Logistics for Intended Parents: Part One Preparing for Travel and the Journey Home after a Surrogacy Birth

Becoming a parent is an exciting, life-changing event. For all parents, the journey to meet your newborn can be filled with anticipation and a flurry of preparations. For parents via gestational surrogacy, this is even more so, as the road has often been long and winding, and the location of the delivery can often be far from home. It’s a very stressful and exciting time  Especially stressful if you're a planner! But this 2-part blog post should hopefully help you to navigate that scary logistical time a bit better--whether you choose planes, trains or automobiles (or a combination of them all)!

When to travel there?

In terms of when to travel to the delivery location, I get that question from almost all of my Intended Parent Clients. Both of my children were born via surrogacy, but my son was born far from my home and required lots of logistical planning. The plan was to stay in an Airbnb for three weeks near the delivery hospital, with the expectation that he would come about midway through the stay.  He had different plans however, and arrived about 2 weeks earlier than his planned induction date which was 2 days after our rental started and before my husband ad daughter had planned to arrive, which caused us to scramble.  But everyone made it in time and all went well. Our Surrogate S and her whole family were just amazing and we were so lucky to have gone through this process with them. My strong advice is to pack early and make your travel plans... but make things refundable and be ready to pivot! Babies can come late, but from what I can tell personally and with my clients, it seems surrogacy-born babies come earlier more often than later--both because of more intense monitoring and concern for the surrogate's (and of course baby's) well-being, but also because often these babies are second, third, or fourth deliveries for the pregnant person.

How to travel?

Many group chats and Facebook forums have been filled with the age old question: "Do we fly with our newborn or do we drive?" There is no "right" answer to that question, so do whatever is right for you! We took our baby home using a combination of driving and flying. We weighed the option of a 15 hour drive (requiring many rest stops which we believed increased the potential risk of germ exposure, accident, fatigue and discomfort) versus flying for about 4 hours with some driving before and after. We chose the latter. We drove about two hours to a further airport, to then take a direct flight home (with an hour drive on the other end). We decided the further airport which offered a direct flight was better than the closer airport which would have meant a transfer between two flights. It was a gamble but it all worked out smoothly for us. Our newborn slept 90% of the time and barely knew he was travelling. His 6 year old sister was the cranky one!

When selecting a mode of travel, remember a few things... if you are travelling by car for any part of it, you will need a reliable newborn car seat (more on that in Part Two!). And, an adult may want to sit in the back with the newborn. If you have siblings who are travelling too, plan ahead as to where they will sit. Also, remember that you will have a lot of bulky things you probably normally did not travel with before. So be sure your vehicle is large enough to accommodate. We rented a minivan for our airport transport out of sheer necessity.

If you are travelling by air, you will want to ensure that you have gone on the website or spoken to someone from the airline about their regulations. Every airline has different rules about how old a newborn can be to travel. Some say 4 days and a pediatrician's note is needed. Some say 7 days old and not note needed. Check in advance. Also learn the policies about refundability, purchasing a ticket if you don't yet know the baby's name or DOB (sometimes this can't be done so you have to wait), and what ID is required--remember you likely will be flying pre-birth certificate. Will you need a birth record or "proof of birth letter" from the hospital? Will you need to bring a Pre-Birth Parentage Order (if any)? I say speak to the airline, but has as much documentation as you can. Better to have things and not need it than get jammed up!

Where to stay?

Again, like everything here, this is a personal preference and you should do what's right for you. Perhaps you have friends or family in the area near the delivery hospital? Perhaps you want to rent an Arirbnb like we did? Perhaps you want the comfort and room service of a hotel? There are many options and no wrong choices, Each offers pluses and and minuses--pretty much like every decision in life. For me, I was worried that a hotel room would feel too confining as we were travelling with our daughter as well, and that we wouldn't be able to be as flexible with our start and end dates of stay. I was also worried that if the baby cried at all hours, it would keep up all the other guests and we'd be thrown out. (I had forgotten how quiet even crying newborns really are because their little lungs can't produce very loud cries, so my worries on that front were probably baseless.) But I have had clients use all types of accommodations and haven't heard of many issues with any of them.

When to travel home?

Once again, make your loose plans, but... this may be out of your control and unable to be planned in advance. There are lots of variables. Will your baby need some NICU intervention? Will they need some treatment regarding their bilirubin levels? Will they have trouble feeding after birth, and require or benefit from some additional monitoring or assistance? Will you want to stay in the area near your surrogate for a few days to make the separation for everyone less abrupt? (After all, they were pretty bonded to your baby for several months!) For us, our son had some trouble with his suck reflex for the first few days. So while we originally thought we would travel home when he was 4 days old, we ended up needing to have him seen more than once by a pediatrician near the delivery hospital, and he wasn't approved to travel safely until he was found to be sucking and gaining weight. So we took him home when he was 7 days old instead. We didn't book our flight home until we we knew it was safe for us to travel. But it was actually wonderful to have had that extra time to bond with no other distractions, and to be able to spend some extra time with our Surrogate S and her family before we left!

Hopefully this gives a little insight and guidance as to the travel aspects of your planning! Stay tuned for Part Two, where we focus more on the logistics of what to pack!