You have made the commitment to become a Gestational Surrogate for someone else. What an incredible gift of grace that is for your matched Intended Parents. The fact that you are willing to endure being pregnant again so another family can grow and thrive is truly remarkable. At this moment, the last thing you are probably thinking about is would you commit to doing another journey for the same Intended Parents a second time. We call these sibling journeys.
If everything in your first journey goes really well, maybe you would you consider doing it again. You might feel really connected to your Intended Parents and feel strongly about wanting to help them have a second child. Seeing their dreams come true can be an incredibly moving and meaningful experience; this is why some Surrogates do decide to do a sibling journey with their same Intended Parents. What you probably are not sure of is whether or not you would choose to work with same surrogacy agency again the second time around.
Future Sibling Provisions
Many surrogacy agencies put provisions in their agency contracts with their Surrogates that require the agency to be used again if a Surrogate and her matched Intended Parents decide to pursue a sibling journey. In some ways this makes sense for the agency; they expend a lot of time, energy, and resources in creating successful matches. If the Surrogate and Intended Parents have a great experience working together, and choose to do so again a second time, then the agency will want to be a part of that second journey and collect another agency fee. The agencies are trying to prevent their Intended Parents from taking their exceptional surrogates and running off to do an independent sibling journey, thereby cutting the surrogacy agency out of the process. Afterall, the agency introduced the Intended Parents to you in the first place.
These agencies will also put similar sibling journey provisions in their agency contracts with the Intended Parents. They usually get the Intended Parents to agree to use the agency again (often times for a reduced agency fee) for a sibling journey with any Surrogate that the agency matches them with. Sometimes, the agencies will go so far as to require the Intended Parents to pay some, or all, of the agency’s fee for the second journey with their Surrogate even if the Intended Parents don’t use the agency again to manage the journey. Yikes!
It is not uncommon for Intended Parents who have a great journey with a responsible Gestational Surrogate to contemplate going independent (meaning not use an agency at all) for a sibling journey. We have an entire post dedicated to things to think about if you are considering doing a independent journey; read it here. While I am not a fan of independent journeys under most circumstances, I believe that is a decision you are sophisticated enough to decide for yourself. Just keep in mind that if you truly have a great experience in your first journey with your Intended Parents, there is a good chance that your surrogacy agency had a lot to do with the first journey going so well. By taking the agency out of the equation it does save the Intended Parents a lot of money (assuming they don’t pay the agency another fee), but it does not guarantee that your second journey will go as smoothly as the first. A lot of Surrogates find out just how valuable the agency was for them when the agency is not involved the second time around.
What to Look For
Usually the surrogacy agency contract you sign will say something like you, as the Surrogate, have an obligation to contact or notify the agency if the Intended Parents they match you with try to work with you again independently. This allows the agency to try to enforce their agency contract provisions with the Intended Parents and get their agreed upon fee for using their Surrogate (you) again. Other agencies will try to be more forceful and aggressive in their contract language and say that you are absolutely not allowed to work with those Intended Parents again unless the agency is involved in the sibling journey. You will want to look over your agency contract and find out if it has a sibling journey clause in it. You can ask the agency representative you are working with to show you the provision and explain how it will impact you and your future journeys.
Your Options
First, you need to know what exactly is in your agency contract regarding sibling journeys. Some agencies are silent on the issue because they don’t believe you, as the Surrogate, are the one to blame if the Intended Parents want to work with you again. Those agencies hope that the Intended Parents will want to work with the agency again because they did such a great job, but they are not going to force them to. Other agencies will put some of the onus on you for your part in a future independent sibling journey.
My preference is to ask for the sibling journey clause in your agency contract agreement to be removed. It is not clear if such a clause would even be enforceable given you are not obligated to work with the surrogacy agency again after you get pregnant the first time. Signing up with an agency to be one of their Gestational Carriers doesn’t make you an indentured servant! You can let the agency know you are uncomfortable with that provision, especially given you don’t know what kind of job the agency is going to do on your first journey. Then ask them to have the sibling journey provision removed before you sign-up to work with them.
Alternatively, you can at least ask them to modify the provision so you don’t have any personal obligation other than notifying the agency if the Intended Parents want to work with you again. Then it becomes an issue for the agency to work out with the Intended Parents. Just keep in mind that the surrogacy agency may say that their sibling journey provision is required to stay as is if you want to work with them. If that is their response, then it becomes a factor in your decision-making process about working with that agency or not.
If you don’t get sufficient answers to your questions from the agency about the presence of a sibling journey provision or its impact on you, a final option is to have an attorney look over the agency contract for you before you sign it. They can go through the entire contract with you and explain just what exactly you are agreeing to when you commit to working with that agency. Your attorney can then also help you decide what changes you might want to ask for before signing the agency contract. While this is the best option in my opinion, I know that many surrogates don’t want to pay an attorney to review their agency documents with them. That is just a reality that we have to deal with. My hope is that this post will, at a minimum, trigger you to spot these sibling journey provisions that might easily be overlooked as unimportant for your first journey.
You may not know when you sign-up with a surrogacy agency whether a sibling journey is for you, or if you would even want to do one independently instead of having the agency manage your journey. Ultimately, I want you to have the freedom to make those choices on your own and not need the agency’s permission for whatever you decide to do about a sibling journey in the future.
▶ ▶▶ For more information and a no-cost consultation with Attorney James Mahan, please contact The Surrogate’s Corner!
