How To Strengthen Your Relationship With Your Intended Parents
As a surrogate, one of the biggest concerns that you have besides having a healthy pregnancy is ensuring your relationship with the intended parent or parents is strong.
Having a bad relationship with the intended parents can make surrogacy more difficult than it needs to be. While most intended parents and their surrogates get along well, there’s always the risk of something occurring which can sour the relationship.
Pregnancy is an extremely emotional time.
Since your pregnancy is with a surrogate baby, the stakes are even higher. To ensure that your relationship with your intended parents is as strong as possible when you become a surrogate, here are a few tips to consider.
#1 – Understand Their Anxiety
One reason that relationships can sometimes become tense is that there’s a misunderstanding between the surrogate and an intended parent. As a surrogate, it’s important to understand where the anxiety or gruff behavior stems from. Most of that is usually fear.
Intended parents are out of control of the pregnancy. They’re not the ones carrying the baby, and so they can feel helpless whenever you experience pain or discomfort. For many intended parents, they have been through the wringer trying to have a baby. They searched for a “surrogate agency near me” and went through all of the steps to find you. Then they have to give up control over their baby while it grows. This might make them try to micro-manage or control the surrogate.
This isn’t done because they’re a bad person or anything. It’s simply born out of fear over their delicate child. By understanding that they’re not angry or disappointed with you personally, but rather that they fear what might happen to their child because they feel helpless, you can control your own emotions and help reassure them.
One of the ways that you can reassure them is to turn them towards your medical records. Whenever you join a surrogate agency, some of their surrogacy qualifications involve sending them your medical records. This helps show them–and the intended parents–that you are capable of a healthy pregnancy.
When they find a surrogate through a surrogate agency, they’re only forwarded to the ones who are the best at carrying babies. Reminding them that you are healthy and that you have carried a child before can help reassure them that their baby is in good hands.
#2 – Make the First Meeting Count
After the intended parents go through the process of becoming a parent with our surrogate agency, they will be meeting with you for a match meeting. One way to strengthen your relationship with your intended parents when you become a surrogate is to make that first meeting count.
Everyone is going to be understandably nervous. The parents have likely never done anything like this before. Whether it’s your first time or not as a surrogate, you’ll likely be a bit nervous, too.
However, how that first meeting goes is a great way to set the tone and mood of every meeting with the intended parents afterward. You should appear professional when you arrive at the meeting. While becoming a surrogate is a relatively easy one, it is still a bit like a professional job. Think of the first meeting almost like an interview for a job.
Remember that humor is always a great way to break some of the tension.
The conversation should flow naturally, and most likely will go well with the help of us being there as your advocate. However, be mindful of their emotions and nerves. More than anything, be warm and respectful. It takes a lot of courage for intended parents to seek help from surrogacy. Humans have a difficult time accepting that their bodies have limits.
At the first meeting, you should talk about yourself.
You can tell them about your family, why you wanted to get involved with surrogacy, the reasons why you wanted to become a surrogate and how eager you are to help them. You should also ask about them. Showing an interest in their lives can help them feel more relaxed and more connected to you.
#3 – Sync Fertility Appointments
If it’s possible, you should try to sync your fertility appointments with theirs. The process of surrogacy begins with fertility treatments. The intended parents are involved in IVF. An embryo can’t be formed until IVF is completed. You’re there for the embryo transfer. Both require fertility treatments.
By syncing the appointments together, not only can you potentially carpool together and bond on the way, but it also makes it seem like you’re a unit. Together, you are going through this experience and have each other to rely on. You can support one another and have each other’s backs.
At the end of the appointments, you can reflect on the experience. By doing something that may be nerve-wracking or uncomfortable together, your bond will only grow stronger.
#4 – Make Them Part of the Experience
One of the biggest and best ways that you can strengthen your bond with your intended parents is to include them in a healthy pregnancy. It’s common for intended parents to feel like they’re missing out with the pregnancy because of their need for surrogacy in California. They provide their egg and sperm cells, and that’s about it.
Becoming a surrogate means you’re the one carrying the baby for the next nine months. All the intended parents can do is wait. For the intended mothers, this can be an especially difficult part of the process. They may become jealous.
By including them, you can remove that jealousy and help them enjoy the experience as much as you do. One way to include them is to have them join you on your appointments to the doctor. Whether it’s a simple check-up or an ultrasound, you should at least extend an invitation to them.
Our surrogacy agency in California can help you keep your appointments straight since you’re likely going to have quite a few. That’s helpful because you then know exactly when to invite the intended parents along. The ultrasound, especially, is an extremely emotional moment that the intended parents shouldn’t miss out on. They can see their baby for the first time.
You can also invite them over to your home now and then, or most likely you will be invited to their home or out to a dinner or lunch after appointments. The process of surrogacy is a long one, so it doesn’t hurt to become comfortable with your intended parents to the point where you can see them on a regular basis around these appointments. If you are comfortable, let them touch your belly, help you cook your food, and do other seemingly easy and unnecessary things just to make sure you’re comfortable. It’s their way of helping ensure the baby is happy and healthy.
#5 – Allow Them into the Birth
Becoming a surrogate means that, eventually, you’re going to give birth.
When that time comes, you should invite the intended parents into the room with you. While it is an extremely private moment, you likely wouldn’t want to be excluded from seeing your own baby born.
Inviting them into the room shows respect and acknowledges their place as the baby’s actual parents. This will help them feel loved and part of the process.
Join a Surrogacy Agency in California Today
If you have been searching, “surrogate agency near me” and want to be part of the incredible experience, then you should contact us today. Check out our surrogacy qualifications to see if you qualify, and then take the steps necessary to be a surrogate with our agency, Made in the USA Surrogacy.
