Becoming a gestational surrogate means carrying a pregnancy for another person or family using an embryo created through IVF. The surrogate does not provide the egg and is not genetically related to the baby.
But deciding to become a surrogate involves much more than being willing to become pregnant again.
You will need to meet medical and program qualifications, provide records from previous pregnancies, complete background and psychological screening, choose intended parents, receive final medical approval from a fertility clinic, review a legal agreement with your own attorney, take fertility medications, undergo an embryo transfer, and commit to the responsibilities of pregnancy and recovery.
At Simple Surrogacy, we have worked with surrogates and intended parents since 2002, and many members of our team have been surrogates themselves. One thing that experience has taught us is that women deserve to understand the entire process before deciding whether surrogacy is right for them.
If you are considering becoming a surrogate, here is what you should expect from application through delivery.
A gestational surrogate—also called a gestational carrier—is a woman who carries a pregnancy for intended parents using an embryo created through IVF.
She does not provide the egg used to create the embryo.
That means a gestational surrogate is not genetically related to the baby she carries.
The embryo may be created using:
If the woman carrying the pregnancy also provides the egg, that is traditional surrogacy, which is different medically, genetically, and legally.
Read our full explanation of gestational surrogacy versus traditional surrogacy.
Surrogacy is not medically appropriate for everyone who would like to become a surrogate.
Requirements exist first and foremost because pregnancy carries real physical risks, and fertility clinics need evidence that a potential surrogate has previously tolerated pregnancy well.
Simple Surrogacy’s current program generally requires applicants to:
Individual fertility clinics can establish additional requirements.
You can review our complete current Simple Surrogacy qualifications and surrogate program.
Professional guidance from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine similarly recommends that gestational carriers be of legal age and preferably between ages 21 and 45, have experienced at least one uncomplicated term pregnancy, and have an adequate support system.
One of the most basic surrogate requirements is having previously carried and delivered a child.
There is good reason for that.
Surrogacy should not be your first experience with pregnancy.
If you have already been pregnant, you know what pregnancy, prenatal appointments, labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery actually feel like.
Your doctors also have medical records showing how your body responded to pregnancy.
Those records can reveal information about issues such as:
A previous uncomplicated pregnancy cannot guarantee that a future pregnancy will also be uncomplicated.
It does, however, give the fertility clinic valuable medical information when evaluating whether another pregnancy appears appropriate.
If you meet the general qualifications, the next step is submitting an application.
You can apply to become a surrogate with Simple Surrogacy here.
An application usually asks about your:
This is not simply paperwork designed to qualify or disqualify you.
It gives our team the information needed to determine whether moving into screening makes sense and allows us to begin understanding what type of journey and intended-parent relationship might be a good fit for you.
After the application comes an interview and pre-screening.
At Simple Surrogacy, this process can include collecting and reviewing your previous pregnancy records, verifying your medical history, completing background screening, reviewing your insurance, and completing psychological evaluation.
ASRM recommends a comprehensive screening process that can include medical evaluation, infectious-disease testing, psychosocial evaluation and counseling, preconception testing, uterine evaluation, and legal counseling.
Screening may feel extensive.
It should.
A reputable surrogacy program should be careful about who enters the medical process—not because pregnancy can ever be made risk-free, but because avoidable risks should be identified before anyone proceeds.
Once you are ready for matching, you will prepare a profile that helps intended parents learn who you are.
Your profile is not a résumé.
Intended parents want to know about your pregnancy history, but they also want to understand you as a person.
You may talk about:
Be yourself.
The goal is not to appeal to every intended parent.
The goal is to help you find intended parents with whom you are genuinely compatible.
This is an important distinction in the Simple Surrogacy program:
The surrogate chooses first.
We do not simply assign you to the next intended parents waiting for a surrogate.
Our matching team identifies intended-parent profiles that align with your preferences and presents them to you.
You decide whether you are interested.
Only after you choose a profile do we present your profile to those intended parents.
If they are interested too, we arrange a facilitated conversation so everyone can get to know one another.
Either side can say no.
A surrogate should never feel pressured to accept intended parents because they are available or because declining them might slow down the process.
Learn more about how surrogate matching works.
Think beyond whether you simply like someone.
You may be sharing nearly a year of medical treatment, pregnancy, appointments, communication, uncertainty, and major milestones with these people.
Consider questions such as:
How often do we want to communicate?
Would they like to attend appointments?
What relationship do we envision after delivery?
How do we each communicate when we are stressed?
What are our expectations about prenatal testing?
Are our views compatible regarding termination or selective reduction if serious medical circumstances arise?
How involved do they expect to be in everyday pregnancy decisions?
Do I feel respected when I talk with them?
Compatibility does not require you to agree about everything.
But fundamental expectations should be discussed before anyone commits to the match.
Psychological screening is a normal part of gestational surrogacy.
It is not intended to determine whether you are a “good person” or whether you are emotionally strong enough to help someone.
Surrogacy creates circumstances most women have never experienced during their own pregnancies.
You may discuss:
ASRM includes psychosocial evaluation and counseling as part of recommended gestational-carrier screening.
Use this process to ask questions too.
Screening should help you prepare—not simply evaluate you.
Agency screening and fertility-clinic screening are not the same thing.
Even after Simple Surrogacy determines that you meet our program criteria, the intended parents’ IVF clinic has the final responsibility for medically approving you for embryo transfer.
The clinic may review your complete obstetric history and perform bloodwork, infectious-disease testing, physical evaluation, uterine-cavity testing, and other examinations according to its protocols.
Every fertility clinic is somewhat different.
That means passing agency screening does not guarantee final medical clearance.
Our detailed guide to gestational-surrogate medical screening explains this stage in more depth.
After medical clearance, the legal process begins.
You should have your own independent attorney.
The intended parents have an attorney representing them.
Your attorney represents you.
The intended parents generally pay the cost of your legal representation, but that does not change who your attorney works for.
Your gestational-carrier agreement can address matters including:
You should understand your contract before signing it.
Ask questions.
Request clarification.
Discuss anything that makes you uncomfortable.
You can read more about the surrogacy legal process.
Once legal clearance is complete, your fertility clinic prepares you for embryo transfer.
Because you are not conceiving through intercourse, the clinic uses medications and monitoring to prepare your uterus for implantation.
The exact medication protocol varies by clinic and individual circumstances.
You may use medications such as:
Some may be taken orally or through patches or suppositories. Others can involve injections.
The clinic monitors your hormone levels and uterine lining and determines when you are ready for embryo transfer.
During embryo transfer, the fertility clinic places an embryo into your uterus using a thin catheter.
The procedure itself is generally brief.
Afterward comes one of the emotionally difficult parts of fertility treatment: waiting to find out whether implantation occurred.
Your fertility clinic will schedule testing to determine whether pregnancy has been established.
Not every embryo transfer results in pregnancy.
Sometimes another transfer is necessary.
Understanding that possibility before beginning can help establish realistic expectations.
Once pregnancy is confirmed, you continue being monitored by the fertility clinic during the early stages.
Eventually, assuming the pregnancy is progressing appropriately, the clinic releases you to your OB/GYN.
At that point, much of the medical experience may begin to look more like your previous pregnancies.
But a surrogate pregnancy is different in one major respect:
Another family is experiencing the pregnancy through you.
The intended parents may attend appointments when practical.
They may look forward to ultrasound photographs and updates.
They are waiting for the same milestones you remember from your own pregnancies—but this time, you are the person helping them experience those moments.
Simple Surrogacy coordinators remain involved throughout the pregnancy to help with communication, appointments, reimbursements, benefits, insurance questions, and the many logistical details surrounding the journey.
You can review our full surrogate pregnancy process overview.
Compensation is understandably one of the first questions potential surrogates ask.
And it is okay to care about compensation.
Surrogacy requires substantial time, physical effort, medical treatment, pregnancy, delivery, and recovery.
Compensation recognizes that commitment.
A total compensation package can include much more than base pay. Depending on the program and contract, benefits may include:
Rather than hard-coding compensation figures into an evergreen article that will eventually become outdated, we publish the current package separately.
See our current surrogate compensation and benefits.
A surrogate should not be expected to personally finance someone else’s fertility journey.
The intended parents fund the expenses established in the surrogacy agreement.
Depending on your contract, that can include appropriate travel, childcare, lost wages, medical expenses, medications, legal representation, insurance-related costs, and other approved surrogacy expenses.
At Simple Surrogacy, surrogate compensation and reimbursement funds are handled through independent escrow rather than being held as agency operating funds.
That separation is an important financial protection.
There is no single timeline.
The overall journey may include:
Some stages can move quickly.
Others depend on outside professionals, medical records, clinic schedules, intended-parent preferences, legal clearance, or whether the first embryo transfer results in pregnancy.
Be cautious about anyone who promises you an exact timeline.
Surrogacy involves reproduction, and reproduction does not operate according to guaranteed schedules.
This is one of the questions surrogates are asked most often.
Most gestational surrogates enter the journey with an understanding that is completely different from their own pregnancies.
You are not preparing to bring home another child.
You know whose baby you are carrying.
You have met the intended parents.
You chose them.
You may have watched them attend appointments, receive ultrasound pictures, prepare a nursery, and wait anxiously for their baby to arrive.
That does not mean delivery or postpartum recovery is emotionally meaningless.
Pregnancy and childbirth involve hormones, physical recovery, and significant emotions.
You can feel proud, emotional, happy, tired, relieved, or several of those feelings at once.
Those emotions do not mean you misunderstood the purpose of the journey.
After birth, the intended parents begin caring for their baby according to the hospital and legal plan.
You begin recovering from childbirth.
Your body still needs postpartum care even though you are not taking a newborn home.
You may experience:
Some surrogates choose to pump breast milk for a period of time.
Others do not.
Some remain extremely close with their intended parents after delivery.
Others stay in occasional contact.
There is no universal relationship model.
What matters is discussing everyone’s expectations before the journey begins.
Yes.
Simple Surrogacy works with qualified surrogates in many states where the legal circumstances allow us to do so.
Your location matters because surrogacy laws and parentage procedures are state-specific.
If you live in Texas, we have a dedicated guide explaining how to become a surrogate in Texas.
If you live elsewhere, our team can determine whether we currently work with surrogates in your state and explain any state-specific considerations.
Meeting the requirements only tells you whether you may qualify.
It does not answer the more personal question:
Do I actually want to do this?
Before applying, ask yourself:
Do I enjoy pregnancy?
How did I feel during my previous pregnancies?
Is my family supportive?
Can I manage appointments and potential travel?
Am I comfortable taking fertility medications?
Am I comfortable with intended parents being involved in the pregnancy?
Can I communicate openly if something makes me uncomfortable?
How do I feel about carrying a baby and then seeing the intended parents leave the hospital as that baby’s parents?
Am I comfortable discussing difficult pregnancy decisions before matching?
Can I accept that pregnancy always carries some medical risk?
Does helping another family build their family genuinely appeal to me?
And yes:
Does the compensation make the physical and time commitment worthwhile for my family?
You are allowed to consider both generosity and compensation.
They are not mutually exclusive.
If you are still thinking through the physical and emotional side of another pregnancy, read Becoming a Surrogate: Are You Ready for Pregnancy Again?.
Yes. Simple Surrogacy requires applicants to have previously carried and delivered a child. Previous pregnancy history gives fertility specialists important information about whether another pregnancy appears appropriate.
Simple Surrogacy’s current gestational-surrogate program accepts qualified applicants between ages 21 and 42. Individual fertility clinics may impose additional requirements.
Simple Surrogacy’s current published requirement is a BMI under 33. Fertility clinics may have their own BMI criteria.
Possibly. A previous C-section does not automatically disqualify someone. Your total obstetric history, number of C-sections, reason for the procedure, recovery, and fertility-clinic criteria all matter.
Potentially, yes. Gestational surrogates become pregnant through IVF embryo transfer, so the fallopian tubes are not required for conception in the same way they are during an unassisted pregnancy. Your overall medical history still needs to be approved by the fertility clinic.
No. A gestational surrogate does not provide the egg. If the carrier provides her own egg, that is traditional rather than gestational surrogacy.
Yes. At Simple Surrogacy, the surrogate reviews appropriate intended-parent profiles first and chooses whom she is interested in meeting.
Yes. You should have independent legal representation. Your attorney represents your interests even though the intended parents generally pay the legal fee.
Surrogacy-related medical expenses are addressed through insurance and the financial arrangements established for the journey. A surrogate should not be expected to personally absorb approved expenses associated with someone else’s surrogacy journey.
Many surrogates continue working. Your job, medical circumstances, appointments, travel requirements, and any physician-ordered restrictions will determine what is appropriate for you.
That decision involves the fertility clinic, intended parents, surrogate, medical circumstances, and the agreements established before treatment. Embryo-transfer expectations should be discussed before matching and again during the medical and legal processes.
A failed transfer does not necessarily end the journey. Depending on the circumstances, the fertility clinic and parties may prepare for another transfer attempt.
Becoming a surrogate is a major commitment.
You do not need to make that commitment before asking questions.
Applying gives you an opportunity to learn whether you meet the initial qualifications, understand current compensation, ask about IVF and medications, learn how matching works, and talk with people who have actually experienced surrogacy themselves.
At Simple Surrogacy, our all-women team includes former surrogates and egg donors, and our surrogate program has been shaped by firsthand experience as well as more than two decades working in third-party reproduction.
If you are considering becoming a surrogate, start by reviewing our current surrogate qualifications and program benefits, explore the current compensation package, or submit a surrogate application.
Ask questions first.
A good surrogate program should want you to know exactly what you are agreeing to.
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