The first time I contacted this agency, they were really nice and helpful. They actually treated me a little like a queen. Which was really a change considering all the other agencies that I talked to treated me like just a number. Zara was really nice and helpful for awhile, but after a few months that changed. What I didn't like about this agency was they make you look for your own insurance policy to cover the pregnancy, if your personal policy does not cover it. This was frustrating for me, because not only did I have to figure what policies covered surrogacy, but I also had to pay for it out of my own account and hope for the IPs to pay me back. They also got really upset when I found my own lawyer to represent me, instead of one the recommended in my area (the one the recommended was a criminal lawyer with no background in surrogacy). Then when the IPs and I finally reached the contract phase, they never came to my aid. They allowed to IPs to say some nasty things about me and my family, and they never told them that they were in the wrong. Once the contract was worked out and the IPs and I had worked out some of our "issues" we began the med process. When you start the medication you have to go to 3 appointments before transfer, well those appointments were billed to me. I was told to just send them to the office and they would be taken care of. Little did I know, when I sent them to the office, they sent them to the IPs to pay (this is not supposed to happen, the agency is supposed to take care of the bills using the money that the IPs have set aside in an account with the agency) The IPs decided that the bills were too "expensive" and wanted to get them lowered. So they decided to call the medical centers that I went to, and tried to negotiate them down, this process took over 6 months to get worked out. In the mean time the bills kept coming to my house, with late payment notices. When I asked family source why they did this, they responded "that's what your IPs wanted to do." According to my contract the bills were supposed to be taken care of with in 5 days of receiving them, and that never happened. My IPs were constantly breaking the contract and family source basically said that my IPs could do whatever they wanted. A month before the scheduled transfer, I started taking the scheduled hormones. And about 4 or 5 days before the transfer, the IPs decided that they were not going to go through with the transfer. Apparently it conflicted with their schedule. So we canceled it and Zara stated that she would take care of scheduling the next transfer, well 2 months went by I still hadn't gotten a schedule for the next transfer. So I contacted the clinic myself to see what was going on. And they said no one from family source had contacted them about a new transfer date. The clinic contacted the IPs about a date to see what they wanted. The IPs were very angry that a date hadn't been worked out yet, but they blamed me. They decided that that I should have been the one to schedule the new transfer after they canceled, and it wasn't their responsibility. After this argument the IPs sent me an email stating that our contract was over. Which I thought, "I guess that is ok, now I can find a new couple." But I was wrong, the IPs through such a fit with family source and Zara, that I was told could no longer be a surrogate for their company because I refused to schedule a new transfer (which I find kinda funny now, because I have the email from Zara stating that she was going to take care of it). By the way, the bills that I talked about before were still unpaid when they canceled the contract. After months of them refusing to pay them, some one finally did. And I have no idea who paid them. So my advice for some one who wants to go through this agency. They are very disorganized, so keep track of everything yourself. Hire your own lawyer, do NOT take their advice for a lawyer. There are plants of lawyers out of Boston and DC that are licensed in Illinois, and they will talk you through everything on the phone or on Skype. I didn't make the decision to be a surrogate because wanted to be praised or treated like a queen. I wanted to help a family have a child, so that they could experience the joy that I experiance every day. Every one deserves to have children. If you make the choice to use a surrogate to have a family, please treat them with respect, don't treat them like they are you possession.
