Managing Relationships

Managing Relationships & Fertility: An Expert’s Guide to Thriving Together During Surrogacy

The surrogacy journey is a profound commitment to building your family. While it’s a path filled with hope, it can also place unique and significant stress on the relationship between Intended Parents. As a fertility and family-building specialist, I have guided countless couples through this process. The key to a resilient partnership lies not in avoiding stress, but in navigating it together with intention and tools designed to protect your bond.

This course will provide you with the expert strategies and insights needed to safeguard your relationship, enhance your communication, and emerge from your surrogacy journey as a stronger, more connected team.

The Surrogacy Stress Test – Understanding the Impact on Your Relationship

To identify the unique psychological and emotional pressures of surrogacy that can strain a relationship.

Expert Insight:
Surrogacy is not a single event; it’s a multi-stage process, each with its own emotional challenges. Unlike traditional fertility treatments, it introduces a third party—the surrogate—into your family-building equation. Common pressure points include:

• The “Managerial” Burden: The logistical, financial, and legal complexities can feel like a second job, leading to exhaustion and conflict over tasks.

• Differing Attachment Styles: One partner may feel an immediate, deep connection to the pregnancy, while the other may struggle to bond until birth. Neither is wrong, but the disparity can cause friction.

• The Gendered Experience: In heterosexual couples, the intended mother may grapple with complex feelings of grief and jealousy over not carrying the pregnancy, while the intended father may not fully comprehend this loss.

• Financial Stress: The significant investment can create a high-stakes environment where every decision feels monumental.

• Communication Breakdown: The fear of saying the “wrong thing” can lead to partners bottling up their anxieties, creating emotional distance.

Actionable

Acknowledge from the outset that stress is a normal and expected part of this process. The goal is to manage it, not eliminate it.

Communication as Your Foundation – Practical Tools for Intended Parents

To learn and implement specific communication techniques that foster understanding and prevent conflict.

Effective communication during surrogacy must be proactive, not reactive. I advise couples to move beyond simple “how are you?” conversations and adopt more structured methods.

• Schedule “State of the Union” Check-Ins: Dedicate a weekly, 30-minute meeting that is strictly for discussing the surrogacy journey. This contains the stress to a specific time and prevents it from bleeding into every aspect of your life. Use a timer.

• Use “I Feel” Statements: Frame your concerns from your own perspective to avoid sounding accusatory.

  • Instead of: “You never seem worried about the medical bills.”

  • Try: “I feel anxious when we don’t review the financial updates together. Can we block time to do that this week?”

• Define Your Roles: Decide who will be the primary point of contact with the agency, who will manage the calendar, and who will communicate with the surrogate. Clear roles reduce confusion and resentment.

• Practice Active Listening: When your partner is speaking, listen to understand, not to respond. Paraphrase what they said to ensure you’ve grasped it correctly: “It sounds like you’re feeling left out of the pregnancy updates, is that right?”

Actionable

Implement a weekly check-in using “I feel” statements this month. Treat it as a non-negotiable appointment for your relationship.

Navigating the Relationship with Your Surrogate – Setting Healthy Boundaries

To establish a mutually respectful and sustainable relationship with your surrogate that protects everyone’s emotional well-being.

Expert Insight:
The relationship with your surrogate is unique. It can range from warmly professional to deeply personal. The key is to be on the same page as your partner first, and then with your surrogate.

• Present a Unified Front: Discuss and agree upon your communication preferences with your surrogate (e.g., frequency of texts, in-person visits) before you establish them. Disagreements between partners on this front can be awkward and damaging.

• Manage Expectations Around the Pregnancy: It is natural to have opinions on diet, activity, and other aspects of the pregnancy. However, your surrogate is an autonomous adult. Trust the medical guidelines provided by the clinic and your agency. Micromanaging will create tension.

• Acknowledge the Emotional Complexity: It’s okay to have mixed feelings about someone else carrying your child. Discuss these feelings with your partner or a therapist, not with the surrogate. Your role is to provide support and gratitude to her.

Actionable Takeaway: As a couple, write down your top three hopes and top three concerns regarding the relationship with your surrogate. Use this as a basis for a discussion with your agency coordinator.

Strengthening Your Partnership – Finding Joy in the Journey

To identify strategies for maintaining intimacy, connection, and shared joy outside of the surrogacy process.

Expert Insight:
It is crucial to protect the parts of your relationship that exist beyond family-building. Surrogacy cannot become your entire identity as a couple.

• Create “Surrogacy-Free” Zones: Mandate that certain times (e.g., date nights, the first 30 minutes after work) or places (e.g., the bedroom) are off-limits for surrogacy talk.

• Reconnect with Your “Pre-Surrogacy” Selves: What did you enjoy doing together before this journey? Make a conscious effort to schedule activities that are purely for fun and connection.

• Celebrate the Milestones: Acknowledge and celebrate the positive steps—the successful embryo transfer, a positive pregnancy test, hearing the heartbeat. These are your moments of victory as a team.

• Practice Gratitude for Each Other: Regularly express appreciation not just for what your partner does, but for who they are as your teammate on this journey.

Plan one surrogacy-free activity per week for the next month. It doesn’t have to be elaborate—a walk, cooking a meal together, or watching a movie will suffice.

When to Seek Professional Support

To recognize the signs that indicate your relationship would benefit from professional guidance.

Expert Insight:
Seeking help is a sign of strength and commitment, not failure. The surrogacy journey can unearth underlying relationship issues or create new ones that are too complex to handle alone.

Red Flags Indicating You Should Seek a Therapist:

• Constant, circular arguments about surrogacy that never get resolved.

• One or both partners are avoiding being at home or communicating.

• A significant loss of intimacy, both emotional and physical.

• Feelings of resentment, anger, or blame are becoming the norm.

• You or your partner are using unhealthy coping mechanisms (e.g., excessive alcohol, workaholism).