October 20, 2021 • 41 mins
The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
Adding a baby to a family can happen many different ways. A few ways we’ve been hearing about more recently is through the use of egg donors and surrogates. Joining us today to share more about the process of becoming an egg donor or a surrogate is Eloise Drane. Eloise and I chatted about the process of becoming an egg donor or a surrogate, some of the challenges of finding egg donors and surrogates, and some of the common misconceptions related to surrogacy and egg donation.
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Instagram: @eloisedrane @familyinceptions
Twitter: @familyinception
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kay Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a
weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the
small decisions we can make to become the best possible
(00:22):
versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope
you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it
(00:43):
is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship
with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so
much for joining me for session two thirty of the
Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into the
episode after a word from our sponsors. Adding a baby
(01:15):
to a family can happen many different ways. A few
ways we've been hearing about more recently is through the
use of egg donors and surrogates. Joining us today to
share more about the process of becoming an egg donor
or surrogate is Eloise Drain. After completing our NBA, Eloise
founded Family Inceptions, a full service surregacy and egg donation
(01:37):
agency here in Atlanta. She holds fertility Cafe, an educational
podcast on modern family building, and is the creator of
a digital course on independence, surrogacy Surrogacy Roadmap. Eloise's passion
and unparalleled empathy in this area blossom from her own
experience as an egg donor six times and a guestational
(01:59):
surrogate three times. Eloise and I chatted about the process
of becoming an egg donor or a surrogate, some of
the challenges of finding egg donors and surrogates, and some
of the common misconceptions related to surrogacy and egg donation.
If there's something that resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
please share it with us on social media using the
(02:19):
hashtag tv G in session. Here's our conversation. Thank you
so much for joining us today, Elouise, thank you for
having me here. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I've really
been so interested in this topic and it definitely seems
like something more and more people are talking about, and
so we wanted to have this conversation with our community.
(02:40):
So could you just start by telling us a little
bit about what you do and what does the Egg
Donation and Surregacy Agency do. So I am owner, founder
of Family inceptions, and we are a full service surregacy
and egg donation agency where we match intended parents, So
families that want to work with the surrogat or egg donor,
(03:02):
we matched them with egg donors and surrogates that come
to us and obviously want to assist these families. Okay,
and how did you get interested in this work? Oh gosh.
The catalyst for me, quite honestly was I was a
kidney donor, first to a cousin of mine, and when
I went to visit him in California, I saw an
(03:23):
ad for egg donation. I was like, oh, I could
probably do that. At the time, I already had my
three kids and I just was sure thought that I
was done. I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds like
something I can do. But I was obviously fresh out
of kidney surgery, so I wasn't doing anything at any point.
And then probably about a year later, it came back
up in my head. This was in so as you
(03:46):
can imagine the information, you know, Dr Google wasn't Dr
Google day, right. I reached out to the agency thinking
that they were going to tell me that I couldn't
donate because I wasn't in California what they told me
was I would be a great candidate, but that black
women didn't have fertility issues and so it would take
(04:06):
a long time to find me a match if any.
So I was like, oh, okay, because remember, now there
was an information out there that you can really search
to see how factual. The information they provided, which I
can tell you right now is completely fus but at
the time I didn't know that. They eventually called me back.
About nine ten months later, I went on to do
(04:28):
my first egg donation journey. It was actually a horrible experience.
Well I wouldn't say horrible, but it was definitely not
what I was thinking it was going to be. I
was by myself. I actually ended up hyper stimulating where
my body had overproduced eggs, which obviously was good for
(04:51):
the family so that they had enough, but my body
was just like, WHOA, what's going on? You have all
these eggs that you're producing at the same time. Quite honestly,
a after my retrieval an hour later, the nurse dropped
me off back at the hotel, gave me a check
and was like, thanks, call a taxi to the airport home.
(05:11):
And I never heard from them again, and I completely
felt used. I was just like, oh, this is not
what I was expecting. I had obviously the year before
had given my cousin to kidney, and it was obviously family, yes,
but it was still an experience and a feeling that
I had never experienced before. And I thought that doing
(05:33):
the donation, I was going to feel that again, and
I did it. If anything, I felt frustrated and felt
just used. After that, I was like, Okay, I'm never
going to do that again. And then probably about two
or three years later is when again something popped into
my head to become a donor once again, and I
was just like, Okay, black women don't really need donors.
(05:54):
I'm probably never gonna get selected, but I'll go ahead
and put my information. And there was this website at
the time that you can put classified ads, and I did,
and within two three hours I had so many emails
from women looking for black donors and saying they couldn't
find black donors. And then it was a completely different
experience from then on out. Wow, so it really sounds
(06:16):
like you have a personal connection to really wanting to
do this work and doing it well. Oh yes, So
in total life been a six time egg donor, and
I've been a three time sir again personally, and then
of course I'd run my own agency, and it was
one of the reasons why I wanted to start my
agency from one my experience as being a donor to
(06:37):
from them telling me that black women didn't have fertility
issues and then coming across all of these black women
that we're having fertility issues and realizing at that point
and again this is now two thousand to two thousand three,
their disparity back then, so you can only imagine what
(06:59):
it is now, right, So can you say more about
what it means to donate your eggs and what are
like the requirements for someone to donate their eggs? Sure, so,
in order to become an egg donor, someone that needs
to be between twenty one and twenty nine. You have
to be healthy, can't be on any kind of medications obviously,
(07:20):
can't be a smoker, drug user. You have to be healthy.
And yes, there is compensation right now, a first time
donor can probably receive about eight thousand dollars and you
can donate a maximum um of six times in a lifetime.
And donation definitely takes time. Although you're not going to
be on medication for an extended period of time. You're
(07:42):
probably only on METS for about twelve days. But the
process in getting to become a donor is a process.
You have to go through medical screening, psychological evaluation, genetic screening,
all of the things, just to make sure obviously that
you are capable of actually producing the eggs, and then
(08:02):
going through the actual retrieval. And unfortunately, there's no way
to know how many eggs you're going to produce, especially
if you're a first time donor. But what I can
tell you that there are a lot of black women
that are looking for black egg donors, and there is
actually a shortage right now of black donors as well
(08:25):
as a shortage of black sperm donors. Okay, so this
may be something that people may want to consider. What
kinds of things besides like the health considerations, are there
some psychological or emotional things that you would want to
pay attention to if you're considering this process. Absolutely, you
have to remember what you're giving up is d NA, right,
(08:46):
So you're giving up tissue, You're you're not necessarily giving
up quote a child, but at the same time, you
are giving up this DNA makeup that would be come
child hopefully one day, and you have to have the
emotional bandwidth to be able to realize down the road,
(09:08):
one day, this DNA that you're giving up is going
to become a human being and someday want to know
their origin, want to know their story, want to know
their makeup, and they have every right to know that.
And even though you may, for instance, my first donation
was anonymous, but I don't know one day if one
(09:31):
of those children are ever going to come and seek me,
And for me, I am totally fine with it. I've
always been quite open with the fact that I've been
a donor, that I've been a surrogate. I have children
of my own, and my children know that I've been
a donor because for me, it was never something that
I was embarrassed about or ashamed about. If anything, it
(09:53):
was something that I was proud to do because I
know that I was helping somebody else to be able
to fulfill their dream of having children. Maybe they couldn't
have children because they have cancer, or they have sickle cell,
or they have some kind of other disease that they
can't produce eggs, but they want to be able to
(10:15):
have a child, they want to be able to have
a pregnancy, they want to go through that experience, and
this is an option for them. And so how would
they get started? Would they find like an agency like yours.
They can find an agency like mine, or they can
even if they're working with the fertility clinic. Many clinics
have fertility egg banks within the fertility clinic. But I
(10:38):
can tell you when it comes unfortunately to black donors,
it's hard. It's difficult to find them because they're just
they're really hard to come by. A lot of people
just don't donate for a number of factors, and obviously
all legit factors, but a lot of people don't donate.
I mean there's a lack of education, of not really
(11:00):
understanding the process and how it works and what's required.
There's the history in this country of how black women
have been treated more breeders than they were a few
being human beings, and so all of those things come
into play, and it really is about educating people. And
(11:21):
then one of the other thing too, is everybody worries
about their fertility. How is it going to affect their fertility?
Can I say that there's guarantee that there's never going
to be a problem. Nope, can't say that. But what
I can say is I personally donated again a total
of six times, twice for the same family that wanted
to do a sibling journey. But I've donated six times.
(11:44):
After my last donation, I went on to have my son,
who was now fifteen, and then I went on to
be a surrogate three times and delivered a total of
four babies for other people. My fertility was fine after
my donation. And but again, every situation is different, and
you need to just be educated and informed. Even though
(12:06):
I'm saying all these informations right now, I would still
tell everybody go do your due diligence, Go research yourself,
go look at all of the information before you jump
into it. And don't just jump into it because you heard,
oh you can make eight thousand dollars. Yes you can,
but it's a process, and you're putting your body through
(12:28):
injecting hormones and having doctor's appointments and all kinds of
stuff do you have to do, So it is also
a commitment that you're going to have to do. It's
not a walk in the park where you decide and
you hear this podcast and say, Okay, that's something I
can do. No, no, no, this is a process and
it's something you have to think through because it's a
lifetime decision. It's not one And now, just because I
(12:52):
give my eggs and I don't think about it and
I don't worry about it, but those eggs could one
day become a human being, can you say a little
bit more about why the requirements are so tight for
egg donation. Nobody wants eggs to be donated, and then
there be issues with the embryos. And again, as I
mentioned right now, we're talking about DNA, but long term,
(13:14):
this could potentially become a human being, and what is
the genetic makeup of what this human being is going
to be. You don't want to be providing hereditary things
that could pass down from this child that would come about.
So one of the things that they test, especially in
(13:35):
black people, is sickle cell. And if the donor is
a carrier and the intended father is a carrier, well
it's probably going to be with this child could potentially
be a carrier also or be where he or she's
going to have sickle cell. So it's things like that
that they try to mitigate upfront to minimize any potential
(13:59):
risk once this child is born. The other thing about
the psychological aspect is to make sure that you truly
are doing it for the right reasons. Yes, you can
do it for the monetary gain, but you also have
to really have a heart and a passion to want
to do it, because again, there's going to be a
time commitment, there's going to be things that you're gonna
(14:21):
have to do, Like I said, taking injections. They're going
to need to make sure that you are really committed
and that you're going to follow through and do what
you say you're going to do. They also want to
make sure that your overall health is good as well.
They don't want to work with somebody where they start
giving you medication and then there's a problem and now
it's caused more problems for you. So there's a number
(14:44):
of different things that they need to consider before they say, yes,
you're a good candidate. So I want to switch gears
a little bit to talk about the surrogacy process. And
it sounds like you have both personal connections to this
and professional connections. Can you say a little bit about
the process of becoming a s because in some ways
it may be similar but very different of course than
a Yes, surrogacy, the process is definitely similar in that
(15:08):
it's something you have to think about. It is something
that you need to process through and where a donation,
it's kind of if you do it and you don't
ever want anybody to know, they probably may never know.
But when it comes to surregacy, so well, that's a
different story. And then it's a different story because here
you are carrying a pregnancy for nine months and then
(15:29):
to give this child back to his or her parents,
and surrogacy, yes, obviously there is again monetary gain, a
substantial amount of monetary gain, but we're talking about nine
months of pregnancy including labor and delivery. So a s
r M, which is the governing body of our industry,
it stands for Assisted Society for Reproductive Medicine. They put
(15:53):
out guidelines that for somebody to become a surrogate, they
need to be between twenty one and forty five live.
They have to have a healthy body max index of
I think it's thirty one or thirty two. They have
to have a support system in place. They can't be
on any kind of psychiatric medications can't be bipolar taking
(16:15):
anti anxiety medication or depression medications and so on, And
they had to have a full term, healthy pregnancy with
the child that they are currently raising or have raised,
and they can't have any more than three C sections.
So when it comes to surrogacy, there's a lot more
stipulations there, and I can tell you probably for every
(16:39):
three applications that we receive on a monthly basis for surrogates,
maybe one or two actually qualify enough to proceed forward.
More from my conversation with Eloise after the break, So, Elouise,
(17:00):
I'm a little shock, though maybe not surprised about the
rule outs related to like medications related to mental illness
kinds of concerns. Can you say more about like why
that is? Sure one, especially with pregnancy. They don't know
the long term effects of the medications. And so if
somebody is taking prozac, for instance, and you're taking it
(17:24):
because you need a mood stabilizer to help you through
whatever you're going through at that time, well, surrogacy is
stressful enough as it is, and these medications for these
mood stabilizers, again, they don't know the long term effects
where a child is being developed in uter role and
how that's going to work. Is there any kind of
(17:46):
like psychological evaluation that's a part of this process. Oh? Yes,
both on the donor siety and the surrogate side, they
do have to complete a psychological evaluation and then in
addition to that, they either would take an M then
p I or a p a I test which is
a personality test that they utilize in addition to that
psychological evaluation with the psychologist, and then the psychologists will
(18:10):
give them a quote pass or fail, so this person
should move forward or this person should not get it? Okay?
So are there additional requirements or can you talk a
little bit more about what is required? Maybe let's say
once you have passed these evaluations, like what does that
process look like when you continue as a sarrogate. So,
once you've passed like the preliminary to see, okay, potentially
(18:33):
you do qualify, you would need to complete an online
application and then you have to sign a release where
all of your prenatal and delivery records for each of
your pregnancies are requested, as well as your medical records.
So it's not where you're just completing an application and
telling people, yeah, this is how everything is. Now. Everything
has to be proved and then once that's done, medical
(18:56):
professional where review all your records make sure that everything
is good to go. You have to complete a background check.
You and anybody eighteen are over in your home has
to have also a background check to make sure that
there's no concerns within your background. And then you have
to again complete your psychological evaluation. They also do a
home visit. Right now, everything is pretty much virtual with
(19:17):
those home visits, and the home business is just to
make sure you don't live in deplorable conditions. And then
once you have completed all that, they also require you
then to also have an updated path as well as
an updated physical just to make sure again your body
is really healthy enough to proceed forward. Once all of
that is ready to go, then that's when you could
(19:38):
get matched with the family. As a surrogate, you get
to choose who you work with. You get to dictate
who it is that you want to work with, where
are they located, what kind of relationship you want to
have with them, how detailed of a relationship do you
want to have with them. Even you get to dictate
whether they can be in the delivery room or not.
(19:58):
I know there's a lot of naysayers and it comes
to surrogacy that we are exploiting women, and I think
that is the furthest from the truth. I feel with
surrogacy number one, you're choosing to make this decision of
your own accord, not because anybody is forcing you to
do it. I think the second thing is I feel
(20:18):
it's an empowerment because when I was a surrogate, what
I showed my children was how to be self less
and that I was willing to sacrifice for the next person.
And um believer, my faith is everything to me and
I definitely feel that this was a catalyst and an
(20:42):
opening quite honestly from God himself and just how things
have happened in my life that just more and more
along the way, it just proved to me like this
is what I was purposed here for. Mmmmmmmm. So you've
already talked a little bit about the emotional weight of
this kind of a process. Can you say more about
(21:04):
the idea of carrying a baby for all that time
and then giving them to their parents. It feels like
it would be quite an emotional toll, and so can
you say a little bit about like how you support
yourself during that time and what kind of totally can
take on you. This is why when you first apply
to become a surrogate, we do ask about who your
(21:26):
support is because you need to have your own personal support,
and then when you work with an agency, they should
also be support. The parents should also be support, and
then you also have access to mental health professionals throughout
the entire process. So for me and I can personally
speak on when I carried the three different surrogacy pregnancies
(21:49):
my first journey, I carry twins. My second one was
a boy and the third one was a girl. And
quite honestly, I didn't really get attached to the babies
at all. What I got more attached to, if you will,
was the relationship that I had with the parents. I
wanted parents that were local. I wanted parents that were
(22:12):
going to be involved and wanted to attend the doctor's appointments,
that wanted to be present with the pregnancy, and I
had an opportunity to learn who they were and what
they were about, and their stories and why they had
to go down this road. And for me, especially at
the end after I delivered, I missed the relationship more
(22:36):
with the parents than I really did with the pregnancy,
because with the pregnancy, I knew going into it this
wasn't going to be my child. Did I love and
care for that child? Of course, I still love and
care for those children, but they're not my children. And
I have my own children who were now grown and
all of that. But I did not have the same
(23:00):
attachment with those surrogacy babies than I did with my own.
And you also have to remember what surrogacy. There's two
types of surrogacies. There's traditional surrogacy and then there's ges
stational surrogacy. Traditional surrogacy is where the surrogate is also
using her eggs and carrying the pregnancy. Just stational surrogacy
(23:23):
is where you have no genetic link to that child whatsoever.
That embryo is created outside of the body and then
transferred into your uterus. And so my first couple was
a white couple that I carried for and so I'm
a black woman, but I carried this white couple's baby.
(23:43):
And when these babies came out, they looked like their parents,
they didn't look like me. My second couple happened to
be from the Caribbean. And then my third couple was
another white couple. But each time again these babies didn't
look like me. They had no genetic ties to me whatsoever,
no DNA makeup of me. I literally was the carrier,
(24:03):
and I was grateful that I was able to help
this family because what I look at as what I've
done is I've changed the family's legacy, and that's what
I helped create. I helped create another family's legacy, and
it's a huge responsibility, but it's an amazing journey to undertake.
(24:28):
Can you say a little bit about how, maybe personally
and maybe in the clients that you've worked with, how
surrogacy impacts the carriers family? So what were those conversations
with like your kids and other family members around being
a surrogate for another family? As I mentioned when I
was even an egg donor, I've been very upfront with
my children. I have five kids, four that I gave
(24:51):
birth to and one was gifted to me. She's actually
my stepdaughter, but she's mine. So five and when I
did my first journey, my oldest son is fourteen, so
that they can definitely understand what it was that I
was doing. However, my youngest one, who was now fifteen
at the time. When I did my first journey, he
was I think, like three, so he really didn't understand
(25:15):
that whole process. All he saw was I want to
snuggle with mommy, and I can't because there's this big
belly in the way and I want to move it
out of the way. And so on. My other kids,
they were like, as long as ain't nobody babies coming
into this house, I'm good. But once, like with my
youngest son, when I did my second journey, at that point,
(25:35):
he was five or six, and he did understand more.
And how I broke it down to him was this
family and we obviously they met my children, they came
over to my house, so my family knew them. And
when my youngest son met the intended parents, we would
(25:55):
tell them so and so's belly is broken, but they
want to have a baby to love and to cherish
like mommy and daddy does you. So Mummy is going
to help them because my belly is not broken. We're
going to help them so that they can have a baby.
But this baby is not going to be with us,
and this baby is not ours, and this baby is
(26:16):
not going to look like us, and this baby is
not going to be your sibling. This is just us
helping this other family because they want to also have
a baby. And he understood that concept so well that
we could be in the grocery store and this one
time this lady stopped us or we were like in
the same aisle and she's like, oh, what do you
you know? What are you having? What do you do?
(26:38):
And I just said, oh, I'm having a boy. I
didn't really go much into detail, no, but he didn't.
He was like, Oh, that's so and So's baby. Her
belly is broken, and mummy's belly is not broken. So
as soon as the baby comes out, though, it's going
back to so and so's house because that's not a
baby and we don't want the baby in our house.
They want the baby in their house and they're preparing
and I'm like, okay, yeah, he understands the message. Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
(27:06):
And there's a lot of information out there and books
and all kinds of stuff now that really helped to
educate even your own children about this process and how
it works. I think society is where babies are made
by a mom and dad in the bedroom privacy and
it's just like, well, yeah, but that's not the case anymore. Unfortunately,
(27:27):
there is a lot more families going through fertility issues.
They may not share it because a lot of people
feel that it's a private thing and they don't want
to share it. A lot of people don't know what
they're going through, and rightfully so it is their business
to deal with. But unfortunately, fertility issues is becoming a
(27:47):
very prevalent thing in this country, and not just in
this country worldwide, and then especially when it comes to
minorities and people of color and so on and so forth. Unfortunately,
there is a huge health disparities, especially when it comes
to fertility and fertility care, because insurance companies most often
(28:09):
don't cover anything. I am in Atlanta, and we unfortunately
have one of the worst insurance company providers in this country,
Like especially when it comes to fertility care. Georgia is
like rated number forty nine or something. It's just ridiculous.
So so you're saying that health insurance doesn't really pay
(28:30):
for any of this process, none of it. Yeah, I mean,
because as I was listening to you, I'm thinking about, like,
this sounds very costly, right, and so for a family
who wants to embark up on the surrogacy process, how
do they financially prepare for this or their resources or
other things that can help with this process. Unfortunately, there
are places where you can go get grants and scholarships,
(28:53):
but it's very minimal. Number one, Ye're applying along with
hundreds of other people that are trying to apply to
get it. And even when you do, it might give
you maybe ten thousand or even twenty thousand dollars, but
it really isn't that significant. And when you're talking about surrogacy,
you're easily and it costs of about a hundred and
(29:14):
twenty to two hundred thousand dollars to do surregacy now
in the US. Okay, Yeah, so a lot of people
would have to take out fertility loans. I've known people
that have taken money out of there four oh one K.
They've taken out home equity lines, and there are people
that think outside the box. They do fundraisers. I have
(29:36):
a fertility podcast, and I have a guest on that
mentioned about instead of having a baby shower, have a
fertility shower. Your family and friends share with him that
what you're going through, so that instead of them giving
you money for a birthday gift or holiday or whatever. No, no,
put that in my fertility fund because we're trying and
(30:00):
I have a baby and we can't. And that's the
biggest thing. A lot of people don't know that so
many people in their circle are going through fertility issues.
Is just something we don't share. Another organization that people
may want to check out is Fertility for Colored Girls.
This is an organization that was founded by a black
(30:20):
woman who's a minister and she just started chapters all
over the US for black women that are going through
fertility issues and just coming together to help each other out.
They also do scholarships through that program. There's another one
called CADE Foundation C A d E. And they do
(30:43):
scholarships as well. So there's things out there. You just
have to be willing to really sit down and do
the research. Got it more from my conversation with Eloise
after the break. So let's talk a little bit about
(31:05):
some of the challenges that may come up when you
are looking for US area you've already talked about, if
you're like a black family or a family of color,
it may be really difficult to find us. Aregud who
matches you culturally. Yeah, definitely matches you culturally. But remember too,
with gestational surrogacy, even if the woman was white, your
child is still going to come out looking at like
(31:26):
you because you're the one giving the genetic material. She's
just carrying for you. But you want someone that you're
comfortable with. You want someone that you can have a
rapport with. You know, the worst thing is having somebody
carrying your child and you can't even have a decent
conversation with her. That is just not okay. You want
(31:47):
someone that you know is going to take care of herself,
that's going to take care of the pregnancy. You want
to know that she has support and place because the
worst thing is that she ends up having to go
on bed rest and somebody else has to step in
and take care of her children. So you want someone
that definitely has support, and you want somebody that is
(32:08):
doing it for the right reasons. Yes, it is definitely
okay to want to do it for monetary gain. However,
that should not be your first motivation because when it
is where you're laid up in the hospital because you're
on bed rest and not a total stranger, but somebody
else is helping with your kids because you can't take
(32:30):
care of them. It all has to be worth it
for you. So can you say a little bit more
about the hesitancy that some couples have when it comes
to using a surrogate. I definitely feel like this is
something that we're hearing more, especially I think from celebrities. Right. So,
Gabrielle Union, of course has recently been very open about
like her process, and I think we are hearing people
talk more about it. But can you say more about
(32:51):
some of the hesitancy people might have with this process? Oh?
Of course, I mean just to wrap your head around
the fact that somebody else is going to grow and
nurture your child and you have no say as to
what this person eat, what this person does, where this
person goes, who was she around, what does she do,
how does she take care of herself? You get to
choose who you work with, of course, but you still
(33:13):
have to put all your faith and trust in another
human being. And then of course the cost it is
a significant amount of money. Before it used to be
where people used to think that surrogacy was only for
the rich and the wealthy or celebrities, but that definitely
is not the case. I can tell you I work
(33:33):
with a lot of just running the mill. I go
to work nine to five. I've just saved up. I
desperately want a child. I can't have a child because
I've had cancer, or because I have a heart condition,
or I'm the same sex couple, whatever it is. But
you want to be able to have a child, you
(33:55):
don't want to do adoption. And I know a lot
of people say, well, you know, there's so many babies
out there, or why not adopt? Adoption is not that simple,
first of all. Second of all, when you're talking about adoption,
it can get actually quite pricey to do adoption, and
you have to wait around until you are picked for adoption,
(34:16):
especially if you want a newborn. Then people will say
there's plenty of children already here that are in the
foster care system. What people don't know about the foster
care system. Foster care isn't the setup for adoption. Foster
care was set up so that they can reunite those
families together, not to have it set up where somebody
can come in and adopt that child. It's not as
(34:38):
simple as just saying there's so many children out there,
just adopt so there's a number of different things that
one has to wrap their head around when it comes
to letting go of surregacy. Even the morning process of
the fact that you can't carry your own child and
you have to trust somebody else, whether you know them,
whether it's a sibling or a friend, or a cousin
(34:59):
or a total stranger, it's still where you have to
mourn the fact that you can't carry your child and
you have to depend on someone else to be able
to bring you your child for you. If you've already
kind of talks about some of this, but are there
other like misconceptions about this process that you think are
important for people to know about. Definitely the exploitation, for sure.
(35:22):
I think that's probably the biggest issue, is the naysayers
of of exploitation and of ken Unfortunately, the cost is
a humongous factor, and just again the trust factor on
both sides. You know, the surrogates need to know that
they can trust the parents, and the parents need to
(35:42):
know that they can trust the surrogate. Got it. You
mentioned earlier that the hardest part for you in terms
of being a surrogate was like the bond you made
with the families and then after you deliver the baby
and give them the baby, and in that relationship kind
of goes away. Is there a process by which sometimes
surrogates like continue to kind of be a part of
the family. Are still are involved in the child's life. Oh? God, yeah,
(36:03):
even though after delivery it goes away in the sense
that I mean, you were in a relationship, probably talking
to them once a week, You probably see them with
the doctor's appointments and have that rapport. But when they
have that baby, well they don't have time for all
that either, and then you move on with your life.
But yes, you absolutely can continue on with relationships with
(36:26):
the parents. I definitely have relationships with a couple of
my parents that I carried for not my first couple,
but my second and third couple. We still have a
relationship to this day. And I have plenty of clients
and plenty of surrogates that they definitely still have a relationship.
They've attended birthday parties and baby showers and just various
(36:47):
get togethers or whatever. So the relationship is what you
make of it. And the thing about surrogacy, there's no
right or wrong way. It's what are you comfortable with.
You've already given us a couple of resources. Are there
other sources that you think would be helpful for anybody
maybe considering either becoming an egg donor or a surrogate,
or wanting to start the surrogacy process. I would definitely
(37:09):
have them go to our website, which is Family inceptions
dot com. One of the things that we do is
have an educational based website. There's so much information out
there for somebody on egg donation, what it is to
become an egg donor, the things that they need to consider,
(37:29):
same thing for surrogacy as well as for the intended
parents and just what the things that they need to
be aware of the questions they need to ask. Sometimes
you don't know what you don't know. The other thing
that we created as well is called Surrogacy Roadmap, because
there are a lot of families that want to work
with the surrogate but can't necessarily afford to work with
(37:51):
an agency and are trying different ways to help cut cost,
and so we developed Surrogacy Roadmap, which is an on
line course to walk people through how to do it
on their own and kind of like a d I
Y program so that you are still doing it properly,
you're doing things that will make sure that obviously at
(38:12):
the end you have a healthy baby, that it's all legal,
you don't have any worries about somebody trying to keep
your child at the end, or somebody trying to not
give you back the child. And just real quickly, there
are more cases of intended parents not coming for their
babies than there are. Sorry, it's not giving the babies up.
So that's another misconception out there. Everybody asks like, well,
(38:33):
what if she doesn't want to give us the baby.
That woman can have her own babies. She does not
need to have yours. So you just have to remember
there's more cases of that. Luckily, thank god, we've been
in business for thirteen years. We have never once had
anybody say that they didn't want to come get their
babies or that they didn't want to give up the baby.
I'm glad you brought that up. So at what point
(38:55):
is it in the very beginning where like legal documents
and things are a signed talk about okay, after you
have this baby, like you're gonna give it over, and
then what is the recourse for intended parents who don't
come and get their baby? Oh? Yeah, before you take
a pill. Legal contracts have to be in place, and
the parents have to pay for all of it. Although
(39:16):
the surrogate does have separate legal counsel that represents her,
she gets to choose who her counsel is, but the
parents have to pay for all of that and within
the contract, and these are detailed contracts, they're not know
five temp pages long. I've seen contracts that are a
hundred pages long. So there's a lot of information that
(39:36):
has to be agreed upon upfront and golf of it.
Somebody never came and got their child, it's in the
contract who the guardian is going to be. And if
it was that, let's say intended parents died during the process,
well that guardian would step up. And if it was
that the intended parents just decided that they didn't want
(39:57):
to have the child and that child would actually go
up for adoption. Got it? Okay? Okay? Anything else that
you feel like it's important for people to know about
any of this. The thing is you definitely just have
to take your time, do your research, and when in doubts,
seek out information. There is a lot of information out
(40:18):
there for surrogacy, for egg donation, for embryo donation, sperm
donation for dealing with infertility. There is a lot of
information out there. You just have to be willing to
go and seek it out, and you have to be
willing to not give up. If it is truly the
desire of your heart, this is definitely something that you
(40:39):
want to do. I feel like where there's a will,
there's a way, and you just have to keep at
it and eventually it will come to fruition. Thank you
so much, Eloise. I really appreciate all this information you
share with us today. Absolutely was my pleasure. Thank you
for having me. I appreciate it. I'm so glad Eloise
(41:01):
was able to share her expertise with us today. To
learn more about her and her work, or to check
out the resources she shared, visit the show notes at
Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash session to thirty
and don't forget to text two of your girls and
tell them to check out the episode as well. If
you're looking for a therapist in your area, be sure
to check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black
(41:23):
Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to
continue digging into this topic, are just be in community
with other sisters. Come on over and join us in
the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet,
designed just for black women. You can join us at
community that Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Thank you
all so much for joining me again this week. I
(41:43):
look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take your care,
Kay Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a
weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the
small decisions we can make to become the best possible
(00:22):
versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford,
a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or
to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope
you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it
(00:43):
is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship
with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so
much for joining me for session two thirty of the
Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into the
episode after a word from our sponsors. Adding a baby
(01:15):
to a family can happen many different ways. A few
ways we've been hearing about more recently is through the
use of egg donors and surrogates. Joining us today to
share more about the process of becoming an egg donor
or surrogate is Eloise Drain. After completing our NBA, Eloise
founded Family Inceptions, a full service surregacy and egg donation
(01:37):
agency here in Atlanta. She holds fertility Cafe, an educational
podcast on modern family building, and is the creator of
a digital course on independence, surrogacy Surrogacy Roadmap. Eloise's passion
and unparalleled empathy in this area blossom from her own
experience as an egg donor six times and a guestational
(01:59):
surrogate three times. Eloise and I chatted about the process
of becoming an egg donor or a surrogate, some of
the challenges of finding egg donors and surrogates, and some
of the common misconceptions related to surrogacy and egg donation.
If there's something that resonates with you while enjoying our conversation,
please share it with us on social media using the
(02:19):
hashtag tv G in session. Here's our conversation. Thank you
so much for joining us today, Elouise, thank you for
having me here. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I've really
been so interested in this topic and it definitely seems
like something more and more people are talking about, and
so we wanted to have this conversation with our community.
(02:40):
So could you just start by telling us a little
bit about what you do and what does the Egg
Donation and Surregacy Agency do. So I am owner, founder
of Family inceptions, and we are a full service surregacy
and egg donation agency where we match intended parents, So
families that want to work with the surrogat or egg donor,
(03:02):
we matched them with egg donors and surrogates that come
to us and obviously want to assist these families. Okay,
and how did you get interested in this work? Oh gosh.
The catalyst for me, quite honestly was I was a
kidney donor, first to a cousin of mine, and when
I went to visit him in California, I saw an
(03:23):
ad for egg donation. I was like, oh, I could
probably do that. At the time, I already had my
three kids and I just was sure thought that I
was done. I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds like
something I can do. But I was obviously fresh out
of kidney surgery, so I wasn't doing anything at any point.
And then probably about a year later, it came back
up in my head. This was in so as you
(03:46):
can imagine the information, you know, Dr Google wasn't Dr
Google day, right. I reached out to the agency thinking
that they were going to tell me that I couldn't
donate because I wasn't in California what they told me
was I would be a great candidate, but that black
women didn't have fertility issues and so it would take
(04:06):
a long time to find me a match if any.
So I was like, oh, okay, because remember, now there
was an information out there that you can really search
to see how factual. The information they provided, which I
can tell you right now is completely fus but at
the time I didn't know that. They eventually called me back.
About nine ten months later, I went on to do
(04:28):
my first egg donation journey. It was actually a horrible experience.
Well I wouldn't say horrible, but it was definitely not
what I was thinking it was going to be. I
was by myself. I actually ended up hyper stimulating where
my body had overproduced eggs, which obviously was good for
(04:51):
the family so that they had enough, but my body
was just like, WHOA, what's going on? You have all
these eggs that you're producing at the same time. Quite honestly,
a after my retrieval an hour later, the nurse dropped
me off back at the hotel, gave me a check
and was like, thanks, call a taxi to the airport home.
(05:11):
And I never heard from them again, and I completely
felt used. I was just like, oh, this is not
what I was expecting. I had obviously the year before
had given my cousin to kidney, and it was obviously family, yes,
but it was still an experience and a feeling that
I had never experienced before. And I thought that doing
(05:33):
the donation, I was going to feel that again, and
I did it. If anything, I felt frustrated and felt
just used. After that, I was like, Okay, I'm never
going to do that again. And then probably about two
or three years later is when again something popped into
my head to become a donor once again, and I
was just like, Okay, black women don't really need donors.
(05:54):
I'm probably never gonna get selected, but I'll go ahead
and put my information. And there was this website at
the time that you can put classified ads, and I did,
and within two three hours I had so many emails
from women looking for black donors and saying they couldn't
find black donors. And then it was a completely different
experience from then on out. Wow, so it really sounds
(06:16):
like you have a personal connection to really wanting to
do this work and doing it well. Oh yes, So
in total life been a six time egg donor, and
I've been a three time sir again personally, and then
of course I'd run my own agency, and it was
one of the reasons why I wanted to start my
agency from one my experience as being a donor to
(06:37):
from them telling me that black women didn't have fertility
issues and then coming across all of these black women
that we're having fertility issues and realizing at that point
and again this is now two thousand to two thousand three,
their disparity back then, so you can only imagine what
(06:59):
it is now, right, So can you say more about
what it means to donate your eggs and what are
like the requirements for someone to donate their eggs? Sure, so,
in order to become an egg donor, someone that needs
to be between twenty one and twenty nine. You have
to be healthy, can't be on any kind of medications obviously,
(07:20):
can't be a smoker, drug user. You have to be healthy.
And yes, there is compensation right now, a first time
donor can probably receive about eight thousand dollars and you
can donate a maximum um of six times in a lifetime.
And donation definitely takes time. Although you're not going to
be on medication for an extended period of time. You're
(07:42):
probably only on METS for about twelve days. But the
process in getting to become a donor is a process.
You have to go through medical screening, psychological evaluation, genetic screening,
all of the things, just to make sure obviously that
you are capable of actually producing the eggs, and then
(08:02):
going through the actual retrieval. And unfortunately, there's no way
to know how many eggs you're going to produce, especially
if you're a first time donor. But what I can
tell you that there are a lot of black women
that are looking for black egg donors, and there is
actually a shortage right now of black donors as well
(08:25):
as a shortage of black sperm donors. Okay, so this
may be something that people may want to consider. What
kinds of things besides like the health considerations, are there
some psychological or emotional things that you would want to
pay attention to if you're considering this process. Absolutely, you
have to remember what you're giving up is d NA, right,
(08:46):
So you're giving up tissue, You're you're not necessarily giving
up quote a child, but at the same time, you
are giving up this DNA makeup that would be come
child hopefully one day, and you have to have the
emotional bandwidth to be able to realize down the road,
(09:08):
one day, this DNA that you're giving up is going
to become a human being and someday want to know
their origin, want to know their story, want to know
their makeup, and they have every right to know that.
And even though you may, for instance, my first donation
was anonymous, but I don't know one day if one
(09:31):
of those children are ever going to come and seek me,
And for me, I am totally fine with it. I've
always been quite open with the fact that I've been
a donor, that I've been a surrogate. I have children
of my own, and my children know that I've been
a donor because for me, it was never something that
I was embarrassed about or ashamed about. If anything, it
(09:53):
was something that I was proud to do because I
know that I was helping somebody else to be able
to fulfill their dream of having children. Maybe they couldn't
have children because they have cancer, or they have sickle cell,
or they have some kind of other disease that they
can't produce eggs, but they want to be able to
(10:15):
have a child, they want to be able to have
a pregnancy, they want to go through that experience, and
this is an option for them. And so how would
they get started? Would they find like an agency like yours.
They can find an agency like mine, or they can
even if they're working with the fertility clinic. Many clinics
have fertility egg banks within the fertility clinic. But I
(10:38):
can tell you when it comes unfortunately to black donors,
it's hard. It's difficult to find them because they're just
they're really hard to come by. A lot of people
just don't donate for a number of factors, and obviously
all legit factors, but a lot of people don't donate.
I mean there's a lack of education, of not really
(11:00):
understanding the process and how it works and what's required.
There's the history in this country of how black women
have been treated more breeders than they were a few
being human beings, and so all of those things come
into play, and it really is about educating people. And
(11:21):
then one of the other thing too, is everybody worries
about their fertility. How is it going to affect their fertility?
Can I say that there's guarantee that there's never going
to be a problem. Nope, can't say that. But what
I can say is I personally donated again a total
of six times, twice for the same family that wanted
to do a sibling journey. But I've donated six times.
(11:44):
After my last donation, I went on to have my son,
who was now fifteen, and then I went on to
be a surrogate three times and delivered a total of
four babies for other people. My fertility was fine after
my donation. And but again, every situation is different, and
you need to just be educated and informed. Even though
(12:06):
I'm saying all these informations right now, I would still
tell everybody go do your due diligence, Go research yourself,
go look at all of the information before you jump
into it. And don't just jump into it because you heard,
oh you can make eight thousand dollars. Yes you can,
but it's a process, and you're putting your body through
(12:28):
injecting hormones and having doctor's appointments and all kinds of
stuff do you have to do, So it is also
a commitment that you're going to have to do. It's
not a walk in the park where you decide and
you hear this podcast and say, Okay, that's something I
can do. No, no, no, this is a process and
it's something you have to think through because it's a
lifetime decision. It's not one And now, just because I
(12:52):
give my eggs and I don't think about it and
I don't worry about it, but those eggs could one
day become a human being, can you say a little
bit more about why the requirements are so tight for
egg donation. Nobody wants eggs to be donated, and then
there be issues with the embryos. And again, as I
mentioned right now, we're talking about DNA, but long term,
(13:14):
this could potentially become a human being, and what is
the genetic makeup of what this human being is going
to be. You don't want to be providing hereditary things
that could pass down from this child that would come about.
So one of the things that they test, especially in
(13:35):
black people, is sickle cell. And if the donor is
a carrier and the intended father is a carrier, well
it's probably going to be with this child could potentially
be a carrier also or be where he or she's
going to have sickle cell. So it's things like that
that they try to mitigate upfront to minimize any potential
(13:59):
risk once this child is born. The other thing about
the psychological aspect is to make sure that you truly
are doing it for the right reasons. Yes, you can
do it for the monetary gain, but you also have
to really have a heart and a passion to want
to do it, because again, there's going to be a
time commitment, there's going to be things that you're gonna
(14:21):
have to do, Like I said, taking injections. They're going
to need to make sure that you are really committed
and that you're going to follow through and do what
you say you're going to do. They also want to
make sure that your overall health is good as well.
They don't want to work with somebody where they start
giving you medication and then there's a problem and now
it's caused more problems for you. So there's a number
(14:44):
of different things that they need to consider before they say, yes,
you're a good candidate. So I want to switch gears
a little bit to talk about the surrogacy process. And
it sounds like you have both personal connections to this
and professional connections. Can you say a little bit about
the process of becoming a s because in some ways
it may be similar but very different of course than
a Yes, surrogacy, the process is definitely similar in that
(15:08):
it's something you have to think about. It is something
that you need to process through and where a donation,
it's kind of if you do it and you don't
ever want anybody to know, they probably may never know.
But when it comes to surregacy, so well, that's a
different story. And then it's a different story because here
you are carrying a pregnancy for nine months and then
(15:29):
to give this child back to his or her parents,
and surrogacy, yes, obviously there is again monetary gain, a
substantial amount of monetary gain, but we're talking about nine
months of pregnancy including labor and delivery. So a s
r M, which is the governing body of our industry,
it stands for Assisted Society for Reproductive Medicine. They put
(15:53):
out guidelines that for somebody to become a surrogate, they
need to be between twenty one and forty five live.
They have to have a healthy body max index of
I think it's thirty one or thirty two. They have
to have a support system in place. They can't be
on any kind of psychiatric medications can't be bipolar taking
(16:15):
anti anxiety medication or depression medications and so on, And
they had to have a full term, healthy pregnancy with
the child that they are currently raising or have raised,
and they can't have any more than three C sections.
So when it comes to surrogacy, there's a lot more
stipulations there, and I can tell you probably for every
(16:39):
three applications that we receive on a monthly basis for surrogates,
maybe one or two actually qualify enough to proceed forward.
More from my conversation with Eloise after the break, So, Elouise,
(17:00):
I'm a little shock, though maybe not surprised about the
rule outs related to like medications related to mental illness
kinds of concerns. Can you say more about like why
that is? Sure one, especially with pregnancy. They don't know
the long term effects of the medications. And so if
somebody is taking prozac, for instance, and you're taking it
(17:24):
because you need a mood stabilizer to help you through
whatever you're going through at that time, well, surrogacy is
stressful enough as it is, and these medications for these
mood stabilizers, again, they don't know the long term effects
where a child is being developed in uter role and
how that's going to work. Is there any kind of
(17:46):
like psychological evaluation that's a part of this process. Oh? Yes,
both on the donor siety and the surrogate side, they
do have to complete a psychological evaluation and then in
addition to that, they either would take an M then
p I or a p a I test which is
a personality test that they utilize in addition to that
psychological evaluation with the psychologist, and then the psychologists will
(18:10):
give them a quote pass or fail, so this person
should move forward or this person should not get it? Okay?
So are there additional requirements or can you talk a
little bit more about what is required? Maybe let's say
once you have passed these evaluations, like what does that
process look like when you continue as a sarrogate. So,
once you've passed like the preliminary to see, okay, potentially
(18:33):
you do qualify, you would need to complete an online
application and then you have to sign a release where
all of your prenatal and delivery records for each of
your pregnancies are requested, as well as your medical records.
So it's not where you're just completing an application and
telling people, yeah, this is how everything is. Now. Everything
has to be proved and then once that's done, medical
(18:56):
professional where review all your records make sure that everything
is good to go. You have to complete a background check.
You and anybody eighteen are over in your home has
to have also a background check to make sure that
there's no concerns within your background. And then you have
to again complete your psychological evaluation. They also do a
home visit. Right now, everything is pretty much virtual with
(19:17):
those home visits, and the home business is just to
make sure you don't live in deplorable conditions. And then
once you have completed all that, they also require you
then to also have an updated path as well as
an updated physical just to make sure again your body
is really healthy enough to proceed forward. Once all of
that is ready to go, then that's when you could
(19:38):
get matched with the family. As a surrogate, you get
to choose who you work with. You get to dictate
who it is that you want to work with, where
are they located, what kind of relationship you want to
have with them, how detailed of a relationship do you
want to have with them. Even you get to dictate
whether they can be in the delivery room or not.
(19:58):
I know there's a lot of naysayers and it comes
to surrogacy that we are exploiting women, and I think
that is the furthest from the truth. I feel with
surrogacy number one, you're choosing to make this decision of
your own accord, not because anybody is forcing you to
do it. I think the second thing is I feel
(20:18):
it's an empowerment because when I was a surrogate, what
I showed my children was how to be self less
and that I was willing to sacrifice for the next person.
And um believer, my faith is everything to me and
I definitely feel that this was a catalyst and an
(20:42):
opening quite honestly from God himself and just how things
have happened in my life that just more and more
along the way, it just proved to me like this
is what I was purposed here for. Mmmmmmmm. So you've
already talked a little bit about the emotional weight of
this kind of a process. Can you say more about
(21:04):
the idea of carrying a baby for all that time
and then giving them to their parents. It feels like
it would be quite an emotional toll, and so can
you say a little bit about like how you support
yourself during that time and what kind of totally can
take on you. This is why when you first apply
to become a surrogate, we do ask about who your
(21:26):
support is because you need to have your own personal support,
and then when you work with an agency, they should
also be support. The parents should also be support, and
then you also have access to mental health professionals throughout
the entire process. So for me and I can personally
speak on when I carried the three different surrogacy pregnancies
(21:49):
my first journey, I carry twins. My second one was
a boy and the third one was a girl. And
quite honestly, I didn't really get attached to the babies
at all. What I got more attached to, if you will,
was the relationship that I had with the parents. I
wanted parents that were local. I wanted parents that were
(22:12):
going to be involved and wanted to attend the doctor's appointments,
that wanted to be present with the pregnancy, and I
had an opportunity to learn who they were and what
they were about, and their stories and why they had
to go down this road. And for me, especially at
the end after I delivered, I missed the relationship more
(22:36):
with the parents than I really did with the pregnancy,
because with the pregnancy, I knew going into it this
wasn't going to be my child. Did I love and
care for that child? Of course, I still love and
care for those children, but they're not my children. And
I have my own children who were now grown and
all of that. But I did not have the same
(23:00):
attachment with those surrogacy babies than I did with my own.
And you also have to remember what surrogacy. There's two
types of surrogacies. There's traditional surrogacy and then there's ges
stational surrogacy. Traditional surrogacy is where the surrogate is also
using her eggs and carrying the pregnancy. Just stational surrogacy
(23:23):
is where you have no genetic link to that child whatsoever.
That embryo is created outside of the body and then
transferred into your uterus. And so my first couple was
a white couple that I carried for and so I'm
a black woman, but I carried this white couple's baby.
(23:43):
And when these babies came out, they looked like their parents,
they didn't look like me. My second couple happened to
be from the Caribbean. And then my third couple was
another white couple. But each time again these babies didn't
look like me. They had no genetic ties to me whatsoever,
no DNA makeup of me. I literally was the carrier,
(24:03):
and I was grateful that I was able to help
this family because what I look at as what I've
done is I've changed the family's legacy, and that's what
I helped create. I helped create another family's legacy, and
it's a huge responsibility, but it's an amazing journey to undertake.
(24:28):
Can you say a little bit about how, maybe personally
and maybe in the clients that you've worked with, how
surrogacy impacts the carriers family? So what were those conversations
with like your kids and other family members around being
a surrogate for another family? As I mentioned when I
was even an egg donor, I've been very upfront with
my children. I have five kids, four that I gave
(24:51):
birth to and one was gifted to me. She's actually
my stepdaughter, but she's mine. So five and when I
did my first journey, my oldest son is fourteen, so
that they can definitely understand what it was that I
was doing. However, my youngest one, who was now fifteen
at the time. When I did my first journey, he
was I think, like three, so he really didn't understand
(25:15):
that whole process. All he saw was I want to
snuggle with mommy, and I can't because there's this big
belly in the way and I want to move it
out of the way. And so on. My other kids,
they were like, as long as ain't nobody babies coming
into this house, I'm good. But once, like with my
youngest son, when I did my second journey, at that point,
(25:35):
he was five or six, and he did understand more.
And how I broke it down to him was this
family and we obviously they met my children, they came
over to my house, so my family knew them. And
when my youngest son met the intended parents, we would
(25:55):
tell them so and so's belly is broken, but they
want to have a baby to love and to cherish
like mommy and daddy does you. So Mummy is going
to help them because my belly is not broken. We're
going to help them so that they can have a baby.
But this baby is not going to be with us,
and this baby is not ours, and this baby is
(26:16):
not going to look like us, and this baby is
not going to be your sibling. This is just us
helping this other family because they want to also have
a baby. And he understood that concept so well that
we could be in the grocery store and this one
time this lady stopped us or we were like in
the same aisle and she's like, oh, what do you
you know? What are you having? What do you do?
(26:38):
And I just said, oh, I'm having a boy. I
didn't really go much into detail, no, but he didn't.
He was like, Oh, that's so and So's baby. Her
belly is broken, and mummy's belly is not broken. So
as soon as the baby comes out, though, it's going
back to so and so's house because that's not a
baby and we don't want the baby in our house.
They want the baby in their house and they're preparing
and I'm like, okay, yeah, he understands the message. Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
(27:06):
And there's a lot of information out there and books
and all kinds of stuff now that really helped to
educate even your own children about this process and how
it works. I think society is where babies are made
by a mom and dad in the bedroom privacy and
it's just like, well, yeah, but that's not the case anymore. Unfortunately,
(27:27):
there is a lot more families going through fertility issues.
They may not share it because a lot of people
feel that it's a private thing and they don't want
to share it. A lot of people don't know what
they're going through, and rightfully so it is their business
to deal with. But unfortunately, fertility issues is becoming a
(27:47):
very prevalent thing in this country, and not just in
this country worldwide, and then especially when it comes to
minorities and people of color and so on and so forth. Unfortunately,
there is a huge health disparities, especially when it comes
to fertility and fertility care, because insurance companies most often
(28:09):
don't cover anything. I am in Atlanta, and we unfortunately
have one of the worst insurance company providers in this country,
Like especially when it comes to fertility care. Georgia is
like rated number forty nine or something. It's just ridiculous.
So so you're saying that health insurance doesn't really pay
(28:30):
for any of this process, none of it. Yeah, I mean,
because as I was listening to you, I'm thinking about, like,
this sounds very costly, right, and so for a family
who wants to embark up on the surrogacy process, how
do they financially prepare for this or their resources or
other things that can help with this process. Unfortunately, there
are places where you can go get grants and scholarships,
(28:53):
but it's very minimal. Number one, Ye're applying along with
hundreds of other people that are trying to apply to
get it. And even when you do, it might give
you maybe ten thousand or even twenty thousand dollars, but
it really isn't that significant. And when you're talking about surrogacy,
you're easily and it costs of about a hundred and
(29:14):
twenty to two hundred thousand dollars to do surregacy now
in the US. Okay, Yeah, so a lot of people
would have to take out fertility loans. I've known people
that have taken money out of there four oh one K.
They've taken out home equity lines, and there are people
that think outside the box. They do fundraisers. I have
(29:36):
a fertility podcast, and I have a guest on that
mentioned about instead of having a baby shower, have a
fertility shower. Your family and friends share with him that
what you're going through, so that instead of them giving
you money for a birthday gift or holiday or whatever. No, no,
put that in my fertility fund because we're trying and
(30:00):
I have a baby and we can't. And that's the
biggest thing. A lot of people don't know that so
many people in their circle are going through fertility issues.
Is just something we don't share. Another organization that people
may want to check out is Fertility for Colored Girls.
This is an organization that was founded by a black
(30:20):
woman who's a minister and she just started chapters all
over the US for black women that are going through
fertility issues and just coming together to help each other out.
They also do scholarships through that program. There's another one
called CADE Foundation C A d E. And they do
(30:43):
scholarships as well. So there's things out there. You just
have to be willing to really sit down and do
the research. Got it more from my conversation with Eloise
after the break. So let's talk a little bit about
(31:05):
some of the challenges that may come up when you
are looking for US area you've already talked about, if
you're like a black family or a family of color,
it may be really difficult to find us. Aregud who
matches you culturally. Yeah, definitely matches you culturally. But remember too,
with gestational surrogacy, even if the woman was white, your
child is still going to come out looking at like
(31:26):
you because you're the one giving the genetic material. She's
just carrying for you. But you want someone that you're
comfortable with. You want someone that you can have a
rapport with. You know, the worst thing is having somebody
carrying your child and you can't even have a decent
conversation with her. That is just not okay. You want
(31:47):
someone that you know is going to take care of herself,
that's going to take care of the pregnancy. You want
to know that she has support and place because the
worst thing is that she ends up having to go
on bed rest and somebody else has to step in
and take care of her children. So you want someone
that definitely has support, and you want somebody that is
(32:08):
doing it for the right reasons. Yes, it is definitely
okay to want to do it for monetary gain. However,
that should not be your first motivation because when it
is where you're laid up in the hospital because you're
on bed rest and not a total stranger, but somebody
else is helping with your kids because you can't take
(32:30):
care of them. It all has to be worth it
for you. So can you say a little bit more
about the hesitancy that some couples have when it comes
to using a surrogate. I definitely feel like this is
something that we're hearing more, especially I think from celebrities. Right. So,
Gabrielle Union, of course has recently been very open about
like her process, and I think we are hearing people
talk more about it. But can you say more about
(32:51):
some of the hesitancy people might have with this process? Oh?
Of course, I mean just to wrap your head around
the fact that somebody else is going to grow and
nurture your child and you have no say as to
what this person eat, what this person does, where this
person goes, who was she around, what does she do,
how does she take care of herself? You get to
choose who you work with, of course, but you still
(33:13):
have to put all your faith and trust in another
human being. And then of course the cost it is
a significant amount of money. Before it used to be
where people used to think that surrogacy was only for
the rich and the wealthy or celebrities, but that definitely
is not the case. I can tell you I work
(33:33):
with a lot of just running the mill. I go
to work nine to five. I've just saved up. I
desperately want a child. I can't have a child because
I've had cancer, or because I have a heart condition,
or I'm the same sex couple, whatever it is. But
you want to be able to have a child, you
(33:55):
don't want to do adoption. And I know a lot
of people say, well, you know, there's so many babies
out there, or why not adopt? Adoption is not that simple,
first of all. Second of all, when you're talking about adoption,
it can get actually quite pricey to do adoption, and
you have to wait around until you are picked for adoption,
(34:16):
especially if you want a newborn. Then people will say
there's plenty of children already here that are in the
foster care system. What people don't know about the foster
care system. Foster care isn't the setup for adoption. Foster
care was set up so that they can reunite those
families together, not to have it set up where somebody
can come in and adopt that child. It's not as
(34:38):
simple as just saying there's so many children out there,
just adopt so there's a number of different things that
one has to wrap their head around when it comes
to letting go of surregacy. Even the morning process of
the fact that you can't carry your own child and
you have to trust somebody else, whether you know them,
whether it's a sibling or a friend, or a cousin
(34:59):
or a total stranger, it's still where you have to
mourn the fact that you can't carry your child and
you have to depend on someone else to be able
to bring you your child for you. If you've already
kind of talks about some of this, but are there
other like misconceptions about this process that you think are
important for people to know about. Definitely the exploitation, for sure.
(35:22):
I think that's probably the biggest issue, is the naysayers
of of exploitation and of ken Unfortunately, the cost is
a humongous factor, and just again the trust factor on
both sides. You know, the surrogates need to know that
they can trust the parents, and the parents need to
(35:42):
know that they can trust the surrogate. Got it. You
mentioned earlier that the hardest part for you in terms
of being a surrogate was like the bond you made
with the families and then after you deliver the baby
and give them the baby, and in that relationship kind
of goes away. Is there a process by which sometimes
surrogates like continue to kind of be a part of
the family. Are still are involved in the child's life. Oh? God, yeah,
(36:03):
even though after delivery it goes away in the sense
that I mean, you were in a relationship, probably talking
to them once a week, You probably see them with
the doctor's appointments and have that rapport. But when they
have that baby, well they don't have time for all
that either, and then you move on with your life.
But yes, you absolutely can continue on with relationships with
(36:26):
the parents. I definitely have relationships with a couple of
my parents that I carried for not my first couple,
but my second and third couple. We still have a
relationship to this day. And I have plenty of clients
and plenty of surrogates that they definitely still have a relationship.
They've attended birthday parties and baby showers and just various
(36:47):
get togethers or whatever. So the relationship is what you
make of it. And the thing about surrogacy, there's no
right or wrong way. It's what are you comfortable with.
You've already given us a couple of resources. Are there
other sources that you think would be helpful for anybody
maybe considering either becoming an egg donor or a surrogate,
or wanting to start the surrogacy process. I would definitely
(37:09):
have them go to our website, which is Family inceptions
dot com. One of the things that we do is
have an educational based website. There's so much information out
there for somebody on egg donation, what it is to
become an egg donor, the things that they need to consider,
(37:29):
same thing for surrogacy as well as for the intended
parents and just what the things that they need to
be aware of the questions they need to ask. Sometimes
you don't know what you don't know. The other thing
that we created as well is called Surrogacy Roadmap, because
there are a lot of families that want to work
with the surrogate but can't necessarily afford to work with
(37:51):
an agency and are trying different ways to help cut cost,
and so we developed Surrogacy Roadmap, which is an on
line course to walk people through how to do it
on their own and kind of like a d I
Y program so that you are still doing it properly,
you're doing things that will make sure that obviously at
(38:12):
the end you have a healthy baby, that it's all legal,
you don't have any worries about somebody trying to keep
your child at the end, or somebody trying to not
give you back the child. And just real quickly, there
are more cases of intended parents not coming for their
babies than there are. Sorry, it's not giving the babies up.
So that's another misconception out there. Everybody asks like, well,
(38:33):
what if she doesn't want to give us the baby.
That woman can have her own babies. She does not
need to have yours. So you just have to remember
there's more cases of that. Luckily, thank god, we've been
in business for thirteen years. We have never once had
anybody say that they didn't want to come get their
babies or that they didn't want to give up the baby.
I'm glad you brought that up. So at what point
(38:55):
is it in the very beginning where like legal documents
and things are a signed talk about okay, after you
have this baby, like you're gonna give it over, and
then what is the recourse for intended parents who don't
come and get their baby? Oh? Yeah, before you take
a pill. Legal contracts have to be in place, and
the parents have to pay for all of it. Although
(39:16):
the surrogate does have separate legal counsel that represents her,
she gets to choose who her counsel is, but the
parents have to pay for all of that and within
the contract, and these are detailed contracts, they're not know
five temp pages long. I've seen contracts that are a
hundred pages long. So there's a lot of information that
(39:36):
has to be agreed upon upfront and golf of it.
Somebody never came and got their child, it's in the
contract who the guardian is going to be. And if
it was that, let's say intended parents died during the process,
well that guardian would step up. And if it was
that the intended parents just decided that they didn't want
(39:57):
to have the child and that child would actually go
up for adoption. Got it? Okay? Okay? Anything else that
you feel like it's important for people to know about
any of this. The thing is you definitely just have
to take your time, do your research, and when in doubts,
seek out information. There is a lot of information out
(40:18):
there for surrogacy, for egg donation, for embryo donation, sperm
donation for dealing with infertility. There is a lot of
information out there. You just have to be willing to
go and seek it out, and you have to be
willing to not give up. If it is truly the
desire of your heart, this is definitely something that you
(40:39):
want to do. I feel like where there's a will,
there's a way, and you just have to keep at
it and eventually it will come to fruition. Thank you
so much, Eloise. I really appreciate all this information you
share with us today. Absolutely was my pleasure. Thank you
for having me. I appreciate it. I'm so glad Eloise
(41:01):
was able to share her expertise with us today. To
learn more about her and her work, or to check
out the resources she shared, visit the show notes at
Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash session to thirty
and don't forget to text two of your girls and
tell them to check out the episode as well. If
you're looking for a therapist in your area, be sure
to check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black
(41:23):
Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to
continue digging into this topic, are just be in community
with other sisters. Come on over and join us in
the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet,
designed just for black women. You can join us at
community that Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Thank you
all so much for joining me again this week. I
(41:43):
look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.
Take your care,
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