KindEOS’ Mindful Matching™ program
Why surrogates and intended parents are not matched on a “first come, first serve” basis
Surrogates and intended parents traverse a unique landscape together. They journey through some very sensitive and novel landscapes as a team, both clinical, legal, and interpersonal all in the hope of achieving a precious goal. Such a high stakes and emotional journey demands that potential partnerships be closely considered and matches carefully made and certainly not carelessly thrown together on account of being next in line.
Mindful Matching Benefits All Parties
Both surrogates and intended parents benefit from a deep and careful consideration of potential partnerships. Bringing together surrogates and intended parents with complementary values, personalities and journey expectations, paves the way to make your experience a positive one. The increased likelihood that everyone will get along or at very least not needlessly upset one another, becomes important, as the parties may find themselves in stressful circumstances together. Temporary delays, setbacks and disappointing clinical results, when they happen are much easier to manage when you feel united with those whom you are on the journey with. Much like NASA considers the temperament of coflight astronauts, so does KindEOS consider our intended parents and surrogates.
A Team: United
It is important to consider the fact that although compensated, surrogates are not strictly speaking employees to their intended parents. And as such, their immediate behavior is not something that intended parents are in a position to make demands of and thus, an establishment of genuine trust and mutual respect is all the more critical.
They are trusted partners who are brought in to help accomplish the united goals of the intended parents.
Legal Implications
It is not just personalities and values, matching also includes some very real legal considerations which are absolute. A potential surrogate’s marital status may have little to no implication when she is matched with intended parents from a particular state but it may have an undesired legal implication if she were to be matched with intended parents from another state. This is just one example of the long list of technical considerations the KindEOS team must make as part of their Mindful Matching.
The Longer Wait Is Worth It!
Mindful Matching does contribute to a longer wait time for some parties but certainly the time spent on assuring an optimized match is earned back ten fold for both parties.
Difficult to Contract and Enforce Behaviors: Relationship Building is Key
There are certain behaviors which even when mentioned in a surrogacy contract, are not easily policed nor enforced and in fact there are broad types of behavior which there is almost no legal solution to address, such as the diet a surrogate consumes or the behaviors she chooses to engage in. So, how can a surrogacy program ensure the behaviors and follow through of a surrogate? Well one of the several ways in which KindEOS attempts to ensure adherence to agreed upon behaviors is by investing in the relationship between the intended parents and the surrogate herself. A relationship built upon mutual respect and genuine like is an important first step.
Waitlist Time
KindEOS’ Mindful Matching™ strategy means our surrogates are not thoughtlessly paired with the intended parents next on the waitlist. Instead the team takes considerable time and effort to systematically understand the personalities, backgrounds, values, journey preferences, as well as behind the scenes legal and logistical implications of each pairing of our surrogates and intended parents.
Finding the Right Surrogate
Finding a surrogate on your own is, in the vast majority of circumstances, simply not a possibility for most intended parents. Working with a reputable program to locate, screen, and match you with a qualifying gestational surrogate is the recommended route.
The professionals at KindEOS have over fifty-five years of combined experience in the third-party reproductive specialty field of surrogacy. Our team is ready to educate, advocate, and guide both the surrogates and the intended parents through the many phases of the surrogacy journey including the clinical, legal, psychological, interpersonal, and logistical considerations. Our Mindful Matching is just one example of our personalized program strategy.
“If you are considering a surrogacy program and they offer you first come first serve matching, my advice to you is to run. Mindful matching by your agency with your intended parent is essential to this journey” – Mary Ellen McLaughlin, KindEOS Director, Clinical Operations
Interested in becoming a surrogate? See if you qualify by taking our 5 minute prescreen.
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