World interrupted. That pretty much sums up COVID-19 and the corona virus pandemic. In early 2020, many services and activities slammed to a halt. Chief among those were non-essential medical and personal care services.
And even many essential services changed.
Doctors, nurses, therapists and other caregivers began wearing masks and gloves and extra layers of clothing. They would often maintain more of a physical distance from patients.
As a patient, you might have noticed the difference.
But it’s not just the medical professionals who changed their behavior. People began to think twice about visiting their doctor or going to a hospital. Many people worried that they might walk away infected.
Walking away is not an option when you are in the middle of a surrogacy. The only option is to press on in the safest way possible.
And it’s not just people in the middle of surrogacy. When someone is ready to proceed with surrogacy, timing can be everything. Sure, much of America ground to a halt when COVID-19 hit, but much of American continued its day-to-day business with a few added precautions.
Surrogacy clinics have continued operating through the pandemic. To be sure, we have taken precautions.
Hygiene is a top concern. Fortunately, we have always taken hygiene seriously, for the protection of mothers, surrogates and the child. Not much has changed there.
Care has been taken to ensure that appointment and testing schedules do not bring clients into contact with each other. That’s our contribution to social distancing.
But most surrogacy meetings and appointments can be done online. Virtual surrogacy meetings are even becoming the norm. To put this in context, many medical appointments have moved online now. For instance, there are more and more virtual physiotherapy meetings taking place online, and virtual addiction counselling. Virtual surrogacy meetings just make sense.
If there is a silver lining to this pandemic, it’s that it has pushed us to develop technology faster. There are now so many platforms for online video meetings, and they have expanded their capacity and their features as people are increasingly working remotely.
Surrogacy can also work remotely.
We can discuss your situation online. We can provide you with advice and information online. We can follow your progress online.
There is very little we can’t do online, short of physical procedures, such as implanting embryos.
We also recommend that intended parents and surrogate mother form a “bubble”. Both households should develop an agreed-upon isolation plan to minimize the risk of COVID-19 entering either household. That allows the intended parents and surrogate mother the freedom to be intimate with the baby together.
The surrogacy arrangement already involves a commitment by both parties to be extra careful to protect the baby. New measures to defend against corona virus are simply a logical extension of that commitment in the context of the pandemic.
Of course, we also counsel clients on social distancing and other measures to keep safe from COVID-19. So you are not alone to handle that.
How do we deliver that counselling? Through virtual meetings, of course.
