Complaint Review: Surrogacy Centre India

To this point my wife and I have paid over 1,500,000 INR (over $25,000 USD) to pursue surrogacy with Dr. Shivani and ISIS Hospital between April 2014 and August 2014.  Even though I have already paid for a package which will allow multiple attempts at surrogacy I am not proceeding with Dr. Shivani as the things we have found out are so horrible we cannot continue in good conscious.  That is, we would rather give up thousands and thousands of dollars than be associated with the practices of Dr. Shivani and her clinic.

In an effort to take care of my family financially I offered to Dr. Shivani to give us a refund in exchange for not notifying others what we have discovered.   Since Dr. Shivani ignored (without even a response) my request I am proceeding to let everyone know the horrible things we have found out about Indian surrogacy, particularly as involved by Dr. Shivani.

After reading my encounter you can proceed with caution.  I would like to point out that both my wife and I still believe in Surrogacy, we also believe that people of India are generally wonderful; however, we believe Dr. Shivani is NOT a good, honest or caring person.  It has become clear to us that Dr. Shivani is interested in only one thing, money.

It has come to our attention that the medical practices at her clinic have severely degraded below where they once were.  Essentially Dr. Shivani is doing very unethical medical practices and she is extorting money from couples desperate to have a family.  

Here are some of the despicable practices that I now know are common place at SCI:

• Surrogates do NOT all live in surrogate housing,
• Surrogates’ diets are not monitored while pregnant.  Each surrogate purchases and prepares their own food.  Surrogates come from POOR backgrounds they have NO idea what a balanced diet full of nutrients would entail.  They are poor women saving every dime they can instead of purchasing healthy food to nurture your baby!
• Medical records and scans are manipulated, changed and sometimes outright made up.
• Medically unnecessary abortions are conducted regularly at the request of parents that don’t want multiple babies.  Specific examples are (or were previous to September 2014) posted on the SCI web forum for prospective parents.
• Frozen Embryo transfers are substituted for Fresh Embryo Transfer without telling patients resulting in substantially lower success rates, with the intention of making parents pay for additional “attempts”.
• Intended Parents are offered the option (only in person) of implanting embryos into multiple surrogates at the same time.  This option is NOT publicized or printed, presumably because it is not “allowed” under recently modified surrogacy laws of India.
• Surrogate mothers are subjected to unnecessary surgical procedures, especially early cesarean section births with no medial reason.
• Under-developed babies are intentionally delivered prematurely, presumably so extended hospital stays and treatments can be billed to parents.
• Dr. Shivani has an agreement with Eden Hospital for kickbacks of all medial fees billed by Eden Hospital.
• Pregnancy and Healthy Birth statistics are completely fabricated
• Success rates are falsified
• Proper consultation and required patient Consent Forms are not completed BEFORE treatment.
• Surrogates are subject to verbal and physical abuse. 
• Pregnant surrogates are forced to leave hospital rooms in the ISIS Clinic (to make room for western patients) and forced to stand outside (in all temperatures) behind a gate and beside the building for hours at a time without a chair awaiting their treatments to resume.
• Intended Parents who ask questions about any of this are blackmailed and their unborn child's well-being is threatened
• Not all IVF medications given to patients meet medical standards for safety and purity
• Patients are instructed to return partially-used Injectable IVF medication (which requires refrigeration and other special handling instructions) to be re-used on other patients.  That is, medications used by one patient are removed from the clinic and partially used medication is collected and re-dispensed to be injected into new patients (typically egg donors).
• Surrogates who have suffered miscarriage are immediately offered as surrogates for the next set of Intended Parents without disclosure
• Indian patients are given preferential selection of surrogate and benefits not offered to foreign couples
• Improperly monitored IVF medical treatment and medication is resulting in low quality eggs and embryos from Intended Parents and Egg Donors
• Pregnancy tests are falsified in an effort to steal money from intended parents
• Embryo scans are falsified in an effort to steal money from intended parents

On top of all this there is negligent and improper handling of eggs, embryos and semen.  Often embryos are misplaced or "lost”; don’t bother Dr. Shivani with facts such simple math.  If your calculations of embryos is “off” don’t bother asking what happened – you’ll be attacked!  

After a supposed miscarriage by our surrogate (just ONE day after a milestone requiring an additional $5,000 progress payment) we were sent a bill, but not notified of the miscarriage for three additional calendar days.  After this my wife and I attempted to discuss directly with Dr. Shivani unaddressed issues that had piled up so we could feel comfortable to proceed.  This proved impossible because If you dare inquire directly with Dr. Shivani for clarification you are met with yelling and character assignation.

After paying over $25,000 over a few months my wife and I have decided that we do NOT feel comfortable pursing surrogacy in India.  I am NOT willing to subject our potential children or surrogate mothers to mistreatment by Shivani.  Shivani’s greed (extra procedures and days in the hospital) directly threatens the life of premature babies and the life of surrogates!

Anyone interested in surrogacy and particularly surrogacy in India with Dr. Shivani should proceed with caution!  Let me be clear, I am NOT saying everything at the clinic is false, it is not.  I was trapped in India with my wife for nearly a month undergoing treatment; I know babies are born from surrogacy with Shivani, but at what emotional and financial cost?

If your ONLY goal is to “get a baby” and your are willing to overlook these horrendous injustices then proceed with Dr. Shivani; I hope all works out for you and your family.

Finally, I am certain that Dr. Shivani or her husband will respond to this report with attacks and lies.  We read reports like this before we signed up but chose NOT to believe them because we wanted a baby.  After our experience we now know the reports were true.  Just ask yourself, why would someone make this stuff up?