begin preparations. The IVF procedure then takes place on the assigned dates; consequently, parents need to be present for around 5 days, as it is difficult to determine in advance what the exact dates of egg retrieval will be.
The next step is egg retrieval and fertilization, after which the embryos are transferred to the surrogate mother. It is common practice to transfer day three embryos. However, day five blastocyst embryo transfers can be done upon the parents’ request. The number of embryos transferred per trial is three. If the parents are firmly against having twins, they can opt for transferring 2 embryos. Transferring more than three embryos is not advisable.
Initial pregnancy confirmation; HCG tests are done 14-16 days after the embryo transfer. Parents will receive the test results on the same day or early next morning. If the relevant level of HCG is confirmed by the first test we repeat the process two days after to finally confirm the pregnancy. One month after embryo transfer the first ultrasound is done.
Parents send the enquiry to the main contact person that appears on the website and inform about the requirements they have and mention the dates they are willing to participate into the program.
While having surrogacy program with us parents have two options. The intended mother can either get stimulated in local IVF clinic and come to Georgia on day 8-9 of stimulation and have the egg retrieval done in our clinic or alternatively they can be completely stimulated in Georgia. In first scenario parents need to calculate their staying in Georgia for around 6 days, while if they are stimulated in Georgia, they should calculate around 17 days to have the full procedure done with us. In both of the cases our IVF doctor need to have the complete screening of the parents and approve them for participation in the program.
After sending us the full screening parents send the passport copies and we sign the surrogacy contract. The contract can be exchanged electronically and there is no need to send the hard original copies to us. Parents make a first payment according to the invoices we send. After receiving the payment we make sure we are ready to start the preparation.
Intended Mother’s preparation will be synchronized to the surrogate mothers preparation. When the Intended Mother is prepared with local IVF doctor, during the preparation we need to have the stimulation updates of day 5 and day 8 with full report of how many follicles are in each ovary and what are the sizes of the follicles. On day 9 we need them to be present in our IVF clinic and the IVF doctor will decide the final trigger injection timing and the will set the egg retrieval date and timing.
Parents send the enquiry to the main contact person that appears on the website and inform about the requirements they have and mention the dates they are willing to participate into the program.
Once the dates are negotiated parents do the donor selection. In order to select a suitable egg donor, parents need to visit our website at: www.newlifegeorgia.com. Case coordinator will give the access to the database by giving the login details. After that, by clicking on the database parents see all available egg donors. You can see donor pictures and personal profiles attached to each of them, where parents can review their medical history, previous donation history, current occupation, education. Questionnaires are very informative however we always welcome the parents to ask us if there is any additional information they may need about the donor that helps them to make the final decision.
Intended mother needs to send the complete screening of hers. Our IVF doctor needs to review and approve that the patient satisfies the requirements and is fully fit to carry the baby.
After that parents send us the copies of their passports and we sign the contract. The contract can be exchanged electronically and there is no need to send the hard original copies to us. Parents make a first payment according to the invoices we send. After receiving the payment we do the full screening of the egg donor and make sure we are ready to start the preparation.
The carrier mother and the egg donor will start the stimulation simultaneously. Intended mother can start the preparation in their local IVF clinics and come for the egg retrieval and have the embryos transferred, or alternatively full preparation as a baby carrier can take place in Georgia.
Parents first send an enquiry to the main contact person through our website; thereby providing inform about specific requirements they have, as well as the dates they are willing to participate in the program.
Parents must make the arrangements for the embryos to be shipped to our laboratory. The clinic that is storing the frozen embryos has to prepare a detailed report to go along with them. In the report, we need to have information about the number of frozen embryos, how many straws they are frozen in, the grade of each embryo, number of days they were frozen and what method was used to freeze them. In addition, we will need the infectious disease test results (B Hepatitis, C Hepatitis, HIV, syphilis) of both parents.
After the embryos are safely delivered to our laboratory, parents need to send copies of their passport to us so we can prepare the contracts. Parents should first make a payment, after which we will start to prepare the surrogate mother. The embryos will be thawed and then transferred to the surrogate mother. The number of embryos to be transferred will be negotiated with the parents in advance.
This is an important question and we are happy to respond to it in detail: First, after a human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) blood test is done to confirm pregnancy, the case will then be passed along to a pregnancy care coordinator.
She will be responsible for sending gradual updates about the progress of the pregnancy and sending ultrasound reports to the surrogate mother. Parents are more than welcome to share any questions or concerns they may have during the ongoing process. Parents can also visit Georgia to see their surrogate mother at any time during the pregnancy; we will help to facilitate communication by whatever means necessary to ensure comfortable interaction between the parents and their surrogate mother.
This is a sensitive question, but one that must be asked and consequently answered for the sake of clarification: ultimately, pregnancy is confirmed once the heartbeat of the baby is heard. If the results of a HCG test come back positive and first ultrasound confirms the pregnancy, but fails to detect a heartbeat, at this stage, it is not considered to be a miscarriage; therefore parents will move on to the next trial without making an agency payment (if this is one of three trials included in one agency payment).
In the event that a heartbeat is heard and the pregnancy is considered stable, but the fetus stops developing later on, this is considered to be a miscarriage; in this case, the parents will have to start a new program along with making a full program payment. The payment made to surrogate mother at a specific stage of the pregnancy is discussed in the contracts.
This is a common question that parents often ask; more specifically, about having a guaranteed number of eggs, which is quite simply not possible. Unfortunately, nobody is able to predict an exact number before the actual egg retrieval process takes place.
However, to offer some measure of certainty, before involving the egg donor in the program, we can suggest that the parents request an Antral Follicle Count be performed on the egg donor in both of her ovaries; this will give us a rough estimate of the number of eggs we should expect. However, this is still not a solid guarantee that the same number of eggs will be received, as all the follicles may not respond to the stimulation in a same way.
You will have to visit Georgia twice; once to provide the sperm (and or egg retrieval) and once to take your baby home. If the parents cannot make the timeline given by the clinic, we welcome them to come to clinic at their own discretion and provide the frozen sperm to the clinic, which will be used for fertilization in their IVF program.
It is also possible for parents who are shipping frozen embryos to transfer limited Power of Attorney to the New Life staff by choosing this option in their contract and sending the original copy to us. The Power of Attorney contract needs to be notarized and authenticated in your own country; only then is the document considered legal. In this case, parents transferring frozen embryos for surrogacy will only need to travel to Georgia once to pick up their baby.
Citizens of EU Countries, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, San Marino, Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, South Korea, Iran and C.I.S nations (except Russia) need no visa to visit Georgia for up to 360 days. You will be provided with entry permit at the border upon arrival.
If you are not from one of the above countries, you can get a visa from a Georgian Embassy or Consulate. Visas are also issued at the official road and air entry point into Georgia.