"Not my child to give away": A qualitative analysis of gestational surrogates' experiences

Limited empirical data are available on the experiences of women who have been a gestational surrogate.

What are the experiences of gestational surrogates along the surrogacy pathway?

An anonymous study-specific cross-sectional survey was used to evaluate participants' experience of being a surrogate. A total of 184 Canadian women who were recruited from Canadian surrogacy agencies and the Internet completed the online survey; 9446 words were collected from 110 participants who entered comments to one or more questions. The qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis.

Seven main themes, and eighteen interrelated sub-themes grouped under the pre-, during, and post-surrogacy stages were identified. Many surrogates viewed surrogacy as a positive experience and as something meaningful and impactful to other people's lives. Most surrogates had harmonious relationships with their intended parents and maintained on-going contact with the surrogacy family post birth.

Surrogacy involves deliberate efforts to establish a trustful surrogate-parent partnership through relationship building, boundary negotiation, and management of expectations. The compatibility between surrogate and intended parents, regarding aspects such as communication and pregnancy management styles, was an important contributing factor to a positive experience.

Our findings provide a deeper understanding of participants' reasons for and motivation to be a surrogate, the relationship dynamics with their intended parents and the gestated fetus during surrogacy, and their satisfaction on personal and relationship levels post surrogacy. The findings would be useful to mental health professionals in preparing new surrogates for the potential challenges along the surrogacy pathway.