Five Ways Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions Is Setting the Standard for Ethical Surrogacy & Egg Donation 

By Crystal Chiang, Surrogacy Matching and Education Director & Head of Client Content Development

When people choose a partner to guide them through egg donation or surrogacy, they’re not buying a service—they’re entrusting their hopes, finances, and medical futures to another human being. Recent high-profile investigations and prosecutions in the U.S. have exposed how badly that trust can be broken: misappropriated escrow funds, suspected mass-surrogacy rings, exploitative donor networks, and clinic/lab errors that cost intended parents and carriers dearly.  

At Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions we take those headlines as a mandate for the whole industry to do better. This is why, first and foremost, we follow all guidelines from American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) and The Society for Ethics in Egg Donation and Surrogacy (SEEDS). We encourage you to visit their websites to learn more. Guiding organizations for the surrogacy industry have put ethical and medical standards in place for a reason, so it is our agency’s policy to follow all guidelines carefully with regular review.  

Still, these guidelines are a baseline for ethical behavior, and we believe there is always room to exceed expectations. Below are the five practical, verifiable ways we set a high bar for ethics.
 

1.Financial Transparency and NO FINE PRINT.

We know families put their hopes, dreams and life savings into their egg donor and/or surrogacy journey, and we want every family to be able to make responsible decisions about their finances without digging through pages of fine print. That’s why we share clear breakdowns of cost on our website, and we go over every aspect in detail before a family is asked to sign or pay anything. Similarly, we believe in fair and transparent compensation, making our compensation guides available publicly and having honest, candid conversations with every potential surrogate and egg donor before they sign an agreement with us. 

2. Thorough Education and Empowered Decision-Making.

We believe everyone has the right to decide what they want for THEIR journey. This is why. . .  

• • • Surrogates choose their family and their compensation. No surrogate should feel pressured to pick a family that isn’t really a fit. That’s why, after a thorough education on the process, a surrogate will see every family in our database who matches her criteria and will be able to choose who she works with. If it doesn’t feel right in a match meeting, there’s no pressure to proceed. Our team is here to guide every surrogate toward the RIGHT match for THEM. Similarly, only a surrogate knows what compensation feels fair to her, and we protect a surrogate’s right to choose her base compensation along with additional compensation for lost wages, childcare and other necessities. 
    • Egg donors are thoroughly educated about the future. Every donor is fully informed about the realities of future contact by a donor-conceived child and all are willing to participate in the Donor Sibling Registry, DCP Data or similar program to allow for communication between the donor and intended parents/child for years to come. Along with our traditional Unidentified egg donor cycles, we also offer Known Donor Cycles, in which donors and intended parents elect to reveal their identities to one another. We support the intended parents, egg donor and donor-conceived child in making decisions around what type of cycle is chosen.
       
    • We take NO MONEY until match. We believe every parent has the right to choose their surrogate or egg donor and their agency without pressure. That’s one reason we do not require contracts, physician approval, or payment prior to finding the right match for you.
      

3. Independent and Responsible Escrow and Attorneys.

While it may sound good to say we do “everything in house”, we believe that your escrow company should protect YOUR best interests and never should be your agency’s payroll. That’s why our surrogacy and egg donation programs work exclusively with SeedTrust Escrow. You can see more about SeedTrust’s security practices here.  

Similarly, your attorney should represent YOU and your best interests. That’s why we never require a Surrogate or Parent to use a specific provider. We will provide a list of qualified Associated Reproductive Technology (ART) attorneys licensed in the state where the surrogate lives, and both the parent and surrogate can research and choose the attorney that will serve them best. Note that your attorney is paid from your third-party escrow account, so they will never be pressured to make decisions based on keeping the agency happy. 

4. Thorough Vetting and Protections.

One of the most difficult parts of egg donation and surrogacy is that all parties are essentially strangers at the beginning, leaving a long list of unknowns.  That’s why we go the extra mile in screenings and interviews to protect everyone’s best interests. A few safeguards we keep in place. . .  

• Medical records: All medical records (pregnancy, donor cycles, PAP, etc) are obtained directly from medical providers (not the surrogate or egg donor) and reviewed by a team of professionals for pregnancy complications/disqualifiers BEFORE a surrogate or egg donor is cleared to participate.  
• Background Checks: We work with Verified First to provide some of the most thorough background checks available and disclose anything more significant than a speeding ticket to both parties.
• Insurance Verification: Before a surrogate meets with Intended Parents, we pay for third party insurance review to make sure her plan coverage is clear and accurately reported to Intended Parents.  
• Data Privacy: Finally, we use HIPAA compliant systems and processes to protect surrogates’, parents’ and egg donors’ privacy along the way. We never sell your information. 

5. Competent, Caring, and Accessible Experts on Your Side.

Our team is made up of former surrogates, former egg donors, and parents via both. We are committed to raising the bar for families with stories like our own. Additionally, we work with former nurses, clinical staff, social workers, non-profit leaders and other industry professionals to ensure our clients receive the very best care and guidance on their journey.  

So How Can We Build Trust? 

The failures exposed in recent investigations weren’t abstract. They were concrete breakdowns in financial control, legal transparency, medical quality, and respect for donors and carriers. While none of these investigations involved our agency, they do involve our industry and have left parents, surrogates and donors feeling uneasy.  

We don’t claim perfection, but we do commit to measurable standards and transparent processes that you can verify. That commitment means intended parents, surrogates, and donors make decisions based on documents and processes, not slogans.

Thats’ why we invite everyone to. . .  

1. View our Surrogate and Egg Donor Compensation Guides on our website 
2. View Surrogacy Journey Cost Breakdown and/or the Egg Donation Cost Breakdown on our website 
3. Verify our membership with SEEDS 
4. Ask questions of our staff. You can give us a call at 972-675-7240 or email us.  We’re here to help!  
5. And finally, search for any agency (including ours!) and take a look at their Google Reviews and/or find more reviews in private Facebook groups like this one.