The Demand for Surrogacy Continues to Rise

  With an increasing demand for surrogacy across the board, countries still have laws that don�۪t make the process as simple as it should be. There are still countries where surrogacy is banned. For instance, in Canada, it is illegal for the parents of the child to pay their surrogate, except for related expenses. The law there requires a consulting agency to be the middleman to match up parents with surrogates. With all of the laws and limitations varying by country, it makes it difficult for the surrogacy consulting agencies to make arrangements smoothly. Two women who are very familiar with this uneasy process, Lisa Casselman and Liz Ellwood, decided to make a difference. Operating out of Ottawa, Ellwood was unable to find a surrogate that she felt comfortable with with the help of the limited number of agencies. She took matters into her own hands and met Lisa Casselman online, who had been a surrogate twice before. Even though Casselman wasn�۪t a match for Ellwood, they decided to keep in touch. When Casselman noticed that potential parents weren�۪t getting the support they needed, she and Ellwood decided to team up, and the ���Fertility Match�۝ consulting agency was born, based in Ottawa. According to the Canadian Fertility & Andrology Society, between 2014 and 2015, the number of embryo transfers to surrogates increased by 23 per cent, from 413 cycles up to 533. Clearly, the demand for a surrogate is rising much faster than the number of women willing to carry a baby for someone else, so hearing stories like the beginning of Fertility Match makes the future of surrogacy seem brighter.