Bun Without an Oven

Throughout these posts there are loads of players and terms that can be confusing if you’re not in this “journey to parenthood” world. Here’s a glossary, if you will, of everything and everyone in play during this process. These are descriptions based on my own understanding and our experiences as we have them. I’ll continue to add as we learn more ourselves. Comment if there’s anything I can clarify further! 

Intented Parents – Jan and I 

Gestational Carrier (GC) – different to a surrogate, a gestational carrier is an absolute rockstar human being, who will carry the pregnancy of the baby that is biologically Jan’s and mine. 

Our clinic – this is the fertility clinic where my OB is in residence. This is where I’ve had my eggs retrieved, where our embryos were made and where they are stored. The doctors at our clinic are responsible for reviewing any potential match candidate, and will conduct the transfer of our embryo to the GC for a pregnancy. 

Our agency – this is the agency we have hired to find us a GC. They are also a law firm, and represent us in the whole journey to parenthood. They coordinate between our clinic, and the clinic & OB of our gestational carrier. They support us with legal contracting between us and our GC, coordinate the birth at the hospital of the GC, and go through the legal processes required so that Jan and My names are on our babies birth certificate once the baby is born. They offer many many other services, but those are the main ones. 

Our case worker – our agency assigns a case worker to accompany our journey. She reaches out when there are any updates to our matching process. For anyone corporate like me, she’s basically our “project manager”. 

Potential Match / Candidate Match: Some wonderful woman who has applied to be a gestational carrier with our agency. Her profile indicates she’s a good fit for our profile, and we get very minimal detail about her while her profile is being reviewed with our clinic. If approved, she could be our “match” and carry our pregnancy.