The Process of Connecting Surrogates with Intended Parents in Colorado
If you’re considering becoming a surrogate in Colorado, you likely have a lot of questions about how surrogacy works. You may not know how to become a surrogate or even what it means to be a gestational surrogate. That’s okay! We can help. Often, a woman considering becoming a surrogate mother wonders how she will be matched with the right intended parents in Colorado. Here is how we at Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado work to help you find your perfect surrogacy match.
If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a surrogate, please call or text us at 303-670-4673 (HOPE) or visit us at Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado.
Are you Qualified to Become a Surrogate?
Not every woman is able to be a surrogate mother. Several factors must be considered in advance of matching a potential surrogate with hopeful parents. There are three basic categories of screenings or evaluations a potential surrogate must undergo.
- Physical. Are you physically able to carry a healthy baby to term and deliver the baby safely? With any pregnancy, unknown or unforeseen factors can occur. But to minimize those factors, we begin by making sure our surrogates are good candidates for a smooth pregnancy. You would undergo a physical exam to make sure there aren’t hidden health risks for you to carry a pregnancy. We’re looking for a woman who has had at least one complication-free pregnancy in her past. Even though any pregnancy has uncomfortable moments for any pregnant woman, the ideal candidate would describe pregnancy as an overall happy, joyful experience. Physically, she needs to be within a healthy weight range, as indicated by a BMI of between 19 and 33. (Although this is a guideline.) She also needs to be drug and smoke-free and of safe childbearing age. Again, this is a guideline, but the childbearing age is roughly 21-40 years old.
- Legally. Gestational surrogacy in Colorado does have a number of legal requirements for the surrogate. These include submitting to a background check and verifying that you are a legal resident of the United States. Additionally, if you’re considering becoming a surrogate, you cannot be receiving government financial assistance at the time of your potential surrogacy. There are a few other details that the legal representatives at Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado will gladly go over with you.
- Psychologically. We want to make sure you’re mentally and emotionally prepared for a gestational surrogacy journey. To help prepare you, you will undergo a psychological screening as well. Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado also encourages our surrogates to have a solid support system in place to help you through your pregnancy and encourage your surrogacy goals. We will be a big part of that support system, for sure. But it helps if your family and friends support you, as well.
Matching a Surrogate Mother with the Ideal Intended Parents
After all of that screening, we move on to the fun part — matching! By the time we get to the matching stage, the hopeful parents have undergone many of the same screenings as the potential surrogate. Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado then considers a few other factors that might help us make a good match.
- Location. It’s helpful for both the surrogate and the intended parents to be geographically close together — especially when it’s time for the delivery!
- Family Values. When working together to build a family, everyone involved is most comfortable if they share similar family values.
- Personality. The surrogate and the intended parents often form a lifelong bond that benefits everyone — most especially the child. This type of relationship is more likely to happen when the parents’ personalities and the surrogate’s personalities mesh together well.
- Expectations. Learning what each party hopes to get out of the surrogacy journey and matching people with compatible expectations is one of our goals.
After considering all of the above factors and screenings, you will receive a number of profiles created by Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado with potential matches for you, as the surrogate, with intended parents. Then, we facilitate meetings between the potential surrogate and hopeful parents to see if it’s a good fit. Once both parties agree, we move on to the legal contract phase, taken care of by our in-house legal team. After that, it’s just a short leap to growing a family!
Does the Money Factor Interfere with the Surrogate-Intended Parent Relationship?
We put a lot of work into connecting just the right gestational surrogate with perfectly matched intended parents in Colorado to make sure the surrogacy process is a joyful, positive experience for everyone involved. Most surrogates choose to become surrogate mothers to help build families for people who need help. While the surrogate mother fees aren’t their primary motivation, many of our surrogates do appreciate that Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado is a high-paying surrogacy agency. It’s comforting to know your needs will be met, and your health cared for while you are carrying a child for someone else.
Growing a human is a big job! Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado makes sure you’re compensated for that and takes care of the details so you can focus on the pregnancy and your relationship with the intended parents.
If you’re a woman considering surrogacy, contact Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado today and talk with one of our surrogacy professionals. We can answer all of your questions about becoming a gestational surrogate in Colorado.
If you are interested in learning more about your gestational surrogacy options, contact Adoption and Surrogacy Choices of Colorado by email, phone, or text: Email Us, Text us: 720-371-1099, Call us: 303-670-4673 (HOPE). If you are hoping to adopt, please contact us here.
Meet the Author: After graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Education, majoring in English and Social Sciences, Brianne Davis has spent her adult life as an educator; first in the public schools, later through martial arts. Her ability to convey difficult concepts, navigate varied learning styles, and always keep it interesting defined her reputation as an impactful instructor. Many of her early published blogs centered on the goal of helping other instructors effectively teach children for whom learning is a struggle. Once an empty nester, she committed to sitting in traffic less and writing more. With those goals in mind, she, along with her husband and dogs, packed up, sold their family home and moved to the banks of the Columbia River in Central Washington’s wine country, where the pace of life is slower and the sun shines brighter. Realizing in our modern age, more of us turn to the internet for information than ever before, Brianne, now dedicates her time to educating others through blog writing.
As a life-long information junkie, Brianne enjoys taking deep dives into new topics, then condensing them in an interesting way to convey valuable information in a relatively short amount of space. Once her career, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and mixed martial arts remain hobbies, along with boating, reading, and traveling.
Stephanie joined the Adoption Choices family in 2014 as the Child Placement Supervisor. Her love for adoption began in first grade when she made friends with twins adopted from Vietnam. Her heart grew strong over the years for adopted children and ultimately led her to graduate school where she continued her focus to her dream of working in the adoption field. Stephanie earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Denver in 2001. Over the past 15 years, Stephanie has worked as a pregnancy counselor and as an adoptive parent counselor for foster care, international adoption and domestic adoption, writing hundreds of home studies for families, and helping build their forever families. Stephanie is married and has three boys ages 12, 9, and 5. Together with her family she enjoys riding bike, playing games, watching her three sons compete in their various sporting and musical activities and go on vacations.
Christy Ikeler, is our Executive Director and Birth Parent Director. Christy has been with Adoption Choices Team for 18 years, since opening the doors in 2002! Christy has a true passion for what she does and her true love is working with and helping each birth parent. Whether she is up all night on the phone talking with them, taking them to doctors appointments, out for their favorite treat, providing counseling or at the hospital during labor and delivery, Christy is very involved every step of the way. She has a contagious laugh and a spunky personality that our birth moms all can bond with and relate to. As an adoptive parent herself, adoption holds a very special place in her heart and she can relate on every level with both birth parents and adoptive parents. In her free time Christy loves spending time with her daughter, gardening, baking and taking vacations with her family. Christy is an excellent leader for our team at Adoption Choices and is truly one of a kind!! As Executive Director, Christy spends time with the staff, birth parents and adoptive families in order to ensure that the agency is running smoothly. She has placed a huge emphasis on community outreach and programs for birth parents. Christy loves the opportunity to lead the agency into a brighter future.
Ms. Mackenzie has built a successful counseling career over the past 20 years, supporting mothers and families, people of all ages and genders, students, community professionals and fellow clinicians. Liv values a diverse professional focus, including the entrepreneurial life of a sole proprietor, the evaluative process of certifying foster/adoptive homes, the insightful and mindful one-on-one one work with enthusiastic clients, and serving as an advocate for underserved populations. Liv is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a BA in Pre-Law and Economics from American University, an MA in Counseling from Adams University and a certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University. Away from work you will find Liv spending time in nature, biking to the farmer’s market and adventuring with her family.
Catherine A. Madsen, joined the Adoption Choices family as legal counsel in 2013. Catherine is responsible for providing legal guidance to the Agency, training and updating staff on developments in adoption law and legislation, and program development. Catherine
Virginia Frank is an adoption attorney accredited since 1991 with the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Ms. Frank is a leader in the field of private adoption and has completed over 4,000 adoptions in her career. Ms. Frank has a law degree from Oklahoma City University and a BA in both Political Science and Communications from the University of Oklahoma.
Cassidie has been with Adoption Choices since 2015, she has her bachelors in Interdisciplinary Affairs with concentrations in both Sociology and Business Management. Cassidie has additional training in Victim Advocacy, foster care and has been working in women’s services for over 10 years. Cassidie has always had a heart for adoption and it was her career dream to work in adoption. She started off doing volunteer work for advocacy programs, adoption organizations and worked in High Risk Maternal Fetal Medicine through the University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Cassidie is also blessed to have personally experienced an adoption of her own in 2012, completing her family of five! Cassidie loves what she does as a case worker from initial phone calls, meetings, doctor appointments, interaction with the adoptive families to delivery and counseling. Cassidie has a passion for those in need and strives to help make a difference in the lives of the people she meets. She is a firm believer in being kind, compassionate and open minded in all situations. “Unless you’ve walked in their shoes, there’s no place for judgment. A kind word or compliment can go a long way!” The bittersweet moments in adoption reminds Cassidie each and every time, why she loves what she does!