A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE TOLD BY ONE OF OUR INTENDED PARENTS
The moment we have been longing for is finally here! Our baby has arrived!! He is safe and perfect in every way! There are so many emotions rushing through our minds, we are relieved, happy, nervous, and infatuated. Now that he is here, the real fun begins, right?!
Before we can do anything with our little one, we know we will need to get his birth certificate and a social security number. We felt we were well prepared for both processes, thanks to our amazing lawyers. But even as I write this, my son is 3 months old and we still haven’t received his Social Security card. It’s not because anything went wrong, it’s just a long and somewhat complicated process.
Let’s start with paperwork at the hospital. In full transparency, we live in Georgia but our son was born in South Carolina. Each state processes things a little differently, which we knew could delay the process. While we were at the hospital they referred our child as “Baby _____” in which they used the last name of our surrogate. This meant that every document created at the hospital during our stay had that name on it. We had already decided on a name and informed every staff member that asked, but it was never updated during our stay. It wasn’t until the bills started rolling in with “Baby ____” being the patient name that it became an issue for them.
We were specifically instructed to deny a birth certificate from the hospital because they would have used the surrogate’s name and that was a big No-No for us. They filed all the paperwork for a birth certificate with the State of South Caroline weeks before he was born and all they needed was an official birth date and time to complete the process. Thankfully that process was smooth as butter and 2 weeks after he was born we received his birth certificate and multiple original copies so we could obtain his social security number.
The social security number was a different story. I wanted to be as prepared as possible so I looked up all the documents we would need when I went in for our appointment. One of those documents was proof of birth from the hospital. At the time our son was still listed as “Baby ___” so I had to find the right person at the hospital to (finally) fix his name and provide me with a proof of birth document. On the day of our appointment, we provided all the required documents and were told it would take a few weeks to process. Two weeks later we got a call that they needed us to come back in to sign another document since the birth certificate is from another state.
While we did complete everything and did (eventually) receive all the documents we needed, I was blown away at how long everything took. I am sure it takes just as long for these items to be obtained with a non-surrogacy pregnancy, but without being able to get it done through the hospital it made it feel long and complicated.
I wanted to write this blog post of my own personal experience so other Intended Parents could gain a little perspective on what you (might) encounter with your own experience. Thankfully nothing went wrong or awry, but it did feel (at times) complicated and overwhelming.
We also were so grateful to our team at Southern Surrogacy who helped us navigate through it all. Even if they didn’t know the exact answer, they were calling and researching right along with us until one of us found the right person to talk to!
