The Right Fit: How Brownstone Matches Surrogates and Parents

The matching process is exciting and important!  Parents want to know who they are trusting to bring their child into the world and Surrogates want to know who they will be helping build their family.  It’s a special relationship and Brownstone takes matching very seriously.  Here’s how the process works:

Building Your Profiles

For both surrogates and parents, we work with you to develop a written profile that covers important subjects and also helps others get to know you better.  This includes photos of you and your family/friends, the type of relationship you’d like with your match, your hobbies and interests, what brings you to surrogacy, and any quirks or particular wants or needs during the journey.  It also includes a short “Dear Surrogate” or “Dear Parent” letter.  The best profiles are written conversationally and are true to who you are.  Let who you are shine through—the right match for you will appreciate that honest picture.  We’re there for you as you create it.

As you may be aware, there is often a wait to match, especially for intended parents.  We know this can be frustrating.  During this time, we will endeavor to keep you updated on your case and our progress.  We believe in transparency at all stages, including during matching.

Exchanging Profiles and Our Considerations

We share one profile at a time, making sure that the potential match makes sense from a number of perspectives:  

• • • • Legal Fit:  First, we want to make sure that the laws of the state where the surrogate lives will work for ensuring the parents have legal rights to the child at the end of the day.  
      • Key Issues:  Second, we want to make sure parents and surrogates align on important issues like the number of embryos to be transferred, stances on termination in various scenarios, willingness to vaccinate against coronavirus, flu, and other conditions.  
      • Personality Fit:  Third, we consider the parents’ and surrogate’s personalities and preferences around communication and involvement, location, compensation and benefits levels, and any other stated preferences.  
      • (Sometimes) Paper Medical Approval:  Fourth and finally, depending on the parents’ preferred process, we might send the surrogate’s medical records to the parents’ IVF clinic for approval before we even share the surrogate’s profile with the parents.

Assuming Brownstone is confident that the match makes sense for all parties, the Parent profile is first shared with the surrogate.  The surrogate will also receive information from the screening of the parents.  If the surrogate wants to move forward based on this information, the parents then receive the surrogate’s profile, the surrogate’s compensation and benefits expectations, and information that can and should be disclosed from the screening process.  If the parents also want to proceed with the match, we then set up a match meeting.  If either the surrogate or parents choose to decline a profile, we learn from their feedback and go back to the drawing board.  One note: The profiles and other related information about parents and surrogates can be appropriately redacted or anonymized to protect parties’ identities pre-match.

The matching process is more art than science, but Brownstone takes care to honor your preferences and to consider the prior experiences you bring to your journey.  When helpful, we bring into the process our mental health consultant to get her assessment of potential matches.

Match Meeting

We know that parents and surrogates are often nervous for the match meeting, but there’s nothing to worry about.  We will join the video call to facilitate as needed and ensure you discuss important matching points (e.g., your desired levels of communication and involvement), but largely fade to the background and allow you all to get to know each other organically, including spouses or partners if applicable.  (If everyone happens to be relatively local, we can also meet in person.)  The match meeting is an open forum for everyone to discuss what’s on their minds and make sure everyone is comfortable and excited to move forward with a match.  After the call, we check in with both sides to discuss how they feel.  If everyone wants to move forward, it’s a match!