After being successful matched, there is another period of admin to endure. During this time both intended parents and the surrogate will need to be medically cleared (for the intended parents this includes blood tests for both parents, a semen analysis for the man and ultrasounds for the woman) and the parties will need to agree the surrogacy agreement.
The surrogacy agreement (also known as a gestational carrier agreement) will be produced by the US lawyers for the intended parents, and reviewed by counsel for the surrogate. If the surrogate is married her spouse will also be party to the agreement. The surrogacy agreement is a fairly standard form document, and there is limited scope to negotiate it. It will include details of the financial settlement between you as well as the critical legal agreement as to the parentage of any children arising from the surrogacy. It is important that you understand your rights and obligations under the agreement.
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It was at this stage that we were asked to transfer $100,000 into our US agency's escrow account to cover the cost of the agency's fees and the payments that would be made to Jennifer during the process (both fees and expenses). The agency then administered the escrow, making payments to Jennifer against the presentation of invoices for expenses. Payment of the $100,000 into escrow was referred to as "financial clearance".
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Once the agency confirmed that we were medically and financially cleared we were able to arrange a date for our first attempt at IVF, which was in June 2016.
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