Take part in the 2026 Mutual Match Gap Study.

Before anything else

Your responses are for research and will not be added to a Patriot Conceptions sales or matching profile unless you separately choose that later. Research consent and marketing or matching consent are two different decisions, made on two different forms.

The study

What this study is

This study explores what gestational carriers and intended fathers need from a potential match and where expectations differ. Patriot Conceptions is sponsoring the research.

Two groups answer the same questions in role-appropriate language, and the answers are compared. Carriers say what matters to them in an intended parent. Intended fathers predict what they think matters to a carrier. The distance between those two sets of answers is the gap the study is named after.

The reason for asking is an asymmetry that anyone who has been through matching will recognize. Intake forms ask intended parents a great deal about geography, compensation, communication and the relationship they hope for. The carrier is then presented through a detailed profile, while the intended parents reach her through a short letter, a call and the agency’s assurances. Both sides can use the same words — close, communicative, respectful — and picture different behavior. Nobody finds out until the arrangement is under pressure.

The published literature is useful but does not answer this directly. A 2022 systematic review covering 47 studies across 12 countries found that surrogacy experiences were largely satisfactory and that positive relationships were common, while also identifying cross-border legal problems and autonomy harms in some settings. Longitudinal work finds that contact between a carrier and a family can stay meaningful for years, and that desired frequency varies between people and changes over time. What none of it contains is a structured, side-by-side comparison of what each side says it needs at the point of matching.

Eligibility

Who can take part

There are two routes. The survey opens with a short set of stage questions and sends you down the right one. You must be at least 18 to answer either.

Earlier than that, you can still answer. Someone who considered carrying or submitted an initial application but did not reach screening, and an intended father who is exploring without a consultation yet, are both routed into a separate exploratory group and reported that way. Their answers are never merged into the primary comparison, because the two populations are not the same and combining them would flatter the numbers.

You do not need to have worked with Patriot Conceptions. Carriers do not need to have worked with gay, bisexual or single intended fathers, though the survey asks so that comparisons can be made honestly.

What it involves

What taking part actually involves

One survey, once. Approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Nothing afterwards unless you ask for it.

• Participation is voluntary from the first screen to the last.
• You may skip any question that is not required.
• You may stop at any time, and you do not have to say why.
• Results are reported in aggregate, and small groups are suppressed to reduce identification risk.
• A subset of respondents is invited to a longer conversation afterwards. That invitation is opt-in, sits on a separate form, and declining it changes nothing about your survey response.

The questions are mirrored: carriers rank what matters to them, intended fathers predict those rankings, and both sides answer short scenarios about the moments where matches are usually tested — a delayed reply, a slow reimbursement, a clinic recommendation the two sides read differently, a change in contact after birth. There are a few open-text boxes. You can leave them empty.

Four acknowledgments before you start

The first screen asks you to confirm four things. They are short on purpose, and none of them is buried in a longer document.

1. I am at least 18.
2. I understand participation is voluntary.
3. I understand the research survey is separate from marketing and matching consent.
4. I consent to the stated research use.

Consent

Research consent is separate from marketing and matching consent

Taking part is not an application, an inquiry, or a step toward enrolling with anyone. It does not create a profile, does not put you in a pipeline, and does not trigger a follow-up call.

• Your responses are for research. They will not be added to a Patriot Conceptions sales or matching profile unless you separately choose that later.
• The survey is fielded through a system kept separate from the agency’s client records. Answering does not create or update a record about you there.
• Survey answers are not used in matching. If any future product wanted to use something you said here, that would require a second, explicit consent — a separate decision, made later, with its own yes or no.
• Other organizations distributing the survey receive the same public aggregate findings and nothing at the level of an individual response. Patriot Conceptions does not learn which provider you use unless you volunteer it in a broad analysis question.

That separation is not a legal formality bolted on at the end. The study asks carriers a great deal about medical autonomy, because professional ethics guidance treats it as foundational: the gestational carrier controls consent to her own medical care, and intended-parent wishes and contracts do not replace informed consent. A study that asked those questions while quietly converting the answers into sales leads would be arguing against itself.

Privacy

What the survey will not ask you for

The strongest privacy protection is not collecting the information in the first place.

The research response does not collect names, email addresses, exact addresses, full dates of birth, clinic chart data, bank data or identifiable case narratives. If a question ever seems to be fishing for one of those, you can skip it, and it should not be there.

Four things that do need a way to reach you sit on a separate form that is not linked to your research answers:

• Sending the incentive
• Opting in to a follow-up interview
• Asking for the published results
• Choosing to hear from Patriot Conceptions, if you want that

Because that form is unlinked, the people analysing the data cannot connect what you said to who you are, and the people sending the incentive cannot see what you answered.

The controls that apply after you submit

• Tables use a minimum subgroup size of 10, and 20 for sensitive cross-tabs where that is feasible, so a small group is never reported in a way that could identify the people in it.
• Rare countries, states and medical attributes are suppressed or combined before anything is published.
• Direct identifiers are removed from any quoted open text, and a highly distinctive story is only quoted after the person who wrote it agrees again.
• No provider is ever shown a response at the individual level. That includes Patriot Conceptions.
• Staff do not see whether a current client criticized Patriot Conceptions until the data have been deidentified and aggregated.
• Deidentified analytic data are kept only for the period stated in the consent, and not longer.

Incentive

The incentive, and what it is not conditional on

A modest fixed incentive, the same for everyone, delivered by the survey vendor rather than by the agency.

Everyone who completes the survey is offered the same small digital gift or a charitable-choice equivalent of equal value. The amount is fixed and published before fielding opens, so it is not a bidding mechanism and nobody is paid more for a longer or more enthusiastic answer.

• It does not depend on answering positively about anyone.
• It does not depend on mentioning Patriot Conceptions at all.
• It does not depend on enrolling with any provider or completing a sales form.
• It is fulfilled through the separate, unlinked form, so claiming it does not tell anyone what you answered.

Paying people something for 15 minutes of expertise is respect, not persuasion. Tying that payment to the content of the answer would corrupt both.

Opening date

The survey opens in August 2026

Fielding has not started, so there is no link to give you yet. We would rather say that than publish a button that goes nowhere.

When fielding opens, four things are published at the same time, so you can read what you are agreeing to before you agree to it:

• The live survey link, including the blinded versions distributed by other organizations
• The full questionnaire, exactly as respondents see it
• The preregistered hypotheses, primary outcomes and exclusion rules
• The sample thresholds that have to be met before any number is called a finding

If you want to be told when it opens, the study page is where the link will appear, and the organizations distributing the survey will circulate it through their own channels. If you already have a contact at Patriot Conceptions, you can ask them — and asking is not a research consent either.

Common questions.