Families come in a variety of formats, and how you build your family can take many forms. Some families are unable to conceive naturally, even with help from fertility specialists. And when you encounter that reality, you’re left with two options for growing your family.
- Adoption
- Surrogacy
Neither route is superior to the other. But both surrogacy and adoption have considerations when it comes to emotions, cost, the process of welcoming a child, and the overall timeline it will take until you have a new family member in your home.
Weighing the Options Between Surrogacy vs. Adoption
The decision between surrogacy vs. adoption is a deeply personal one. But before you make it, spend some time getting to know how each works and what to expect so you are fully prepared and have a solid support network around you to navigate the process.
A Look at Surrogacy
Surrogacy is a reproductive process in which a woman carries and births a baby for another family. Generally, this involves gestational surrogacy, which means the woman carrying the baby shares no DNA with the baby. That’s because she undergoes in vitro fertilization to achieve pregnancy. Often, the egg and sperm are from the intended parents, giving them shared DNA with their child.
So while the gestational carrier goes through the pregnancy, she is in no way biologically connected to the child. Some families want that genetic connection with their child, and the opportunity to look in their child’s eyes and see the image of their baby pictures and have the pride of others telling them that they look just like them.
The surrogacy process has many steps, including:
- Fertility treatments
- Medical screenings
- Legal agreements
- Ongoing coordination with a surrogacy agency
- Regular communication with healthcare providers
While that might seem like a complex process, that process is in place to protect you, your baby, and the gestational carrier. It offers the best chance at a safe and successful pregnancy to allow you to finally be a family as you’ve been longing for.
Surrogacy law is complex, and varies from state to state in the US. Navigating these complexities can feel daunting, which is why working with a surrogacy agency is so valuable. You won’t have to worry about hiring a lawyer and concerns over custody battles after your baby is born. Instead, all that will be completely clear throughout the whole process.
Another major consideration for surrogacy is cost. Your surrogacy agency will review costs with you during initial consultations. These costs cover everything from legal fees to medical care.
While surrogacy has many steps and some levels of complexity to it, families choose it because it is highly structured and offers a biological relationship with their child.
A Look at Adoption
With adoption, a couple or an individual becomes the permanent parent of a child born to someone else. The new parents share no biological connection to the child, but they become the child’s loving family when the family they were born into is unable to raise them.
The adoption process can take many forms, such as domestic infant adoption, foster care adoption, or international adoption. Each form of adoption has its own timelines and procedures.
For some families, adoption is the logical choice because it enables a family to care for a child who needs them. It can make a huge difference in the life of that child, offering a powerful motivation for the adopting parents.
In some cases, adoption is also more affordable than surrogacy. Adopting from foster care carries minimal costs, and completing a private domestic adoption can cost around $30,000.
One of the most challenging aspects of adoption is that it can be a lengthy process and the timeline is often unpredictable. When an agency is considering your family for adoption, you’ll undergo extensive background checks, home studies, and legal processes on the way to welcoming your child.
Another challenge with adoption is that it can come with some mystery around the child. You might not know their full medical history or genetic background, which can present surprises throughout the child’s life.
Key Differences Between Adoption vs. Surrogacy
Now that you have an overview of how surrogacy and adoption work, here’s a look at the key differences in each journey toward parenthood to offer insights into how you should proceed with each.
Biological Connection
- Surrogacy: Gestational surrogacy enables the intended parents to share DNA with their child.
- Adoption: Adoptive parents have no shared biology with their child, and might have limited genetic information about them.
Level of Involvement During Pregnancy
- Surrogacy: During surrogacy agreements, intended parents can outline their preferences for how involved they are in the pregnancy journey. This allows them to make medical decisions about their child, and sometimes even attend prenatal appointments and the baby’s birth, giving them a strong connection to the child early.
- Adoption: Parents who adopt their child have little to no involvement throughout the pregnancy and might even welcome a child when they are older.
Timeline and Predictability
- Surrogacy: Once a gestational carrier is pregnant, the timeline to when intended parents will welcome their child becomes abundantly clear.
- Adoption: Timelines for adoption vary and can change in the family giving the child up for adoption changes their mind or something happens where the agency places the child somewhere else. Parents can wait months or years for a match and nothing is certain until the process is finalized in the courts.
Cost
- Surrogacy: Intended parents must be ready for an extensive bill throughout the surrogacy process to cover fertility treatments, medical care, legal services, and compensation for the surrogate.
- Adoption: The cost to adopt a child varies, but is generally more affordable, especially if the parents go through the foster care system, which does mean adopting an older child instead of a newborn.
Legal Process
- Surrogacy: While the legal process for surrogacy is far from simple, it is straightforward when you work with a surrogacy agency and clearly outlines the roles and responsibilities of all parties.
- Adoption: Much like surrogacy, adoption has clear legal processes. But the process is not finalized or certain until the court officially transfers parental rights to the adoptive parents, which can be an emotionally challenging time.
Emotional Considerations
- Surrogacy: Those who go through surrogacy know that the process is not without its emotional considerations. But it does offer emotional connections with the baby early on and a clear process toward parenthood.
- Adoption: Parents going through adoption might find the process emotionally trying due to the nature of not knowing for certain whether a child will be placed with them for certain until the court process finalizes.
Making the Right Choice Toward Parenthood for You
Ultimately, there is no one right answer for how you become a parent or grow your family. The right choice for you between surrogacy vs. adoption will vary based on your priorities and circumstances.
As you evaluate your options, meet with the Accel Conceptions team for a more complete view of how surrogacy will look for your family specifically. We’re here to answer questions and put you on the path toward parenthood.