Are you feeling lost? Whether you are interested in creating your family via surrogacy or giving the gift of parenthood as a surrogate, starting a surrogacy journey can feel like starting a trip to a faraway place with no map or a compass and only a few clues on where to start searching. Surrogacy is truthfully an amazing journey of highs and lows for both prospective surrogates and intended parents.

How did you get your start, and how did this lead to opening Family Source Consultants?
After personally experiencing family building via gestational surrogacy in 2005, this was my calling, to help others build their families who otherwise could not the “natural” way.

Mother of two, Megan Steinecke, had a life changing realization after witnessing the struggles those close to her were having with infertility. For her, pregnancy came easy and she wanted to use her gift to help others start a family.

North America’s leading surrogacy agency, Family Source Consultants, highlights six things you didn’t know about egg donation. Egg donation is one of the most selfless deeds, helping to create a life or lives for a couple or individual who would otherwise be unable to have a family. However, if you’re considering donating your eggs or using an egg donor to have a child, it’s important to educate yourself thoroughly about the process involved.

Family Source Consultants, located in Illinois, is one of North America’s leading surrogacy agencies. Staci Swiderski and Zara Griswold founded the agency in 2007, inspired by their intimate knowledge of the process. Staci completed her family through surrogacy and has been an egg donor twice. In fact, 75% of Family Source Consultants’ employees have been surrogates, egg donors or intended parents – which is one of the things that makes their agency unique.

Women who make the decision to become a gestational surrogate, typically enjoy pregnancy and genuinely want to help another couple or individual to create or add to their existing family. They also receive compensation for their time and efforts. Staci Swiderski, Co-Founder of Family Source Consultants, has helped to screen countless surrogates over the years and has even used a surrogate to complete her own family

When Kimberly Foster became pregnant a few years ago, she didn’t want any more children. Four children were enough for Foster and her partner, Daisy Simbulan, of Berwyn. Still, Foster happily became pregnant again, knowing she would not be the mother. She had agreed to become a surrogate for friends who were desperate to have a child. “I knew that it would be something that I would like to do for them,” she says.

Make no mistake about it; the Kreais family is a “normal” family. One of the upstairs bedrooms in their Dublin home is a play room with toys thrown about on the floor, while 4-year-old twins Hudson and Irene sit at a nearby table drawing pictures with Crayons. Fathers Josh and Aaron Kreais know, as all parents do, that children can be a handful.

Cliff Hastings and Ron Hoppe-Hastings sailed through the vows at their 2011 civil union ceremony, until they got to the part about entering into fatherhood together. “We cried our eyes out,” says Hastings, 41. The topic of parenthood was emotional for them, he says — they both really wanted kids — but there was more to it than that: “We didn’t know what the options were. We both thought that having kids might be more of a pipe dream than an actual reality.”