# Help Please for Hospital Arrangements at Surrogate Birth



## CarolynB (May 17, 2008)

Dear All

I never posted a topic before so hope that I will do it right.   

Firstly I will start by saying that I know how lucky I am to have my sister help and the frosties to work and to be close to the birth of our son.  I simply cannot wait.  

I just was served a bit of a curved ball today.  My sister saw her mid wife who had been in touch with Birmingham Woman's about our special situation.  Just to alert them to our case.  The midwife has fed back through my sister that I will be unable to stay at the hospital and that my sister not me will be taking the baby home.  Must say this all came as a bit of a bolt out the blue as have read some lovely stories of how these cases can be handled.

This is really hard and tough on both me and my sister.  Sure we can swap the car seat down the road but what about night times.  It was never our plan that my sister would feed/change our baby especially right at the start.  She/we want him to come straight to me in the delivery room and then for me to stay and look after him.  To expect my sister to do this seems incredibly unfair on her as well as me.  I don't care if I have to camp out in the room but I don't want them to evict me or not allow me/my husband to be with our baby just because of their rules.

I am aware that the experienced hands on this board are Jo (who is pretty busy right now for all the best reasons in the world) and Lisabelle (although not sure how often she is here) and may be Sam (with her twins).  If any of you ladies can let me know how you handled this then it would be great for both me and my sister.  Even if anyone knows who I might contact to see what accomodations can be made.

I have e-mailed Natalie (thank god she is back) to see whether she can help too.  To see whether any document from my sister setting out her wishes would help.  I know that the baby is not ours until the parental order is done but wonder if there are any ways that we can get the rules bent a little just to allow me to stay with my sister and our son.

I want to enjoy the last 5 weeks rather than fretting about when I will be alllowed into the hospital and how they can be so hard on me and my sister.  I want this to be great initial bonding and as de-stressful as possible for my sister after all she has done for us.

Help please ladies.

Many thanks
Carolyn xxxxxxxx


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## Jo (Mar 22, 2002)

Hi Carolyn

When we were going through this, Caroline and I went to see the ward manager and she gave me complete access to the ward, day and night, and they also did give us a room to ourselves.

She did say we might have to pay for it, which was fine with us.

Charlie was a bit of a naughty boy and had a little poo on the way out so we had to stay in for 24 hours.

We were taken to our room, and I had a chair that I could have slept on, but when morning came, a woman not sure who she was came in and told me that I would have to leave as I couldn't stay as I was not the mother !!!

I stayed very calm and told them that I had complete access , but it hadn't been written down in the notes !! (what a surprise) anyway what I really think it was about was food and drinks (its unbelieveable) , I told them I could go and get my food downstairs if I wanted any.
They told me that they would have to go and speak to someone, but they said they thought I would have to leave

I was so upset, as like you and your sister, we didn't want Caroline and Caroline didn't want to have anything much to do with Charlie for the first 24 hours, anyway, they left us alone and it was all fine, we didn't make a big thing of it, stayed quiet, I actually think it was more to do with the other patients complaining because Caroline had visitors when they weren't allowed any.

We were told that Caroline would have to take the baby out of the hospital, and either come to ours to hand him over or we go to hers, as hand over can't be done on NHS property, what we actual done was all go to my mum and dads as Caroline's children were there anyway  we also walked out with Caroline but Paul and I took him out 

What I think you should do is contact the hospital, ask if you can make an appointment with the ward manager and explain everything. 

The problem is they don't deal with it very much, and I think they worry about getting it wrong, but stand your ground.

Don't hesitate to contact me again if I can help anymore, I am sure there is stuff that I have forgot to say , so just ask away 

Enjoy the last few weeks, its goes so fast 

love Jo
x x x


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## CarolynB (May 17, 2008)

Jo

Thank you so much for coming back so quickly and in so much detail.  This is so helpful. 

I also chatted with Natalie Gamble earlier today who was also incredibly helpful.  She is a star!  Just gutted that she cannot take us on as a case due to her move from LA.

I have today got my sister to talk to Birmingham Woman's.  She had a really good conversation with the Delivery Suite Manager who is going to follow up for us.  Luckily she was very symathetic and supportive of what Deborah was doing for me/us.   They'll get back to us later this week to see whether it will be ok.

Thank you for taking the time away from Charlie to respond.    
Very very very much appreciated.
Carolyn xxxxx


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## CarolynB (May 17, 2008)

Thank you so much for all your help/input.

Thanks lgft for the advice to stand firm.  Thanks Jo for letting me know how it was for you, Caroline and Charlie and thanks also to Lisa/Gigglygirl for sharing info with me to.  Much much appreciated.     

Well my sister talked first with the Delivery Suite Manager.  She followed up internally and surrogacy was being dealt with by the person in charge of child protection at the hospital.  It appears that there was a surrogacy case there around 6 months ago and may be it was all a little bit of a surprise and the staff were not sure what to do.  All this means that Birmingham Woman's are putting in place a surrogacy policy - good news for us and for others.  So the child protection lady wanted to see my sister.  We decided that I should go too.  We went and saw her at the end of last week and it could not have gone any better.     

As you all suggested, my sister talked through what she wanted. We explained our story.  The lady took extensive notes of what we wanted to happen and said that they would do all they can to help us.       They even took me on a tour as realised that I had seen nothing which was very kind of them.  Then we went to see the ward manager.  We went through the story all over again and she wants to help also.  We were there over 2 hours and they agreed to write it all up for us.  The letter has gone to my sister already and now that is on her file along with their draft surrogacy document.

I feel so much better.  Now i can focus on my sister and looking forward to the arrival.     

Thank you for all your advice.  Clearly talking to them up front made all the difference.  You have helped me and my sister.

Thanks to you all.
Carolyn xxxx


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## ♥JJ1♥ (Feb 11, 2006)

so pleased that you have got it sorted and that you have a god birth story for us very soon!!

L x


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