Surrogacy Services

Before a surrogate can carry your child, we need to create a human embryo. That embryo will eventually be placed in your gestational carrier’s uterus.  

The steps involved in this process include:  

• You (or an egg donor) will take fertility medications that produce multiple eggs. 
• When the eggs mature, one of our specialists will remove them from the ovary (egg retrieval). 
• We’ll fertilize the eggs in our laboratory, using your partner’s sperm or donor sperm. This technique is called in vitro fertilization (IVF). 
• Next, we’ll freeze the fertilized eggs (embryos). 
• Once you and your gestational carrier are ready to try for pregnancy, we’ll thaw one of the embryos. It will be placed inside your gestational carrier’s uterus during a procedure called an embryo transfer. 

Pregnancy occurs when the embryo implants itself into the lining of the uterus. If your gestational carrier doesn’t become pregnant after the first embryo transfer, we’ll try again with another embryo. 

When you turn to UI Health Care for help growing your family, you can have complete confidence in our team. 

The UI Center for Advanced Reproductive Care opened in 1987 as the first program of its kind in Iowa. Since then, we’ve become a trusted leader in IVF and other infertility treatments, with success rates above the national average. 

And as Iowa’s oldest reproductive endocrinology program, we’re also the most experienced. We’ve successfully helped tens of thousands of individuals and families—and counting—achieve their dreams of having a child.