© COPYRIGHT 2011-2024 Fertility Center and Applied Genetics of Florida. All Rights Reserved
Surrogacy in Florida for U.S. and international patients at Fertility Center and Applied Genetics of Florida is very routine. Florida laws are very patient friendly allowing us to help many patients that need a gestational carrier to have a family through surrogacy in Florida. Patients are routinely treated with surrogacy IVF for many different reasons. We assist both traditional and non-traditional couples as well as single parents of either sex.
Dr. Pabon and the staff of Fertility Center and Applied Genetics of Florida are committed to helping not only with the medical processes required, but also with the search for a gestational carrier. We assist with this process in order to make the process more affordable for our patients. Our office’s matching fees are a minute fraction of the fees charged by “agencies.” In addition, we are eager to present gestational carriers to intended parents so gestational carriers are welcome to contact our offices to register and be introduced to intended parents that may be waiting for the right person.
Gestational surrogacy IVF is the process where pregnancy is achieved with in-vitro fertilization and embryo transfer procedures and the embryo or embryos are implanted into a contracted gestational carrier. The patients providing the gametes are screened according to FDA regulations. Both Dr. Pabon and the FDA are keen to prevent transmission of an infection from one person to the other. In addition, the gestational carrier as well as her partner will be screened and prepared for the pregnancy in order to avoid risk and complications to the best of our abilities and current medical science.
Dr. Pabon has a very active gestational carrier program. Please note that while Dr. Pabon can perform medical screening, it is the patient’s and the law office’s responsibility to perform other background checks.
Gestational carriers are mature women in their twenties, thirties or early forties that have enjoyed their own pregnancies. They are healthy and would like to help others. They are both altruistic and also like being compensated for their efforts and risks. They are low risk (considered low risk of transmitting an infection) individuals that are in a monogamous relationship and don’t have bad habits like smoking or drinking. They are mothers themselves and many are accomplished professionals too.
Intended parents are of all ages and backgrounds. Many have medical conditions that would make a pregnancy too risky or unlikely. Some may be of such advanced age that they choose not to carry due to the higher risk of pregnancy complications. Some couples are of the same sex and need a gestational carrier and an egg donor in order to have a family. Some are single men that have not found the person to marry and would like to have children nonetheless.
We have helped patients from other countries. Special issues exist when treating patients from Europe. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) governs any procedures that involve biological tissue transfer between non-intimate patients. There are special laws that must be followed. Patients from European countries are considered “ineligible donors” as far as eggs and sperm. Therefore, when we treat European patients, we must disclose this to the gestational carrier and we inform them that this part of the FDA rule has to do with concerns about the transmission of “Prions” that cause the “mad cow disease.”
While we have had patients from European countries contact us about using their frozen embryos in the U.S.A., we have been sad to inform them that according to the FDA rules, we are unable to accept embryos or fertilized eggs that were created using an anonymous donors from their country of origin. The only way to do this and not disregard the FDA rules would be to have the anonymous egg donor meet the gestational carrier so that the donor would not be anonymous to the tissue recipient. In that way, the gestational carrier would be able to sign an informed waiver after she is informed the donor is ineligible under the FDA rule.
Recently we were able to obtain a special permission from the FDA for a couple from Spain that had created fertilized eggs using a Spanish anonymous egg donor. This took many months and required a special permit. We do not expect the FDA to do this as a matter of routine.
International patients are required to contract the services of an immigration attorney in their country of origin in order to prepare all documents needed for the baby to come home :).
The prospect of planning a surrogacy in Florida or anywhere can be quite overwhelming. The best thing to do is to schedule a consultation with Dr. Pabon. He will guide you step by step. Dr. Pabon will also present available gestational carriers to you immediately if they are readily available. He will give you contacts to several legal offices that also specialize in this type of arrangement.
The law office will probably have a matching fee and will also want to be involved in preparing the contracts. Nonetheless, it is our experience that matching with at gestational carrier with the assistance of the medical office or the law office is much less expensive than using an agency. Some couples may prefer the agencies and that is fine too.
Florida has very favorable laws. Recent laws have made Florida as good as California when it comes to Gestational Carrier arrangements. Florida is one of only 2 states that has codified the birth certificate process. This enables couples to establish their parental status of the child without having a paternity or adoption process. This permits the couple to petition for a birth certificate with their names as biological parents within 3 business days of the birth of the child.
1) Schedule a consultation with Dr. Pabon in person or on SKYPE.
2) Learn about the process of IVF either with your own eggs or with an egg donor (the clinic has its own egg donor bank). Most gestational carrier treatments are segmented treatments. This means that the embryos are created, tested for genetic chromosomal abnormalities, frozen, and then the gestational carrier is prepped for a “frozen/thawed” embryo transfer.
3)Begin the process for the IVF and creation of the embryos. The first step is for the intended father to do his FDA labs and screening and plan for freezing of his sperm sample within 7 days of the FDA labs. Our lab manager, Ashley Boothe, coordinates FDA processes.
4)Once the intended father has had all his labs, FDA clearance, and has frozen his sperm in the Sarasota office, The person producing the eggs is treated with ovarian stimulation medications over the course of 10 to 14 days.
The ovarian stimulation ends with an ultrasound guided egg harvest. The day of the harvest, the eggs are directly inseminated with single sperm and the egg and subsequent embryo culture follows. Patients are given updates about the growth of the embryos. Embryos that reach the blastocyst stage on the 5th and 6th day of culture will have laser assisted trophectoderm biopsies and then frozen. Patients will receive a phone call from Dr. Pabon about the genetic test results about 7 to 10 days later. Please review the PGS information in the part of this web site.
5) While patients are going through steps 1-4, they can be actively reviewing and interviewing gestational carriers from our office, the Law office, or agencies.
6) Intended parents and gestational carriers will come to some usual and customary agreements as guided by the attorney and then send the gestational carrier for thorough screening in preparation for the embryo transfer. Please note that there is a small risk that the gestational carrier may fail further screening. For that reason it is difficult to decide what should be done first: the complete legal contract or further screening.
Summary of steps in the usual order:
Consultation / FDA screen of intended father / Freezing of sperm / IVF for embryo creation with genetic test (PGS) / Finalize Gestational Carrier contracts and medical screening / Frozen-thawed embryo transfer to gestational carrier
Please feel free to call or email with questions through the contact page of our web site www.geneticsandfertility.com , email: drpabonadmin@geneticsandfertility.com , or phone: 941-787-2287 or 239-333-2229
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© COPYRIGHT 2011-2024 Fertility Center and Applied Genetics of Florida. All Rights Reserved