I’ll start by explaining the differences, considering the fact that with the surrogacy process you’ll need a clinic and surrogacy agency in the country where you are undergoing the process.
Working directly with the clinic abroad
Finding a surrogacy clinic and agency on your own, and managing the entire process by yourselves: You can work directly with various service providers that you found through Google, recommendations from friends, or by meeting at the surrogacy conference you may have attended.
The assistance of a local surrogacy broker
Usually, a company based in your home-country, that connects you to the service providers abroad, and which usually charges the parents a commission for its services. Beyond the service it provides, these companies sometimes also offer a larger variety of service providers for the parents to choose from. Since the broker company charges a commission from the service providers as well, pay careful attention to the quality of the vendor and check for recommendations about it from other parents, and verify that the choices the broker is offering are, in fact, the best for you.
The pros and cons change according to the country where you are undergoing the process. In places like Eastern Europe, Asia, or South America, you probably won’t manage to make it through the process easily due to language barriers, different cultures and mentalities, procedures and bureaucracy, and so forth.
When the countries are Western, like the United States and Canada for example, a broker agency is not necessary, but it’s a possibility. The bureaucracy is clear and organized, the process is smooth and there are no unexpected glitches like sudden regulation changes, like what happens in underdeveloped countries.
The important thing to pay attention to, beyond comparing costs, is to understand whether there is added value in your choices: for example, will the broker agency make it easier for you to connect to better and less expensive service providers? Does the assistance of the broker mean that the service providers will be less professional or have a lower success rate in the process? (To justify the brokerage fees).
It’s important to remember that in most cases, brokers will work with only one or two medical providers, and they are bound to them in a commission agreement. So, it’s important to check whether the professionals the broker agency works with are ones that suit you.
The real question is who the final and local party that you will work with is in the country where the process will take place. If it’s a clinic with low success rates or an amateur surrogacy agency, then it doesn’t matter how nice the brokers or the intermediators are, or how friendly their service is. If you choose a clinic and an agency by yourself, you’ll need to be a bit more involved in the process.
