Barbara McCollough and her journey to create support for surrogates

Barbara received her Masters in Social Work from Smith College, completing clinical internships at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Michael Reese Medical Center in Chicago, as well as post-graduate training at the Family Institute of Cambridge. Her work experience relevant to surrogacy includes Boston's Children's Hospital Medical Center, (Neonatal Intensive Care, Infant and Toddler Medical, and Developmental Evaluation Clinic), consultant to the Infertility Program at the Mind Body Clinic of Deaconness Hospital, and more than twenty years in private practice.

She is licensed in the state of Massachusetts, and is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Since 2000 Barbara has provided support services and consultation to a surrogate matching agency, which includes psycho-educational support groups, crisis intervention, and individual consultation.

What she has learned in her own journey with hundreds of surrogates has not only contributed to her knowledge base in the field, it has reshaped her notions of service.

Many people ask, "How could a woman do that?" - referring to a process that results in a woman parting with a child she has given birth to. After Barbara came to know surrogates, she asked that same question, but it was "How can a woman be so devoted to helping someone else create family that she would risk her own life, take time from her family, potentially jeopardize her job, endure the potential criticism of others (sometimes even professional medical staff) who don’t understand or approve of her decision?"

Barbara has learned the answer: because these women love being mothers themselves, they love being pregnant, and they love the idea of helping someone have what she most values, a family.

To Barbara, these women are, if not unsung, inadequately sung, heroes, and she is committed to correcting common misperceptions of surrogates.

And so she created Surrogate Support for that very purpose: to sing their song, celebrate their contributions, and provide a space where they feel welcome, supported, loved, and understood.