What if the intended parents haven’t arrived when it’s time for the surrogate to go home?

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 brightfuturesfamilies.com/ask

Hey, everyone, it's Jennifer White, CEO of Bright Futures Families SUrrogacy, with this week's question and one that I think scares a lot of people. The question is: What happens if the intended parents haven't arrived when it's time for the surrogate to go home from the hospital or from the birthing center? And I will say, as much as this terrifies people all the way around, it pretty rarely happens with our program. We do only take domestic intended parents, which means that general, generally they're within at least a kind of reasonable number of hours, flight and availability to get here. So that said, if that were to happen, if something extreme or catastrophic were to happen, then obviously you'd want to be in communication with the agency throughout all of these concerns, because we can if we have to, step in and be there with you. But the answer is that the baby would remain in the nursery until the parents show up so that they can take it home. We would never, ever want anybody to feel like this baby is being left behind or abandoned in the nursery. So, of course, like I said, reach out to your agency for support because we or any other agency out there would of course, step in and assist in any way, shape or form possible until those parents could get there and be responsible to take, take care of the baby and head on home. So I hope that helps.