Trust and Control in the Surrogacy Journey

For intended parents who are navigating the process of having a baby by surrogacy, issues around trust and control will surface repeatedly throughout the journey. You will be asked to place your trust in a number of individuals, from your gestational carrier, her doctors and medical team, your fertility clinic doctors and medical team, the agency, and other professionals like lawyers and mental health professionals. 

Depending on your personal and family history with trust, this can bring with it a number of challenges. If you (or your partner) have had years of experience with the medical system, the amount of trust you place with any individual doctor, the trust in the system as a whole, or with the medical processes, may vary. If you have felt betrayed, disappointed, supported, or treated fairly, that set of expectations will influence you in this journey.

Intended parents are encouraged to reflect on their personal history with trust through the following questions:

• Going back to childhood, could you trust your caregivers to have your best interests at heart? 
• What are the current and historical levels of trust you have with your family as an adult? 
• Have you felt let down or betrayed by others in your relationships? 
• Do you trust the medical profession as a whole? Do you trust specific doctors?

All of these will influence how you navigate the journey of building a family. Being mindful of what your personal history of trust is will help you identify whether you are reacting to someone in your journey based specifically off of their actions with you, or if old wounds or patterns are being played out from your past. If you know you struggle with trust, then attending to those aspects early in your relationship with each person in your journey will provide a healthy foundation for the relationship to grow.

Interpersonal Styles in Relationships

Navigating the process of surrogacy requires a delicate balance between control and trusting others. There are many decisions that intended parents need to make and have control over. However, navigating waiting periods and areas of high uncertainty can easily create anxiety. Because of the potential for high anxiety, intended parents benefit from having an awareness of how they relate to their anxiety and their need to control a situation. 

The following self reflection may be helpful:

• Do you react to stressful situations by trying to exert high control? In what type of situations does that occur? 
• Do you tend to defer making a decision and ruminate for a long time? 
• How might the way you make decisions and navigate anxiety influence others in your surrogacy journey?

The relationship between a surrogate and the intended parents is the foundation of a successful journey. If intended parents know they tend to be controlling, then matching with an equally dominant surrogate might have the potential for more conflict and tension. According to interpersonal scholars, individuals who exhibit dominant behaviors tend to “pull” for submissive or accommodating behaviors from others. The potential for conflict occurs when two people with dominant personalities aren’t able to find ways to compromise and accommodate the other person’s preferences. Imagine an interpersonally dominant surrogate, who has been through several successful pregnancies, works as a nurse, and has strong opinions about how she is going to navigate through the medical appointments of her pregnancy. If you have intended parents who are highly anxious, want to know all the details, and also have strong opinions based on their also being in the medical profession working as doctors, you can imagine how this match might not be the best and could create unnecessary tension between them. As part of the surrogate’s psychological evaluation, she will be given a range of screenings and assessments. One of these gives information about her interpersonal style, and can be used in making the best match with intended parents. Your case managers will be considering this while making match recommendations. A mental health professional can help discuss how to navigate these relationship considerations in the joint meeting between the surrogate and intended parent(s). 

Tips for Navigating The Journey

Going through your own process of self-reflection and building your awareness of your interpersonal patterns will help you more smoothly navigate through the surrogacy journey. But if you find yourself grappling with a situation where you are noticing higher anxiety (through physical tension, rumination, or feelings of being overwhelmed), take some time to slow down and ground yourself in the present. 

Grounding Exercise

A classic, 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise can help with this. Look around the space you are in and verbally (or internally) describe 5 things that you see in detail. Be present with each one before moving onto the next. Then, choose 4 things you can touch; notice the different textures, weight, and sensations from each. If you are comfortable, this can be 4 sensations in your body for a more internally focused grounding. Not everyone likes being focused on their body, so you can choose 4 external objects in your environment if that’s better for you. Then, try to identify 3 things you can hear, identifying 3 discrete sounds in your environment. Next, identify 2 things you can smell, even picking up something you have around you. Then, identify 1 taste you have in your mouth, perhaps leftover from the last thing you ate or drank. Take several intentional breaths and be sure to let a full exhale follow each one.

Now that you are grounded, ask yourself the following questions. 

• What are the factors involved in this situation?
• Are any of my reactions “bigger” than how others might react in the same situation? 
• Does my partner or a close friend react in the same way, or different?
• If my reactions might be bigger, what’s my personal history with trust or control that might be getting touched on and influencing me here?

Finding a trusted person to talk over your reactions with and how to navigate moving forward, is critical to navigating the long road of having a baby. Being able to confide and talk through a difficult situation can go a long way towards feeling supported. Be sure to let your confidant know whether you are looking for emotional support or validation, or if you are seeking advice, so they can respond to the needs you have at the moment. If you feel more isolated in your journey, reach out to your Case Manager for additional support. They are there to help support your journey, whether by facilitating difficult conversations between intended parents and surrogates, or by bringing in additional professional resources.