If you have been dreaming of a beautiful birth center experience, your Intended Parents looking on with excitement, your partner and doula helping you breathe the baby down, and your midwife standing by, you may be nervous about how to make this happen.
First, there’s the well-known information that there is a shortage of midwifery care in Alberta. There is not enough funding in the province of Alberta directed to midwifery care to meet the demands of pregnant women.
If you would like to give birth with a midwife, you will need to have Intended Parents that are supportive of midwifery care. In many places throughout the world midwives are not considered medical professionals, so it can take some convincing. Not to worry, you have our support. We can help your Intended Parents understand the expertise of Alberta Midwives. By providing credible resources to your Intended Parents we can help to advocate for your desire to birth with a midwife. You may want to have something put into your surrogacy legal agreement about a choice of care provider and birth place.
Once you have begun your journey you will need to act fast. Applying for midwifery care should be done as soon as you are pregnant. Pregnancy through IVF does provide an advantage. You will likely know you are pregnant sooner than most and can apply for midwifery care in Alberta as soon as your pregnancy is confirmed.
You can apply for midwifery care by going to the Alberta Midwifery Client Care website and filling out a Request for Care. There are some midwifery clinics that are still accepting direct requests, depending on your area.
Keep in mind that even if you do not get accepted into midwifery care immediately, later in pregnancy some of the women who did secure midwives will become high risk. That will free up space for others, and hopefully you!
There is also a little-known secret about midwives in Alberta. Some of them will accept private payment. These Midwives have not been allocated public funding to sufficiently fill their schedules leaving them with availability to accept privately funded clients. You still receive the same high quality, professional medical care. If you are considering privately funded midwifery care you will need to have an open discussion with your Intended Parents about their budget.
If midwifery care is not an option for you, either because you are unable to secure a midwife or because your pregnancy is considered high risk, you still have options to help you have the birth experience you are hoping for.
We suggest all Gestational Surrogates have a doula and advocate for the expense. Your doula will help you plan your birth, offer information, be available to answer your questions throughout your pregnancy, offer comfort measures and help you communicate with medical care providers and your Intended Parents while in labor. With the support of a doula, your risk of interventions and a c-section may be lowered.
Alberta Surrogacy understands that for you, surrogacy is an experience unlike any other. You have hopes and expectations about what your experience as a Surrogate will be like. We want to do everything we can to help facilitate an experience you feel proud of and grateful for.
Our Surrogacy Interest Form helps us to put together personalized information just for you. Visit our Gestational Surrogates page to fill it out and start learning more about surrogacy.
