Responsible or indifferent father? The truth about the treatment of pregnant women in surrogacy
It seems like a tough question (no offense intended), but the truth is that not all prospective parents are aware—or prefer not to be—of how important it is to ensure that their surrogate is treated well at all times. And, as in any field, there are all kinds of “agencies” in the world of surrogacy.
Therefore, when you talk to an agency to find out about their programs and prices, you should ask them certain questions and pay attention to their answers. If they don’t know how to answer, if they are evasive, or if what they tell you doesn’t convince you, you will be one step away from becoming an accomplice to the exploitation of your surrogate mother: the person who is going to give you what neither God (if you are a believer) nor the government has been able to give you: a child.
We should put surrogate mothers on a pedestal. Without them, you would not be a father.
So ask the different agencies the following questions to find out how they care for your surrogate mother:
| QUESTION | GESTLIFE | OTHER AGENCY |
| How much do they pay the surrogate mother? | US$30,000 in pure compensation. (food, clothing, and allowances not included). Be sure to ask about the pure compensation for the surrogate mother, what she will receive net. Make sure they don’t include expenses. | |
| Do they offer the surrogate mother two years of psychological follow-up after the birth? | All surrogate mothers have two years of follow-up after the birth to ensure their mental health. | |
| Do they offer a year of medical follow-up after the birth? | After the birth, even weeks later, there may be bleeding and complications arising from the birth. Gestlife offers them a year of medical follow-up. | |
| Do they offer you one year of legal assistance after the birth? | After the process is complete, Gestlife offers you legal assistance for one year so that you can invest your compensation correctly and without risk. (They usually buy a home). | |
| Do they cover you with insurance that covers all your medical expenses? | YES. | |
| Do they provide you with any kind of training to improve your future? | YES. They take an 8-month master’s degree in sales at a prestigious sales institute to facilitate their professional career at the end of the process. | |
| Do they deduct your food expenses from your compensation? | NO. The compensation is pure compensation. Nothing is deducted. | |
| Do you have an assigned psychologist who contacts you every 15 days throughout the process? | YES. Psychological follow-up is vitally important before, during, and after pregnancy. | |
| Do pregnant women have a leisure plan? | Every 15 days, Gestlife takes pregnant women to the beach for a day at the beach. The rest of the year, there are weekly leisure activities (cinema, museums, exhibitions, hairdressing, spa, manicures, etc.). Scheduled outings are organized every two weeks throughout the year, with group activities such as going to the beach in summer, visiting cities, castles, museums, community meals, fairs, etc. | |
| Do you have an assigned nutritionist who develops your meal plans and monitors your diet? | YES. What the pregnant woman eats is vitally important for the development of the fetus. | |
| Are they allowed to travel with their children? | YES, we cannot separate a mother from her children. | |
| If they travel with their children, are they enrolled in school? | Of course. Gestlife has schooling programs for the children of pregnant women who travel with them, to prevent them from missing that school year. | |
| Do you give them a personal gift when the pregnant woman becomes pregnant? | YES. We give them an iPhone (something they would not normally be able to afford), which is exclusively for them, as they are the ones who are actually going through the process. You can see how excited they are in the company’s videos. |
Often, when parents analyze a program, the first thing they look at is the price. We all know that money doesn’t grow on trees, but we also can’t confuse value with price. Today, what really differentiates the cost between one agency and another is not the fees or medical expenses—which are usually very similar across the board—but how much the surrogate receives and what additional services are offered to ensure her well-being.
These services and compensations are essential, and of course they come at a cost. The only way to make a program cheaper is to eliminate services—which inevitably exposes you to hidden risks and expenses later on—or, worse, to reduce the compensation for the surrogate mother, the woman who is making it possible for you to have a child.
Agency fees are very similar. So if you see two programs for the same destination with very different prices, ask yourself what they have cut back on to make the cost seem more attractive. Since you are not an expert, you probably won’t notice what’s missing, and you’ll only find out later in the form of unexpected bills and problems that no one warned you about. As our grandparents used to say, “Cheap is expensive.” And how right they were.
When you buy a car, identical in all its versions, it makes sense to look for the best price: it’s the same vehicle. But here we’re not talking about a car, but about bringing your child into the world with all the necessary medical and legal guarantees. If a program is cheaper, it means that they have removed a “leg” from the chair. And we all know what happens to a three-legged chair: sooner or later it falls over.
If you are one of those parents who care about how we treat the surrogate mother who is going to give you the miracle of life, then welcome to Gestlife: responsible parenthood.
Before you decide, take the test we suggested above with any other agency. You’ll be in for more than one surprise. And remember: prevention is better than cure.