Recommendation for surrogacy agency?

[Anonymous]

My wife and I are considering surrogacy in order to have a second child. Our first was born 6 weeks early in 2022 and is thankfully entirely healthy, but my wife developed severe preeclampsia and was in and out of the hospital for a month. Her blood pressure still isn't back to normal, so everyone we've seen has discouraged getting pregnant a second time. We don't want to risk it.

There are a bunch of agencies out there and they seem to range in cost from very expensive to exorbitantly expensive ($150-300K). How do we even begin to go about choosing the one to work with? What kind of a timeline is reasonable if we're doing an egg retrieval in a month? We've heard anything from 3-18 months to match with a surrogate, and then another 9-12 months on top of that if all goes smoothly.

Any recent experiences or recommendations? We want the best for our future baby, but are nervous about this process.

[Anonymous]

We had a good experience with Diane Hinson at Creative Family Connections in Friendship Heights about 10 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Family Forward Surrogacy is amazing. The owner went through it herself and it did not have the best experience, so she really gets it right. https://familyforwardsurrogacy.com

[Anonymous]

It took us a year to match with our gestational carrier, but she was so amazing it was worth it. Once you match you should allow a few months for all the testing and counseling. Then it will depend on how soon she is able to get pregnant.
We worked with Meryl Rosenberg of ART Parenting in Potomac but I don’t know if she still works with intended parents.

[Anonymous]

You don’t have to work only worn a local agency so you can cast a wider net.