What is gestational surrogacy?

Surrogacy is a process where a lady carries pregnancy for sterile couples. There are two types of surrogacy; traditional and gestational. In traditional surrogacy, a surrogate donates her own ovum to carry pregnancy. In this type of surrogacy, a surrogate conceives through artificial insemination (AI) treatment where the sperms of intended father or donor sperm is injected to the ovaries of a surrogate mother to achieve pregnancy. But this process is considered illegal therefore, most of the surrogate agencies do not follow this process rather intended parents and surrogate mother depends on gestational surrogacy process.

A lady who carries pregnancy through gestational process is referred as gestational carrier. In this process, pregnancy is achieved though In-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. Gestational surrogacy is accepted by the different state laws and is considered legal. In IVF treatment, intended parent’s egg and sperm is collected and cultured in the laboratory for about two to six days to form zygote. The ovum of intended mother is fertilized by inducing intended father’s sperm. Physicians constantly monitor the fertilization process and once they see the formation of two nuclei visually, they inject the cultured zygote to the uterus of the surrogate mother to achieve pregnancy.

The baby born through gestational surrogacy process is genetically related with intended parents if their sperm and egg is used to form zygote. In this process, two parties is involved; the first party is the intended parents whose sperm and egg are used and the second party is surrogate mother whose uterus is used to carry pregnancy. In some cases, when intended father or intended mother fails to produce reproductive hormones, donors are used to form zygote. In such case, three parties will be involved in over all process.