This page is written by Mark Silverberg, DDS, MD, Executive Director of Private Label Surrogacy. Dr. Silverberg has more than 30 years of medical practice, including work as an anesthesiologist in Chicago-area operating facilities with many obstetric and gynecologic cases. He reads every PLS surrogate candidate's prenatal and delivery records himself.
Which Illinois clinics does PLS coordinate with?
PLS works with 14 partner fertility centers nationally, including Kindbody, Shady Grove Fertility, Fertility Centers of Illinois and Oregon Reproductive Medicine. In Illinois, the partners are Fertility Centers of Illinois and Kindbody Chicago. PLS also coordinates with any licensed IVF clinic an intended parent already uses, in Illinois or another state.
A partner clinic is one with an established workflow with the PLS team: the clinic knows what PLS's candidate file contains and who to call. Partnership is about logistics. PLS does not receive referral fees from clinics.
| Clinic | Illinois locations | Accepts outside gestational carriers | Reports to SART | PLS partner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fertility Centers of Illinois | Chicago area, including suburban locations [list current locations] | [verify] | [verify] | Yes |
| Kindbody Chicago | Chicago [verify address] | [verify] | [verify] | Yes |
| Additional Illinois partner clinics | [confirm the full list of 14 partners and permission to name each] | [verify] | [verify] | [verify] |
| Your own clinic | Anywhere in the US | Ask your clinic | Check sart.org | PLS coordinates with any licensed clinic |
You do not have to use a partner clinic, and you should not choose a clinic because an agency suggested it. Choose the clinic that is right for your medical situation, then choose an agency that will work with it. If you are still deciding, ask each clinic:
- Do you accept gestational carriers recruited by an outside agency, and how many such transfers did you perform last year?
- Who is my contact for the surrogate's screening and transfer scheduling?
- Will you accept a physician medical summary and the agency's records as part of your screening?
- Can the surrogate do monitoring at a clinic near her home, and how do you receive those results?
- What is your policy on the number of embryos transferred into a gestational carrier?
Write down the answers. They will tell you as much about how a clinic runs as any outcome table.
What does the clinic do versus the agency?
The clinic is responsible for medicine. The agency is responsible for everything around it.
The clinic:
- Creates embryos through IVF, with your eggs and sperm or donor gametes.
- Performs the surrogate's medical screening.
- Prescribes her medications. The intended parents' reproductive endocrinologist writes the prescriptions; the agency never prescribes or dispenses.
- Performs the embryo transfer.
- Monitors the pregnancy until about 10 weeks, then releases the surrogate to her own OB.
The agency:
- Recruits surrogates and runs the seven-step screening: application, interview, medical records review, background check, insurance review, independent psychological evaluation and coordination of the clinic's medical screening.
- Runs matching. At PLS, Nancy Block, RN, does this personally.
- Coordinates the independent attorneys for both sides, the independent escrow agent and the insurance review.
- Case-manages the surrogate through birth and coordinates the hospital plan.
The two roles overlap at one point: the candidate file. PLS's job is to hand the clinic a complete, accurate file so the clinic's own screening starts with the full picture.
What does Dr. Silverberg's medical summary give the clinic?
Before a surrogate is presented for a match, Dr. Silverberg reads her prenatal and delivery records from her previous pregnancies. Not a summary she wrote, and not a checklist: the records her OB and hospital kept. Then he writes a physician medical summary that goes to the intended parents' fertility clinic. The agency agreement defines this as review by a board-certified physician.
The summary tells the reproductive endocrinologist what the records show about each prior pregnancy and delivery: how the pregnancy progressed, how she delivered, and anything in the history the clinic should look at closely during its own screening. It flags what needs a question, so the clinic can ask it early rather than discover it late.
This does not replace the clinic's screening. The clinic makes the medical decision about whether a surrogate is cleared for transfer. The summary makes that decision better informed, and it can save time, because the clinic is not starting from scratch on records that PLS has already collected and read.
The complete PLS candidate file also includes her application, the case manager's interview notes, the background check, the insurance review, and the psychological evaluation by an independent licensed professional.
How do you read SART success rates for gestational carrier cycles?
The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) publishes clinic-level outcomes, including gestational carrier cycles, and the CDC publishes its Assisted Reproductive Technology success rates report. Check each clinic's reported outcomes before you choose.
When you read them:
- Look at gestational carrier cycles specifically, where the clinic reports them, rather than a clinic's overall figure.
- Compare like with like. Outcomes depend heavily on the age of the person who provided the eggs, so compare clinics within the same age group, or within donor-egg cycles if you are using a donor.
- Note how many cycles a figure is based on. A rate based on a handful of cycles can swing widely from year to year.
- Read the definition. Know whether a figure counts pregnancies, live births, transfers or retrievals.
- Ask the clinic directly how many gestational carrier transfers it performed last year, and how it works with outside agencies.
Be careful with any agency or clinic that quotes a single success percentage without saying what was counted. PLS does not quote one.
Can you use a clinic outside Illinois with an Illinois surrogate?
Yes. Many PLS journeys pair a surrogate in one state with intended parents and a clinic in another. The surrogate travels to your clinic for medical screening and for the transfer, and PLS covers that travel. Between those visits, she does monitoring at a clinic near her home, and the results go to your clinic.
The legal side follows the surrogate. Parentage is generally governed by the state where she delivers. Your attorney plans for that. PLS works with families across the US and abroad, and Jan Telman Berman, PLS's Global Surrogacy Coordinator, has managed national and international cycles for more than 18 years.
What do Illinois clinics charge for a gestational carrier cycle?
Clinic fees for IVF, embryo creation, the surrogate's medical screening and the transfer are paid directly to the clinic. They sit outside the PLS program fee and outside the escrow account that pays the surrogate and third parties.
What you pay depends on where you are starting. Parents who already have frozen embryos pay mainly for the surrogate's screening, medications and transfer. Parents creating embryos also pay for retrieval and lab work, and any genetic testing. An egg donor adds a donor cycle.
Ask each clinic for a written estimate for a gestational carrier cycle that lists screening, medications, monitoring, the transfer and any frozen embryo storage, and ask what a second transfer would cost. For typical ranges, see IVF costs with a surrogate, and for the full budget, see surrogacy cost in Illinois.
How does monitoring work for a surrogate who lives far from the clinic?
Monitoring is the bloodwork and ultrasounds that track the surrogate's response to medications before transfer and the early weeks of pregnancy after it. Because these visits can be frequent, they happen at a clinic near her home. Your clinic sends the orders, the local clinic performs the tests, and the results go back to your clinic, which adjusts her medications.
Local monitoring is billed by the nearby clinic and is part of the third-party costs, which total $15,300 to $29,000 in a PLS journey. The surrogate's case manager schedules the visits around her family and work, and PLS books her travel to your clinic for the transfer.
After the pregnancy is confirmed and the clinic releases her at about 10 weeks, her care moves to her own OB, close to home. See the Illinois surrogacy overview and the Chicago agency page.
Sources
- Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), clinic outcome reports: sart.org
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Assisted Reproductive Technology success rates report