Selective Reduction & Medical Termination: What Does It Mean For A Surrogate Mother?
Becoming a surrogate mother is one of most rewarding experiences of your life! Many women make the decision to carry a child for intended parent(s) based on their strong desire to share their own experience and blessing. A surrogate mother is someone that truly wants to allow someone else to experience what it means to be a parent. Surrogate mothers are unique and special women. Before moving forward with your decision to becoming a surrogate mother you need to research, ask, and talk about several topics that are extremely important with one being selective reduction and the other being medical termination (abortion).
In every surrogate agreement the topic of selective reduction and medical termination is covered. Unfortunately, we never like to talk about all of the “what if’s” that could possibly happen, but it’s a must and critical in order to have a good match and a solid legally binding contract drafted between all parties. For a surrogate journey to be successful in the match it’s important that all parties are on the same page in these important subjects and that all parties wishes are the same. It’s important to the intended parents that should selective reduction or medical termination present themselves that the surrogate will agree to what the intended parents desire.
Compassionate Decision-Making: Surrogates’ Perspective on Medical Issues
Surrogates have to keep in mind that if medical issues might present themselves that they might want to look at it as, “what if it was my own baby I was carrying”? Maybe you wouldn’t terminate and maybe you wouldn’t reduce from triplets to twins, but remember your carrying a life for someone else. Being open minded will help you get though decisions like this. Remember many intended parents have gone through a lot before turning to surrogacy.
They understand and respect the surrogate that is carrying for them. They also understand that the health and safety of the surrogate comes first. If they could carry there own pregnancy all of these decision would be so much easier for them being that they wouldn’t have to think of a third party. No one ever wants to have to make these types of decision, but in very rare occasion they must be made along with the advise of the medical doctor too.
Often people wonder what the difference is between selective reduction and medical termination (abortion). Selective reduction is done for both medical reasons and non-medical reasons. With IVF the goal of every attempt is for a healthy pregnancy not necessarily a multiple pregnancy. With triplet and above pregnancies many tend to run into medical complications to delivering extremely early. Reducing a pregnancy to twins or a singleton will increase the chances to deliver at full term and also deliver a healthy baby or babies. For non- medical reasons some intended parents might not be financially and/or emotionally able to care for triplets or quads.
Medical Termination in Surrogacy: Collaborative Decision-Making with Aligned Beliefs
For medical termination the purpose of this is to end the pregnancy due to serious medical reasons. Again, while going through the matching phase it’s so important to to work with intended parents that hold the same beliefs as you. With our agency all of our surrogates that works with us agree to selective reduction, to termination for medical reasons. That these important decisions are left to the intended parents to make. Very rarely do we ever meet an intended parent that is against reduction or termination. Remember it is the intended parent that would be taking this baby home and their resource both financial and emotionally might be limited to care for a baby with needs.
Modern technology with IVF has become so advanced. Embryos can now be test for abnormalities before transfer limiting the possibility of birth defects. Having a full understanding of these topics will better help you when moving forward with a match with intended parents. Never compromise yourself and agree to a surrogate journey that your not completely comfortable with. There will be a good match for you when the timing is right.
