When you enter the world of surrogacy, it may feel like everyone is speaking a different language. Both gestational carriers and intended parents may find the acronyms and abbreviations in surrogacy confusing. To help people who are just starting their journey into surrogacy, from whatever perspective, we’ve provided a quick glossary of many common terms that come up when discussing third party reproduction. Let us help translate this new world for you!
SOME COMMON ABBREVIATIONS
One common abbreviation that may come up is TTC. This stands for ‘trying to conceive’ and is something many intended parents have struggled with during their journey. If intended parents are dealing with infertility, TTC is something they have likely discussed and researched heavily before coming to third party reproduction, so this is a very common term.
Other terms related to infertility include M/C (miscarriage), MFI (male factor infertility), and SA (sperm/semen analysis).
The parties involved in surrogacy have acronyms, too. Intended parents may be known as IPs, or more specifically, potential intended parents (PIPs). Fathers and mothers may be IFs, IMs, or PIFs or PIMs depending on where they are in the process.
A reproductive endocrinologist, typically seen during in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is known as an RE.
A surrogate mother is an SM, a traditional surrogate is a TS, and a gestational carrier is a GC.
DURING IVF
After undergoing IVF with an RE, a GC and the IPs will enter the two week wait (TWW or 2WW). This is the time frame between a successful transfer and the ability to find out if the GC is pregnant (PG).
The days are marked as days post transfer (DPT).
A BETA test for human chorionic gonadotrophin, otherwise known as HCG, will reveal a big fat positive (BFP) or a big fat negative (BFN) for pregnancy.
DURING PREGNANCY
Once the GC is pregnant, both she and the IPs will learn a new set of acronyms that apply during pregnancy.
An obstetrician (OB) or obstetrician/gynecologist (OB/GYN) may test for things like gestational diabetes (GD), discuss an estimated due date (EDD), or talk about the GC’s last menstrual period (LMP), which is used to date the pregnancy.
Clearly, there are a lot of terms to learn when it comes to surrogacy and pregnancy. Know, however, that the abbreviations don't exist to exclude anybody, but to facilitate conversation and discussion of these important topics.
Once in the world of surrogacy, these abbreviations normally become second nature very quickly. Since our goal is to make surrogacy as accessible as possible, our agency will work with all parties to ensure clarity in every aspect of this journey.
