{"id":160,"date":"2022-04-04T15:54:25","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T19:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.surrogacyplace.com\/?p=160"},"modified":"2023-07-17T10:44:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T17:44:30","slug":"independent-journeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/independent-journeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent Journeys: Preferred\u00a0by Many Surrogates"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>There&#8217;s a common myth often perpetuated by Surrogacy Agencies who hold a vested interest that forgoing surrogacy agencies <a href=\"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/benefits-of-surrogacy\/\">benefits<\/a> only IPs (Intended Parents) and that surrogates shouldn&#8217;t worry about &#8220;saving their IPs money&#8221; and stick to the agency model.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2><strong>Here are some of the reasons many surrogates (especially experienced ones, but also first-timers) prefer independent Journeys.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8211; Agencies will often require surrogates to be exclusive with them, even for subsequent journeys. If a surrogate has had a bad experience, these types of <a href=\"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/surrogacy-contracts-and-agreements\/\">contracts<\/a> will force them to do future\u00a0surrogacy arrangements with that agency, despite their lived bad experience.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8211; Many agencies require you sign with them exclusively without seeing who the IPs they work with are and whether or not they meet your matching criteria.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8211; Many agencies will often prioritize their highest paying clients and not base matching exclusively on the match points important to each side. Many offer &#8220;premium&#8221; services that shortening wait times for their wealthiest IPs, but that ignore the surrogate&#8217;s full list of criteria. Many surrogates feel pressured to successfully match with certain IPs, despite their gut feelings.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8211; Many surrogates would rather have a personal relationship with their IPs, including being able to communicate directly and not have all or most communication happen via a mediator at the agency which is sometimes an unresponsive or unreasonable coordinator.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8211; Going independent allows surrogates to dictate their own terms. If a surrogate has a number in mind about what <a href=\"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/paid-surrogacy\/\">compensation<\/a> she deserves, there&#8217;s no one telling her to compromise. She does not have to follow an agency&#8217;s &#8220;rate card&#8221; which is often lower than what she would get if she went out on her own as the agency is siphoning off much of the Intended Parent(s)&#8217;s available budget.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&#8211; They have a fantastic attorney (attorneys fees are always paid by the Intended Parents) that will act as a mediator for &#8220;tough conversations&#8221; as needed. Surrogates\u00a0 know that enforcing contractual obligations is always best left to qualified attorneys and is not something an agency can do on your behalf.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>If you are a surrogate or intended parent seeking potential surrogacy matches for an <a href=\"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/independent-surrogacy-journey\/\">independent journey<\/a> without a surrogacy agency, <a href=\"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/\">start here!<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a common myth often perpetuated by Surrogacy Agencies who hold a vested interest that forgoing surrogacy agencies benefits only IPs (Intended Parents) and that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19,21,31,32,49,51],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surrogacyplace.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}