A View of Adoption, Ivf, and Surrogacy as Solutions to Childlessness

There are very few options when it comes to infertility. There’s only Surrogacy, IVF (in-vitro fertilization) and Adoption. It is understandable why a person would want a biological child but a person shouldn’t go through so much pain, money, and time just to become a parent. Surrogacy is a pretty misunderstood subject. It basically means paying another person with a uterus to carry and give birth to the child of the biological parents. A lot of people see it as if the person who gives birth to the child is automatically the biological parent, which is not true. It’s common that future parents think that because they don’t carry or are not biologically related to the child or they’ll have a difficult time being emotionally connected to it. Finding a surrogate and going through the IVF process to retrieve eggs for the surrogate can takes up so much time and money.

Many people chose to look towards adoption. There’s also a huge legal side that comes along with both options. There are millions of children in orphanages/ or foster homes around the world that want to grow up in a loving family and it’s only a fraction of the cost of surrogacy. I want to discuss this topic because not many people talk/ or think about it, unless you’re thinking about starting a family. There are pros and cons when it comes to surrogacy & adoption. People often have a bias and so do I but I think that understanding both sides of the spectrum is great because the information can help someone decide what do they want to do if they ever run into the road block of infertility.

At some point in a person’s life, they want to have a child and lots of people have strong opinions about both adoption and surrogacy. Like myself, I would choose adoption rather than surrogacy because I would love a child no matter what; and the cost of surrogacy is outstandingly expensive. That’s just what I think. There are many downsides to both choices. Cots for surrogacy can cost anywhere from 40,000 to 150,000. The is so large due to many reason. One, the cost for a cycle of IVF. According to Forbes and several fertility websites state that the average cost of a cycle costs anywhere between 12,000 to 15,000. There’s never a way to find out on how many eggs a doctor is able to retrieve and whether the eggs are mature enough to be transferred to the surrogate. It’s a very suspenseful/ time consuming thing to do and IVF doesn’t always work on the first try.

For example, GloZell Simon or better known as GloZell Green on Youtube. She waited to have kids later in life so she can focus on her career. She documented her whole fertility journey through a family Youtube channel called Awestruck. At the age of forty-two she underwent seven cycles of IVF herself so she can get pregnant but was soon told that she wasn’t able to after the many attempts. After she was told that, she soon started to look for a surrogate. Shawna Johnson was happy to be able to help GloZell carry her child. After she took her eighth cycle of IVF, her doctors were able to retrieve six eggs but only three of them matured enough to she transferred to her surrogate. Nine months later, her daughter, O’Zell Gloriana De Green Simon (named after her late grandfather) was born but GloZell wanted to try one more cycle so her daughter can have a sibling.

Six months after her surrogate having her first child, she was pregnant again but it sadly ended in a miscarriage this past February. Her surrogate, Shawna, was all on board to trying one more time. Although GloZell said she was officially done doing IVF because of how tiring it was, she said yes and is going to be going on her tenth cycle later this year. Including her upcoming tenth cycle, Glozell spent/ is spending anywhere between 120,000 to 150,000 dollars just on IVF alone. Normally, just with one cycle, the medical costs for the surrogate, having to take fertility medication, having a lab create the embryo, having the surrogate also go through fertility treatments throughout the pregnancy and having to pay the surrogate apart from that equals to the amount she spent on IVF. It’s understandable why she did that. A person has once in a while imagined having a little one looking just like them and having to give up the idea of having the bond with a biological child is hard but you can always form a strong bond with an adopted child. She’s also mentioned if her tenth cycle doesn’t go through, she will consider adoption.

Adopting a child can also be very expensive but not as much as surrogacy. Depending on whether it’s a private, public/ foster care adoption or foreign adoption, it varies in price range. In a private adoption, the birth parents transfer their rights to the adoptive parents rather than the adoption agency or the state taking over which can cost between 10,000 to 35,000. In a public/ foster care adoption, you’d have to go through an agency and it can cost as low as 0 to 2,500 according to Mom.me. If you go through and agency, they have to do many home visits to see if the environment of the living space is safe enough for a child depending on the child’s age.

A foreign adoption can be very tricky depending the country you’re going to adopt from. According to Mom.me, in China, they forbid obese parents from adopting in China. That can be complicated because what obese is in the United States can be completely different in China. In Ukraine, no one over the age of 48 can adopt a child. And it can depend on where you live too. If you live in the U.K. and want to adopt internationally, you can’t adopt from Cambodia, Guatemala, Nepal and Haiti. There is no reasoning for the restriction on the Gov.uk website but they give you the option to contact the UK Intercountry Adoption Team and apply in writing, explaining your reasoning for adopting from the restricted country and why they should except your case.

All in all, both adoption and surrogacy are very time consuming. Both options have their pros and cons like the bad thing about the adoption is that the birth parent can change their mind at any moment, even after the child is born and it could be completely if you live in/go to another country. It can take a couple weeks, months, even years for an adoption to go through. And you never know what will happen in the surrogacy process. Whatever a person’s choice is, they will have a happy life with their child.