When you finally start your surrogacy journey with your surrogate, it will be a thrilling moment. After all the matching, initial medical and psychological evaluations, and legal requirements, you will all be ready to take this journey together.
This journey is an amazing but complicated one. When the process starts getting serious, some surrogates and intended parents realize that their relationship isn’t as what they thought it was. Like any other personal relationship, your relationship may have ups and downs. It is important to be aware of this turbulence and be flexible enough to make compromises that make everyone happy.
Remember that every intended parent-surrogate connection is different, but here is some general advice for making sure you build a healthy relationship based on open communication.
Communicate Your Expectations Openly and Sincerely
The most important ingredient in your surrogacy relationship is communication. The best way to keep open lines of communication between you and your surrogate is to be interested in her and her life.
Also, don’t forget to be honest about your expectations. Doing so will not only make sure you are happy during the surrogacy journey but also go a long way in building a positive connection with your surrogate.
Prepare a Schedule for Contact
Don’t be afraid to ask your surrogate how much and what kind of communication she would like to have and be clear about how much communication you want with her. This discussion can help you prearrange a schedule for contact that will help both parties maintain regular contact and reduce possible conflicts.
Be Flexible
Flexibility is another ingredient for building healthy relationships. Surrogacy is not a straight forward journey. Challenges will arise, and flexibility will be essential to overcome them.
Being willing to accept the surrogate’s smallest desires will mean a lot to her and have a positive effect on your relationship with her, so welcome them as a part of your surrogacy journey.
Respect Her Personal Space
Boundaries are a key part of any relationship, and the relationship with your surrogate is no different.
Intended parents must realize the surrogate’s body is her own, and she alone has to suffer the changes. She also has a personal life, a family, a job, and daily problems aside from the surrogacy process, and it’s important that you respect her personal space.
Take it slow, be sincere and authentic, maintain a balance, and have good boundaries.
Treat Your Surrogate as You Would Like to Be Treated
For the most part, the success of your relationship with the surrogate will depend on the empathy that you have for her situation. Creating mutual respect between you and the surrogate is a key ingredient to a successful surrogacy journey.
Final Thoughts
While the responsibility for your relationship will primarily be between you and your surrogate, remember that if you work with a surrogacy professional, they can help you mediate if any issues arise. A surrogacy specialist can professionally handle more sensitive issues that could arise in your relationship and non-confrontationally discuss each party’s commitments if your relationship starts to fall apart.
When you trust each other, maintain open communication, define appropriate boundaries, and bring flexibility to all of your expectations, you have put everything in place for creating a positive relationship with your surrogate. Who knows, maybe this relationship will end up creating lifelong friendships.
MySurrogateMom.com is the first independent surrogacy community in the US and Canada. Finding the right surrogate mother, egg donor, or intended parents is an extremely personal process. We have created this space to help you connect with your surrogacy soulmate. In our surrogacy community, we work to provide the tools and information needed to help match extraordinary surrogate mothers and selfless egg donors with prospective intended parents.
