Hi OP. I asked Jeff to clear out the crazy and unhelpful responses and he has kindly obliged. Hopefully we can keep this thread on topic for you.

Back to your question, what has your agency said? Do you have a good agency that you trust? They will be in the best position to know how long this will take.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My only experience with a surrogate / GC was through a family member, but she was able to use the same GC twice. The woman carried family member's first baby to term and two years later was her GC again. I don't really know how that worked - if they went through the match process again or if they contact the GC and asked - but is that a possibility to use the same person as your first GC?

OP here. I mean, if that was an option, I wouldn't be asking the question. The first surrogate had a lot of medical complications and is medically disqualified from being a surrogate again.

I'm the first PP from this thread and same - you are right, PP, that it's ideal (insofar as this kind of situation can be "ideal") to continue with the same GC for a subsequent pregnancy. In fact the first GC we ever interviewed would have been doing her 5th surrogacy cycle with us and her previous 4 had been two sets of siblings for two other families! She just loved being pregnant and was physically really good at it. But yeah, in our case we also weren't able to continue with our original GC (though for personal reasons on her side, not medical).

Anyway, I'm sorry I don't have anything else to add to help you, OP. Just sending solidarity your way. Sorry there've been some nuts going off the rails in your thread here.

Anonymous wrote:My only experience with a surrogate / GC was through a family member, but she was able to use the same GC twice. The woman carried family member's first baby to term and two years later was her GC again. I don't really know how that worked - if they went through the match process again or if they contact the GC and asked - but is that a possibility to use the same person as your first GC?

OP here. I mean, if that was an option, I wouldn't be asking the question. The first surrogate had a lot of medical complications and is medically disqualified from being a surrogate again.

My only experience with a surrogate / GC was through a family member, but she was able to use the same GC twice. The woman carried family member's first baby to term and two years later was her GC again. I don't really know how that worked - if they went through the match process again or if they contact the GC and asked - but is that a possibility to use the same person as your first GC?

We started trying to match in November 2019 and have since been matched with two surrogates. It took about 9 months both times. (We weren't able to continue with our first match because she didn't respond well to the medications.) It has taken longer than our first matching process (2017) but not terribly so, really.

Just a random aside: one thing I've really noticed this time is that we've more disconnected from the whole process. Because of Covid, we never/haven't met our matches in this round except by Zoom. With our earlier GC we got to meet several times in person even though she lived in another state; we went there for a joint psychological consult, flew her here for the transfer and took her to dinner, etc. That's been very strange, honestly, even though I'm pretty private and never wanted to be all up in my GC's business or anything.

Anyway, wishing you good luck! It's a crazy journey, sigh, but thank heaven for science.

I'm a parent through surrogacy, but I'm thinking of possibly doing a second surrogacy using the embryos I have in storage. How long is it taking to match with a surrogate through an agency these days? I've read some articles that say that there are fewer surrogates available now because of the pandemic (because it's an additional risk to be pregnant during COVID, plus a lot of potential surrogates are antivax, but intended parents and doctors only want the ones willing to get vaxxed-- I know my doctor/ clinic wouldn't allow an antivax surrogate). It took me over a year to match with a surrogate the first time, pre-pandemic, so I'm a little nervous that it might be even longer now.