The next Kardashian is on still on her or his way—and already costing the family a pretty penny.
People reported Wednesday morning that Kimye’s surrogate is pregnant. While that gives the couple plenty to celebrate, it also means a sizable paycheck for the woman who will carry their third child.
Here’s the breakdown of how much a surrogate such as Kardashian’s is likely to be paid, according to Teo Martinez, CEO and partner of Growing Generations, a Los Angeles-based surrogacy agency that counts multiple celebrity couples among its clients. (While Martinez declined to name names to Coins2Day, the agency has reportedly served Neil Patrick Harris and his partner David Burtka. Harris told ABC back in 2010: “I can tell you that Growing Generations is great … they helped me have three kids!”)
Pre-pregnancy
Before a surrogate becomes pregnant, she has to go through a series of health screenings, as well as a lengthy legal process to ensure that there will be no contest as to the parental rights to the child after he or she is born. She is paid for the time and effort.
Estimated cost: $3,000
During pregnancy
Surrogates are typically paid every four weeks, with monthly payments ranging between $2,000 and $3,000.
Estimated cost (for 40 weeks): $80,000 – $120,000
Post-pregnancy
About two weeks after the birth of the child, the surrogate receives a lump sum equal to about a third of her total compensation. In other words, if she received $120,000 during the course of the pregnancy, she would get a lump sum payment of roughly $60,000.
Estimated cost: $40,000 – 60,000
The higher end of the range is for surrogates who have been through the process before—they are in greater demand as they’ve shown both their physical ability to deliver healthy children and their emotional stability, Martinez explains.
Expenses and extras
There are, of course, plenty of potential expenses, particularly for “VIP clients,” as Martinez calls them. The most common request is that the surrogate live and the child be born in L.A. If the surrogate is not local (only 40% of Growing Generations’ surrogates are), the client is expected to pay for all relocation and living expenses. Other possible add-ons include multiple births ($5,000 per extra child) and Caesarian section ($2,500).
Just because the surrogate is carrying a celebrity child does not mean she gets a celebrity “bonus,” Martinez says. “We don’t necessarily believe in compensation to add secrecy,” he explains; all surrogates sign confidentiality agreements.
A plausible grand total—assuming the Kardashians go with an experienced surrogate based in L.A. And everything else goes smoothly—is about $180,000.
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People reported back in June that Kardashian, already a mom of two, decided not to carry her third child due to her struggles with a dangerous condition called placenta accreta during her previous pregnancies.
The couple is not the first celebrity duo to hire an outsider to help complete their family; musician Elton John, actress Sarah Jessica Parker, and late night host Jimmy Fallon have openly discussed the process.
