Your next step is determining who the sperm provider is going to be. You can choose to have one partner be the sperm provider, or you can each provide the sperm. When the egg donor has her retrieval, your fertility clinic can either fertilize all of the mature eggs with one partner’s sperm or can divide the mature eggs in half, fertilize half with partner one’s sperm, and fertilize the other half with partner two’s sperm.
If the second option is preferred, it's better to have a second surrogate and transfer the best embryo from partner one into surrogate one and transfer the best embryo from partner two into surrogate two. While this increases your costs in the short term, it significantly reduces costs and risks in the long run associated with a twin pregnancy (on both the surrogate and the babies).
The next decision to be made is whether or not you want your embryos tested prior to being implanted in the surrogate. Your fertility clinic can do p reimplantation genetic screening (PGS) on your embryos to test their aneuploidy (normal vs abnormal) and to determine the gender of the embryo. If this is something that you are interested in, a simple blood sample from the sperm provider(s), along with a blood sample from the egg donor will be collected and submitted to the lab performing the PGS prior to the donor starting her medications.
Once the embryos are created, they will be developed out to blastocyst stage and then the embryologists will biopsy them, cryopreserve the embryos, and send the biopsied samples to be tested. At InVia Fertility Specialists, It takes about two weeks to get the results. By having PGS done on your embryos, you can be confident that your first frozen embryo transfer will be your highest quality embryo, thus giving you a higher chance of achieving a successful pregnancy.
If you prefer not to know the gender of the embryo transferred into your surrogate, we do not need to disclose that information to you. If you change your mind later, you can always request that information from InVia.
To work with a fertility clinic with a strong record of success working with same-sex male couples, make an appointment at one of InVia’s four Chicago area fertility clinics .