Why can't I leave my state in the third trimester of my surrogacy pregnancy?

Learn the answer to this week's user-submitted question about surrogacy in this week's installment of Ask a Surrogacy Expert! Have a question about surrogacy that you'd like answered? Submit it at https://www.brightfuturesfamilies.com/ask

Hey everyone, this is Jennifer White, CEO of Bright Futures Families Surrogacy, with this week's question. This week the question is: Why can't I leave my state or local area, depending on how your contract is written, in the third trimester of my pregnancy?

And there's a couple reasons. And as with anything, one answer does not fit everything. But this is a general blanket rule as to why. Generally, it's because you have already achieved a parentage order that is specific to the state state that you are in. And of course, when that baby comes out, you want the parents to be able to get their names put directly on the birth certificate and to become legally parents of that child. If you give birth in another state, that is still possible for them to do those things, but they have to do it afterwards, it become legally can become much more complicated. In some states, surrogacy is not recognized, so that becomes problematic. The other secondary reason is a lot of insurance policies are state specific. And so again, this may not apply to everybody, but it could well be that if you leave the state and you give birth in another state, then you are going to have a coverage problem because your delivery is not going to be covered. And that can become very, very expensive to intend to parents. So generally it's not to be, you know, punitive or things like that. It's because the legal documents are there and the insurance is in place and everybody wants to make sure that that the end of the pregnancy is as smooth as possible for everybody. Hope that helps.