coast all the way here to be on my show the talk about baby surrogacy egg donation you want to hear about this it's our passion but before we get started you know what we do on a dr joy show we take it down with three deep breaths are you ready inhale exhale inhale exhale last one inhale exhale how do you feel i know i feel great i want to welcome katherine keiko of so that to joe i so thanks for being here thank you so much for having me tell me a little bit about you well i live in los angeles originally from the east coast in new jersey and i went out there to be a television producer which i was and got married a little later in life and when my husband then husband i just started to try to conceive i was unable to so we went and we talked to a doctor who said  you might want to try a few things so we tried i v s and that didn't and then i then she got pregnant twice and miscarried triplets and then i miscarried twins and it's for anyone that's been through that it's a horrible devastating scary i'm sorry but you know what but it has as we talked as you will hear it has a flip side because you take your negative experience and you try and turn into something positive and for myself it was four years of miscarriages and trying and the doctor eventually recommended trying a surrogate and surrogate did not get pregnant and then the doctor said maybe you want to try with an egg donor because at this point i was forty almost forty four years old and we said you know what i just want to be a mom  stops mattering being a mom is not the nine months you carry a baby so when you surrogate and it's not having a biological connection either it's what happens when you bring the baby home and that's what i focused on so we used to speak surrogate and egg donor i was blessed with two boys identical twins wow there adulate are now thirteen and i started to help people and first it was you know i was working i had the kids it was something that i was doing on the side and i realized you know what this the television producing no longer held the same allure for me ok and as i say to people sometimes and i turned i used to produce babies i mean used to produce t v and now i produce babies and it's so much more rewarding so so wait a minute television you are in television production right and because of the fact that you tried to get pregnant and couldn't yes right you now are helping people have babies and become moms and parents i should say yes yes because we work with all kinds so what is your company it's called agency for surrogacy solutions we help people find surrogates and we manage the whole entire process we also ha the process from beginning to end if somebody well there's the surrogates process and then there's the in what we call them intended parents or i think the intent is that they're the parents so if you were to call me and we would talk i would probably speak for a few hours and tell you the whole process or an hour depends how many questions you have and then you would decide that you want to work with us and you would sign with our agency depending upon your specifications and your situation so if you are a heterosexual legally married couples pose to comp common law raising your own genetics meaning the man sperm in the woman's egg you have a certain states with the laws are good for you ok but if you are a same sex couple  are using an egg donor those some of those states will be good but you may not be able to do it so each state has their own laws fifty percent of our clients are also from overseas from all over the world really because the marrow of the united states has the best laws there a few other countries that have good laws but the medical services here are not you know there unsurpassed from any other country and the quality of the women these women are not people you know not not to you know put down any other country that surrogates to do this but when in india the women they really were were poorer and this was really a life sustaining job that they did in the united states it comes from the heart the women first of all we do not accept anybody on  being pregnant but then she says could i give my baby not a biological child because we didn't that we do not go back there's two types of surrogacy there is one called traditional means in the bible were right it's sperm and a woman's egg with the intent that the woman is going to be impregnated with the baby's not going to be hers that's traditional and ok and there's you can do that in the united states there contracts for that but we don't do that the one we do is where the carrier has no biological connection and she's called a just ational surrogate right to gestate is to kind of you know grow it so she grows it and i don't you know it's not a womb for hire because people say that but it's again she's babysitting that baby right if you were to babysit friend's baby you would carry it and do everything you could are you know or you know if it was a real you would feed it and hug it and if fell down you put a band aid on and when the parents came you go yours you know you're like you want to keep it so right woman has to know and most women say i couldn't do that and they were there in the women i presume rent some of that fifty fifty percent are married and fifty percent so long as they have a good support system where good and their husbands or partners understand so calling for these women so what's the a range that we will not accept anyone under the age of twenty one but even if you're twenty one you have to be pretty mature right that said if you are a young mother at eighteen you grow up pretty fast so a lot of the women the corsa twenty are mature but we really have to make sure so twenty one to forty is the range we have women that are over forty two but in general that you know we you are not required to be done building your family but most of the circuits are because and every time you're pregnant there's always a risk what so we want but you're not required to be done and we kept for shoot some women think they're done do it maybe to circuses and say you know about the next pregnancy i want that  rain well you know i am as somebody that went through this process as what i called tended parent because that's how i had my children i know what you're looking for and also as an agency owner i'm looking for the same things i don't want someone that's problematic i don't want someone that's just doing this for the money because it's it will never be enough there's no not a number you can put on this so you're going to go outside of the state of california i presume every i know every state new jersey new york there are a variety of states where i but we know and each state has different laws in which we check specifically so but so they can be from a variety of states they have to be in the united states do not work with surrogates that want to fly in from another good they can i can still run them i don't know what their real motivation is right here i can i don't want them to be coerced or anything and as i said the women that come to us when they find us they find us mostly on the internet and they've sort of self screened in the sense that they there's a lot of research that's been done usually but we still go through the whole process with them so i want what you want i want somebody that's healthy that has good and healthy again big range you know and what i eat may not be what my friend eats might not be with my boyfriend it's like you know so but healthy has a range of weight too there's certain the b m i is determined by the doctor that the intended parents choose so usually the top range for b m i is somewhere between thirty one and thirty five to pending on the clinic are not judging you by your weight somebody email me yesterday how dare you say that you know i have to be a certain age in a certain way to know you want the person you want the surrogate to be happy healthy prior to you know the pregnancy and then to actually be able support system because you know the funny thing is so you said most people say oh the circuits must be married and you said oh they must be single but sometimes i get people that call and say oh i don't want to single out what i'm like why not well she doesn't have a good support system i say you know funny thing is single women usually have better ones they have more multiple layers yet they live near their mother and their sister but if the sister is not available their friend or the other and church are there you know there are all kinds of things and a lot of time not that married women don't have good support systems but many of them say i have my husband and someone if he's not there and what then who exactly and usually they are there but single women have that multilayer all right so take me through the process just a little bit you found ok so there are women on the internet that want to become surrogate so you pick one and you do you match them with a family well again so and women do come to us other ways that's just what i think but so i will have a usually waiting list my waiting list for intended parents is anywhere from one month to four months this may sound long but most good reputable agencies many of them have a year wait and i do not know why we are shorter i am always trying to figure out why is our agency such a short list for you know a month to four months and other agencies so what do you do background checks on my guests and well you know they're always trying to catch us on like i do everything that all the other good agent does have a small to team  want a team i like to think yeah that's the reason so so a parent would come to us and the surrogate and they each have qualification sometimes the i have to educate the intended parents because they think that it's just a health i just wan healthy woman i'm like well no picks you as much as you pick her ready because this is the so the intent of parents it's going to hopefully be a beautiful journey and they go home with the prize they get a baby do the intendant the intended parents in th constant contact i don't know about constant i mean how many people you constant contact i mean but yes and no ongoing connett owing yeah so yes we encourage that because it's a relationship so the surrogate to her the journey is this is one of the biggest think she'll ever do in her life so she also has a fantasy of who these people are right but both parties may be very general she might say i don't care how much communication or i do some people are more independent some people are less everybody has to have a good communicator when necessary most people will talk to their surrogates a minimum of once a month ok but many end up texting every day i mean each person i think it finds its level you know depending on the personalities bal breaks there was a movie that was out last i think with morris chestnut never got the his his wife but regardless i have to say it that was scary when it came to sarah to see because the lady that was the sarah did it or the woman that was the surrogate she actually now want to keep the baby she went crazy she wanted to keep the baby so how does your organization prevent surrogates from changing their mind at the end well a couple things first of all i mean that's very common question a common fear a as i said every person that becomes a surrogate the first question she asked after she thinks i love being pregnant could i keep the baby could i give that they be back after nine months that's you're not and we do psychological screenings and all that but the other thing is the laws of the state where she gives birth are what got the contract and that's why we have to make sure that kind of where she gives birth so we don't match people in states when you hear these stories on the news that you know there are look there's thousands of successful journey and then there's one bad one and that'll end up on the news ok right all the ones that go beautifully people don't talk about why do most people  so we make sure that she's in a state where the contract will be upheld so we're changed her mind the states would not recognize her as the mother and when you hear these stories gone awry it's usually because people didn't use an agency  downloaded the contract off the internet to save money they do it in a state where the contract will not be upheld but if you work with somebody reputable there are a lot of moving pieces in this journey for me i've been doing it fourteen years no big journ so if you are creating your own embryos with your own egg and sperm you are looking total journey and this is everything this is your lawyer this is the agency this is your surrogate this is the insurance this is the medical  psychologist this is you name it monthly allowance there's all kinds of things that go into as to you probably at the bottom eighty thousand that's the bottom i know it's a lot this is not for the faint of heart and the biggest one of the biggest thing anybody's going to be doing so you know who are they as i said they range some of the surrogates these are not surrogates are not so you haven't who are tight i don't there's you know we get teachers we have people that have saved you know for know women that say were born without a uterus so they knew they were always going to need this or somebody that had cancer or a same sex couple you know they could adopt they could everybody could but that's fraught with its own  their fire people that anybody can do this so and again there are some institutions that may lend money that clinics will work with you there are ways to kind of keep it down but not much i mean you're talking maybe save another ten which is so huge  her base fee that's right just for the act of being pregnant and it's for pain and suffering so it's got it right so she you know so it's not for delivering a healthy baby so she would have miscarried for months she keeps everything that she has received at that point because she had pain and suffering and he cannot really alter those contracts she can but it's again the fairness of what the and the spirit of the contract is pain and suffering so depending which state she lives in depending on her insurance there's a lot of things but the bottom number is probably twenty two thousand for a first time surrogate and for california's a very popular state first time circuits getting thirty five thousand maybe even forty sometimes and then as a repeat surrogate you can see again you set your own fee i had somebody called say i want to hundred thousand i said you are so worth it but you know what there someone's going to for thirty five hundred thousands a little up there but we've had a three time experience surrogate in california she is receiving sixty thousand but she also gets you know lost wages she gets there are other things it's not just that amount you get a monthly allowance of twelve usually two hundred you get  maternity clothing going you get all you know all that and all the health care that goes along with everything ok work it should never be out money and that's not i don't mean she might not have to you know put out twenty dollars to get something that's not covered by her monthly allowance right it's a receipt but this should not cost her she's doing a beautiful service for somebody she this shouldn't is not an expense for her this is everything comes to her this is beautiful so eighty to one hundred twenty thousand so who age twenty one to thirty it is you know that the truth is people are looking you know they talk about these designer egg donors yes they're out there but people are looking for a candle looking for someone  have some kind of you know maybe i have early breast cancer in my family but i don't want an egg donor with that so you are you really trying to screen somebody that and everyone has something in their family your grandparents or great grandmother everybody dies of something like but again is it just your grandfather died of a heart attack at eighty five or fifty if that's so it or not is it self self assessment yes ok so there's honesty i was going to try a integrity plays a big role in this in this whole world but i find that people have integrity and it's very rare that somebody isn't what they say there are d n a tests that can be run and some people do them so it does not it will not show things i don't believe like you know addictive personality or things like that but there are certain things that you can uncover so who wants and i don't or so well usually again if you're a same sex male couple i would say they are not infertile they are just fertility challenges right but women again you know some women are born without reproductive or multiple miscarriages they try to look who doesn't want to have their own biological child we really are it's ingrained in our d n a that we reproduce but if you can't this is amazing the women that do this are really doing such a service out there because these are people for to really want to be so you're looking for egg donors right now all the time all the time all right so age range for the egg donor twenty one to thirty good family health history again this does not mean perfection right just means you know if your father dropped out of a heart attack at fifty it's going to be very hard right have severe mental illness things like absolutely but you know attractive that and that's a big rain here with everybody thank you beauty is in the eye of the beholder right exactly  doing match dot com they put a picture from like twenty years ago and then when they are like all those little so you want to i guess verify right you wouldn't call we know parents meet the egg donor that is a case by case so many donors want to be anonymous but anonymous doesn't mean anonymous in the way that you normally think of it right means that the contact information isn't shared so where can a range skype call but the truth is not everybody wants that you know i know for myself when i picked an egg donor i didn't want to meet her because i thought i am just going to i'm afraid i'm going to find flaws you know and you know and that's it inhuman and that's exactly it and then i thought if my child you know giggles the way she giggles i'm always going to think of her right i will tell you now on the other side my children are thirteen i would feel that way i know i'm the mom i'm secure or you need to go i didn't but but i have a very full profile of her with her health history are a lot of information my children have asked to see it i've told my children from the day they were i was born if that next not everybody i think it's so for me i think it was the right thing to do and i would encourage other people because my children other people put value on them so if you go to a better college if you are you know incredibly attractive those things can command with leaded if you have some exceptional ability after that again you could get the next and she could be fifteen could be twenty but we have a huge number of chinese clients and they really the market for intelligent beautiful asian donors has become very hot they're getting twenty thousand dollars for their donation so is that what is the process if we could just talk a little bit about that you're going to need to wrap it up one thing i always want to say is people are like i don't want to give up my fertility unlike when you and i were growing up and we said one month that every month an egg slope into that is not what happens in your ovaries every month depending on your ovaries five on this side ten on this side there's fifteen you could have forty eggs and one the quick version is one wins and the rest go away and they don't go away for next month right they're done so you're not using up your fertility when you help somebody and all would so you're you still have just as many eggs when it's time for you to conceive and you know there's some from when you're picked to is about three months and there's a there there are contracts we supply you with a lawyer that the intended parents pay for and you are your health as an egg donor is of the most importance so we take that consideration i want to ask this question what was the most rewarding part in this journey for you every time there's two moments in a pregnancy and this is for everybody it's not that one person it was more rewarding the moment they get their positive pregnancy  test because they never with few struggle even if you haven't struggled it's not felt it's felt like such a dream and all the sudden right to reality yet and then when i speak to them and their baby they've had their baby in their arms and it's just i just brings back my own memories and it's the moment the circuit waits for and they wait for and every time we have about right now about eighty five cases going i have a pretty large staff we're not a small agency write well established agency and i  mean it's incredible it's a beautiful thing and it makes me grateful for my own children because it reminds me of that my struggles all the time oh that is wonderful that is wonderful see how you turned something that might have been a tough situation into something great not only for yourself but for others where can we find you and you know you're located in california but i work with intended parents all over the country all over the world and the same with the surrogates all around the country so what you're your contact info w w w surrogacy solutions inc i n c dot com oh wonderful wow i i want to thank you i want to thank you for sharing your story because your story is going to motivate others i call it the shattered glass impact yeah i like that it's a good it's a good thing thank you very much thank