When you decide to pursue third-party reproduction as an alternative to childlessness or adoption, you solidify your intentions to become a parent. As an intended parent in Texas Fertility Center’s donor services program, you can achieve your dream of growing or starting your family through the use of donor eggs, donor sperm, and/or gestational surrogacy.

The dream team: intended parents, donors and fertility doctors

The term ‘intended parent’ refers to the individual or couple who will take home and parent the baby. Intended parents have typically exhausted all other infertility treatment options.  Alternatively, they may be a same-sex couple who wishes to share a biological connection with their child. Fertility doctors and donors help make pregnancy conceivable for intended parents.

Through third-party reproduction, known or anonymous donors supply eggs, sperm, or even embryos to a recipient couple. Gestational carriers step in when a woman is unable to carry her own baby due to a medical condition, when her uterus has been removed, or when it has been damaged to the point where it is not safe or possible for her to carry a pregnancy.

Preparing to become an intended parent

Conceiving a baby through the involvement of a third party will require mental preparedness. The staff at Texas Fertility Center can connect you with other parents who have walked this less-traveled path, and counselors that can support you throughout the grieving and acceptance process. Whether you use a known donor (a friend or relative) or an anonymous donor, there are many factors to consider before you proceed.

If you are struggling emotionally as you consider the option of donor services, take heart. The physically and mentally exhausting steps you take to get pregnant will have lifelong rewards. More than 80 percent of people who partner with a fertility specialist, like those at Texas Fertility Center, will conceive a child. Five years from now, the candles on the birthday cake will burn just as brightly for the child conceived with the help of third-party reproduction.

As Texas state law only affords statutory legal protection to married couples using gestational carriers, we are unable to offer gestational surrogacy to either same sex couples or to unmarried heterosexual couples.

If you have questions about intended parents and third-party reproduction, contact Texas Fertility Center for answers, or check out our Intended Parent FAQ page. Our in-house donor egg program is led by caring professionals who strive not only for excellent pregnancy rates, but also for outstanding clinical and emotional outcomes as well.