How to Approach Your Relationship with Your Surrogate

Your alternative family planning journey is underway. You’ve picked your Surrogate, and you’re excited about what comes next. But when it comes to your relationship with your Surrogate, it can be hard to know what is supposed to come next for first time parents. What are your responsibilities to your Surrogate – and is your relationship supposed to remain purely transactional? 

We’ve outlined crucial components to consider when establishing your bond with your Surrogate. 

First, context is important: remember that your Surrogate is not your new best friend, and you aren’t theirs. While there is a natural implied intimacy between you due to the nature of the service that you’re hiring them for, it will always be important to keep that framing in mind when considering the following factors: established trust, open communication, appropriate boundaries, and reasonable flexibility. 

Establishing Trust

When it comes to successful surrogacy, trust is fundamental. This doesn’t mean turning a blind eye if given a reason to mistrust – but it does mean that you need to trust your Surrogate to do her job, and you need to make it clear that you trust her. It is understandable that you will be excited or even anxious, especially if it is your first child, but micromanaging her pregnancy won’t help. Instead, you will both end up stressed out and resentful, and that isn’t a best-case scenario for anyone involved. Instead, establishing a foundation of trust between you will allow both parties to relax and enjoy the journey. 

Open Communication

That leads us to number two on the list, open communication. At Simple Surrogacy, both the Intended Parents and the Surrogate have a team of professionals standing by to assist them with anything they may need on their journey, including facilitating communication between the two. Taking advantage of this as Intended Parents can go a long way to demonstrating to the Surrogate that you are involved and invested in her journey, and not just its eventual outcome (the child). Of course, some Surrogates may feel uncomfortable with too much communication. The best way to avoid any hiccups in this regard is to openly ask your Surrogate at the onset of your journey what her preferred communication methods and frequencies are – this is an entirely reasonable thing to ask, and odds are she will appreciate that you had the foresight to do so. 

Setting Boundaries

If communication is key, then boundaries are the second lock on the door, there to make sure you don’t forge forward too quickly or in an inappropriate manner when developing this relationship. Just like with any other relationship, boundaries are necessary to ensure everyone involved has as peaceful a time as possible with something as emotionally charged as surrogacy. Remember: boundaries can always be relaxed, but it is nearly impossible to firm them back up again afterwards. This is especially important to remember in the honeymoon stage of meeting your Surrogate: no matter how fond of your Surrogate you become – after all, this is the young woman who will help you become a parent – it is not uncommon for enamored Intended Parents to overshare or over promise in the wake of that rush of gratitude and love. This links back to the context provided at the beginning of this post: your Surrogate, while no doubt a lovely and wonderful human being, is only in your life to help you to grow your family and realize your dream of becoming a parent. Without that connection, the relationship does not exist. Do not make promises to your Surrogate that you will not wish to keep once the glow wears off. Be warm and authentic, of course, but establish healthy boundaries as well. 

Staying Flexible

Last but certainly not least, everyone involved in this journey is human, and that means it’s important to stay flexible. Every surrogacy journey is different, and yours will be just as unique as anyone else’s. What everyone’s story has in common, however, is that at some point they all needed to be flexible! Your Surrogate’s pregnancy is the entire context of your relationship with her, but she has a life outside of that and that matters too. 

(Note: If you feel your Surrogate is being neglectful, it is okay to reach out to your team to express your concerns. They have the tools and perspective to see past the understandably high-running emotions involved with surrogacy to help you to interpret what’s going on.)

In short, your Surrogate signed up to help you grow your family, but she is not required to always be at your immediate disposal. That simply isn’t feasible or reasonable to expect and has no bearing on whether she is taking care of herself and your child. 

All said, the relationship between Intended Parents and their Surrogate requires the same building blocks to be functional and healthy as any other relationship. Without the fundamentals of trust, communication, boundaries, and flexibility, it may still be possible to have a technically successful pregnancy, but you can rest assured it will be unnecessarily stressful for everyone involved. Establishing this framework early in your journey can set both Intended Parents and their Surrogate up for the best type of success possible. 

If you are interested in learning more about surrogacy and alternative family planning, the experienced professionals at Simple Surrogacy would love to hear from you. Contact us today for more information. 

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