SURROGACY IN NEW ZEALAND

Surrogacy in Aotearoa New Zealand is governed by laws that were written many years ago. As intended parents, we aren’t allowed to pay someone to be our surrogate. However, we need to ensure we cover reasonable pregnancy related costs.

Both the surrogate and the intended parents will require legal advice to ensure everyone is clear about the intentions and outcomes. The final legal step is adoption; this is facilitated by the lawyers.

We discuss this more in person with Deepika from Lemon and Sage.

SUPPORT FOR OUR SURROGATE + INSEMINATION

By law, we are required to cover “reasonable pregnancy related costs” that our surrogate will incur. This can include;

  • food vouchers (supermarket or subscription services like Hello Fresh)

  • clothing

  • medical

  • travel

  • legal advice

  • adoption costs

  • any other items the surrogate may want to discuss with us

The things we can’t pay for include appliances, a new vehicle, bills, and other ‘normal’ costs.

INSEMINATION

In terms of insemination, we are willing to travel to our surrogate so that we can meet face to face, and later to begin the insemination process. Equally, if the surrogate wants to travel to us, we are happy to pay for this.

It is important to us to that we have a traditional surrogacy; this is where a semen sample is provided and inseminated using a syringe. Insemination is most effective when the semen is inseminated within an hour of being produced.

Traditional surrogacy is more direct, less invasive, and very cost effective. We have found that the insemination kits from Hapū Helpers include everything required to facilitate a successful insemination, and we will provide these kits to be used.

(Gestational surrogacy is generally where an embryo is inseminated; this requires months of tests, consults, and providing samples, and must be done via a clinic. The cost for gestational surrogacy is greater, too).


Ultimately, we are very open to having these discussions with our surrogate to ensure we are meeting their needs. We are very grateful for whoever our surrogate/s may be, and we want to support them in every way we can!