SURROGACY AND EGG DONATION
at Tree of Life Center
WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT?
Most of our patients know us as the "to go" clinic for general infertility needs in Los Angeles. We provide excellent success rates and a variety of fertility treatments to Southern California. Some of you might have noticed the large presence of both young and old international travelers speaking a variety of foreign languages in our waiting rooms. You might be wondering why do these people come to us from all over the world. The most likely answer is - third party reproduction.Fortunately, most of you do not require third party reproduction services. In most situations, advanced treatments such as in-vitro fertilization and intracytoplasmic sperm injection can treat almost any infertility problem. However, in some cases. despite all technology and modern advances we are not able to restore fertility and deliver the desired outcome.In such cases, other non-intimate individuals need to assist and provide their reproductive cells or organs. The most common are sperm donation, followed by egg donation and in some cases surrogacy (gestational carriers). Those non-intimate individuals can be your relatives, friends or complete strangers. One might seek and find them using surrogacy agencies, egg donor databases or through our clinic. Utilizing sperm or eggs from other individuals while building your own family always requires specialized legal services. You do not want your egg donor coming back to claim custody of your child as little as a sperm donor wants to be liable for child support. Thus, surrogacy, sperm and egg donation are inseparable from the California Family Code and California Family Lawyers. Fortunately, we have some of the most sophisticated laws pertaining to third party reproduction that properly reflect the needs of today's modern society. That is the main reason so many people from all over the world travel to California.
OUR INVOLVEMENT
One might not be aware of our extensive involvement in those services. There is almost not a single day that we do not see or communicate with a surrogate in our clinic. We have about 50 gestational carriers under our medical care at any given time. On a same day we might have an egg donor arriving from South Africa and Taiwan while the intended parent might be in China or Germany.Supporting and managing third party reproduction services requires lots of organization and logistics. Many parents do not shy to find egg donors and surrogates from faraway places and bring them to LA. We work with numerous local and international egg donor agencies such as Pacific Surrogacy. Reproductive materials might be arriving from different parts of the world and we face challenges that require solutions that not many fertility clinics can offer.Our main strength is developing custom solutions for third party assisted reproduction since most of the arrangements are unique. Over the years, Los Angeles has developed into the capital of gay surrogacy, since many other countries have ceased offering those options and we are proud to offer ongoing support for our LGBTQ+ patients. We strongly believe that the journey to parenthood should be open to every individual, regardless or sexual orientation or relationship status. Surrogacy and Egg Donation, while still controversial, are for some the only hope for experiencing parenthood.
NON-BIOLOGIC PARENTHOOD
The beautiful aspect of doing our work in Los Angeles is that we can comfortably say that everyone, literally everyone regardless of biologic circumstances can become a parent. One might be surprised by the fact that California does not require any biologic connection between the the newborn child and parents. Practically, that means that you can select a gestational surrogate, an egg donor and a sperm donor and wait for your child to be born. We will perform the egg retrieval, fertilize the eggs with donor sperm and transfer it into a surrogate. The fact, that one has organized and facilitated these arrangements makes them a parent by California Law.Our patients come from different aspects of life and have different desires. We frequently admire the dedication that drives our patients to become parents. Many times, the dedication of having children and building a family is much stronger than what we encounter in naturally conceived families. Have you ever met a fighter pilot who balances single fatherhood through surrogacy and anonymous egg donation with a challenging career in US Airforce? Or a male intended parent from Africa who would face death penalty for his sexual orientation back home seeking surrogacy and an anonymous donor in the United States.The only limitation for gestational surrogacy and egg and sperm donation is being under a certain age. A single parent needs to be below age 55 and two parents need to be under a combined age of 110 years old. We also need to ensure that all parties involved are in a sound mental state and psychologic screening might be necessary as part of the evaluation.
MEDICAL CONSIDERATIONS
In most cases, the third party reproduction should not put you in front of significant medical difficulties. It should resolve, rather than create fertility problems. At Tree of Life Centers, our surrogates and egg donor cycles have the highest pregnancy rates compared to all other treatment cycles and in most cases lead to a pregnancy during the first attempt. We are experienced in managing cycles directly in our clinic or through remote monitoring. We have the necessary technology to support us in our work.We have unfortunately also seen third party reproduction cycles not going well elsewhere. In most cases the reason was poor candidate selection and sub optimal medical service. In some cases parents attempt to save on medical costs and seek cheap medical services while jeopardizing treatment outcomes. One has to understand that every service has a cost and if you want quality medical care and quality third party individuals, it will come with a price tag. It starts with the qualification and availability of your medical provider and may end on how much you spend on the of the VOC (volatile organic compound) air filter and workload in the embryology laboratory with another several thousand factors in between. Our success rates in in-vitro fertilization ave evolved over they years, but today's lab uses cutting edge equipment that requires collaborative efforts of many people dedicated to ongoing maintenance and quality control.The secret for success is careful selection of candidates for gamete donation and gestational carriers who will carry those cells. The egg donors should be young and provide plenty of eggs, the sperm donors should have numerous normal shaped fast sperm. The surrogate should have a history of an uncomplicated pregnancy and no problems becoming pregnant. Once the candidates are selected, your journey to parenthood is ready to begin and all we need to ensure is that no mistakes occur. The results should not make you wait more than 9 months!
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