How we found our surrogate match in 3 days.

Here's our journey, in two rounds of searching.

After I gave up on waiting, I published our profile in several Facebook groups and reached out to a couple of agencies that listed available GC profiles on expecting.ai. Within two days, I was talking to three sources:

• One agency shared 3 GC profiles. They also agreed to $500 upon matching (matching = mutual selection), with the remaining match fee not due until medical clearance.
• One broker from a Facebook group, who had connections across multiple agencies and shared 1 profile.
• One independent surrogate, who we ultimately decided to go with. This match happened within 3 days of starting the search.

The independent GC match eventually didn't work out (more on that another time), so we started a second round.

Encouraged by how quickly Round 1 moved, I realized I could actually tighten my criteria: experienced GCs, in nearby states. I paid for a one-month subscription to expecting.ai ($99) to search candidates, their repository is surprisingly well-updated. Whenever I saw a candidate who looked like a good fit, I'd message the agency: "We're a married couple in CA, ready to match. Here's our profile. We'd love to learn more about GC XXX."

Two agencies got back to me immediately within a day, and both agreed to "no retainer until medical clearance."

• Agency #1 shared 3 profiles, all experienced GCs. No upfront fee until full medical clearance, meaning passing medical record review AND the in-person physical and bloodwork screening. We went with a GC from this agency, matched within 2 days.
• Agency #2 shared 2 profiles: one experienced GC and one first-timer. Same terms: no upfront fee until full medical clearance.
• Agency #3 got back to me after 4 days with 1 profile of an experienced GC, but by then we had already found my match. (This was the same agency from Round 1 that had agreed to $500 upon matching.)

1. Most agencies were fine with "no money until medical clearance." I just had to ask.

I went in expecting a fight. Instead, when I explained what had happened to us with the retainer and said plainly that we didn't want to pay anything until medical clearance, all the agencies I spoke to were friendly and open to it. I genuinely appreciated their openness and collaborative attitude. If our current match doesn't work out, I'd happily go back to any of them.

2. The candidates I saw moved really fast.

Every profile I saw in Round 1 was already matched up by the time I started Round 2, just 10 days later. That contradicts my own experience of waiting 9 months without a match, and the narrative from GCs that they go months without matching too.

The only way to reconcile the contradiction is this: at any given moment there are many IPs and GCs waiting to be matched. But the surrogacy market is so fragmented across agencies: as those IPs and surrogates are "owned" by different agencies, they can't see/find each other quickly.

If you take things into your own hands and reach out to multiple agencies, you're effectively contacting the available supply directly, and get access to the GCs who are sitting there waiting to be matched.

3. I tightened my criteria and still matched in 3 days - the opposite of what I was told.

When we first started, we told our agency we preferred an experienced GC near CA. We were warned that those criteria would stretch our wait out by months, so we broadened everything as far as we could: open to all states except three surrogacy-unfriendly ones, and open to first-time GCs too.

Searching on my own, I narrowed the criteria back down to exactly what I wanted, and still matched in 3 days. This reinforces the same hypothesis: there are plenty of IPs and GCs in the market who can't meet each other because the market is fragmented across agencies, who have little incentive to get a waiting IP and a waiting GC together as fast as possible.

4. The "concierge service" is the same approach, but cost $10K+

When I first wrote about my frustration on Reddit, some kind redditors suggested using a "concierge service" — a paid middleman who sources candidates across multiple agencies on your behalf. I looked it up and found they run $10K and up. My approach cost nothing. Worth considering before you sign up for a concierge service.

The surrogate match problem isn't really a supply problem, but a candidate access problem. The fix costs almost nothing:

1. Reach out to multiple agencies in parallel, plus the independent pool, instead of betting everything on one.
2. Ask directly for "no fee until medical clearance." Risk nothing, and most will say yes.
3. Set your criteria to what you actually want, not what you think you can get. We're in CA — the most competitive state for finding a surrogate — and we still got everything on our list in 3 days.
4. Move quickly once you see good profiles. They often get matched within days.
5. Consider searching on your own first before paying for a $10K+ concierge service.