Hi everyone. I’m an IP who matched with a wonderful surrogate. We met over Zoom (we’re in different states) and I was so excited. She has been a surrogate before, and she and her husband are lovely people. We have been waiting for her medical record review to conclude before signing any agreement, and we have not yet paid any money to the agency.
Our clinic is notorious for being overly cautious and rejecting a lot of surrogate candidates. They just completed her medical review, and came back with 5 concerns. Some of these seem harmless to me, but I was surprised that I didn’t know about any of the issues. I think the biggest issue for me is that she didn’t disclose things upfront. Below is the list of concerns our clinic has:
Didn’t disclose that she had multiple DUI’s, including jail time, in her early twenties. These things happened more than 15 years ago. In isolation, I don’t care about this at all- people change, and we all do dumb things in our early twenties. But I thought it was a little odd that she didn’t mention it, knowing there’d be a background check.
For her last surrogacy pregnancy, during medical review, when she went in for bloodwork, she tested positive for alcohol on her tox screen. Our clinic said they had never seen this before. While there is no rule that you can’t drink during medical review, they were concerned about her judgement in deciding to consume alcohol 12-24 hours before the tox screen, when you want to come across as a really good surrogacy candidate.
There are inconsistencies in how often she has reported drinking alcohol. In her profile she said “rarely”, in one medical record she said 3 days a week, and in another place she said 5 days a week. Again, in isolation I wouldn’t be concerned, but this is the third thing related to alcohol at this point.
A few years ago, she took an anti-anxiety medication, but didn’t disclose any mental health issues. I myself am on an anti-anxiety medication, and would never judge someone for it (and what she was on is pregnancy safe) but my clinic was concerned that we don’t know why she began taking it, and why she stopped.
In her screening, she reported that she didn't have a good experience with her first IP’s. She mentioned disappointment that they weren't as close as they started out as (she did mention this on our zoom call), and indicated there was behavior from the IP's that weren't aligned with her values. As a result, she said she was looking for the relationship with her next IP's to be mutually respectful and not overbearing. I’m curious about this- wondering what the IP behavior was that felt overbearing, why they became more distant, and what actions the IP’s took that weren’t aligned with her values.
To me, none of these things are disqualifying- we just need more information and context. Our clinic seems much more concerned, particularly about alcohol use.
I’d love to get people’s thoughts on how serious you find these concerns. Thanks for taking time to read all of this.