I’ve received some questions about how the deliveries of our babies will work logistically, with the baby I’m carrying due five weeks before the baby that our surrogate is carrying, and our surrogate living four states away from us. These are great questions, but ones that I must admit that Mr. Starfish and I don’t yet have all of the answers to! We have started mapping out a tentative plan for traveling from our home in Chicago to Utah to be there for the second baby’s birth, but we have deliberately kept the plan pretty open and loose. The reason for this is that there is so much for which we cannot plan, the most obvious being that we cannot possibly know in advance if the babies will arrive on their respective due dates. We feel it is best to avoid thinking about details, and instead plan broadly.

I will first start by saying that both me and Mr. Starfish feel extremely strongly that we both want to be at both births. This may seem obvious, but we frequently get questions or comments where people assume that I will stay back in Chicago with one baby while Mr. Starfish goes to Utah to pick up the other baby. I could not possibly let this happen; I just can’t stand the thought of staying behind and missing such an important event for one of our daughters.

Among the other things we considered and have decided:

When to travel to Utah?

The babies are due exactly 5 weeks apart, with my due date coming first. In deciding when to travel to Utah, we have considered things like the amount of recovery time I will need from delivery, when it is safe for the first baby to travel a long distance, and the odds of our surrogate delivering early.

We settled on traveling to Utah about three and a half weeks after my due date. This will be about one and a half weeks before the surrogate’s due date. We think there is a chance that I may deliver late (both my husband and I were late babies, and this is my first pregnancy), and we think there is also a chance that our surrogate will deliver early (she has had three pregnancies, and she delivered two of them at 39 weeks and one of them at 40 weeks).

ADVERTISEMENT

How to travel to Utah?

We considered three modes of transportation to get to and from Utah: by car (over 20 hours), by plane (approximately 3 hours flight time), or by train (not sure, this idea was Mr. Starfish’s and I immediately discounted it!).

We settled on flying. For a few weeks, I really felt it was the wrong decision and that we should instead drive. But I was eventually convinced by a couple of points: 1) our agency advised us that most intended parents who must travel to pick up their babies do so via flights, and 2) the thought of a 20 hour car trip with two newborns on their own feeding schedules is pretty daunting and could mean that a 20 hour car trip could easily be extended by 2-3 times.

Where to stay in Utah?

We considered a few options here as well, including renting a house or apartment, or staying at a regular hotel or an extended-stay hotel. We ended up deciding to book a timeshare for three weeks. We got a pretty good deal because Mr. Starfish’s mother has a timeshare membership that we were able to leverage.

We liked this option because the room is a suite with a separate bedroom/living space, has a kitchen, and has on-site laundry. The drawback is that the hotel/timeshare is located in Park City, Utah, which is quite a distance from our surrogate’s delivery hospital (45 minutes). In the end, we decided this was a trade-off worth making.

Who to bring to Utah?

There is no way we could do our trip to Utah without help. For starters, the hospital will not allow anyone under 16 years old into the delivery room. So in order for both me and Mr. Starfish to be there for the delivery, we at least need someone to watch the other baby during the labor. In addition to that, we think it is pretty likely that we will be overwhelmed by everything while we’re in Utah. So we will be asking Mr. Starfish’s mom to travel with us and stay with us for most of our time in Utah. We also have some close family members who live closer to Utah than to Chicago, so we are expecting some visitors while we’re in Utah as well.

What to bring to Utah?

Now here is where we have gotten a little stuck. When we flew out to Utah for our surrogate’s 20-week ultrasound, we brought the car seat for the second baby with us. So we do have a way to get our second baby transported from the hospital. But that’s about all we have figured out! We still need to figure out how much, and what type, of gear to bring along for our 3-week stay in Utah. We need to talk with the timeshare/hotel because perhaps they have cribs available, but should we trust those cribs or figure out another solution? In the end, Mr. Starfish and I will have to find our way through the airport with two babies, all of their gear, and three weeks worth of our own travel necessities, and we’re struggling with how much to bring and how much to leave behind…

When to leave Utah?

Just like the decision on when to travel to Utah is difficult because we don’t know with certainty when the babies will arrive, so is the decision on when to travel home to Chicago. On the one hand, we don’t want to rush ourselves out of Utah while trying to juggle two newborns. On the other hand, we think we will be anxious to get our babies home to Chicago and into familiar territory with all of the comforts of home. We are tentatively planning on returning home to Chicago about a week and a half after the second baby’s due date (but remember that we think the odds are high that our surrogate will deliver early). This may seem quick, but we actually were originally thinking that we would leave only 5-6 days after the second baby’s birth, having been told by our agency that this is what most intended parents do.

Like I said before, we are still working out many details and issues as we try to plan our little girls’ arrivals into this world. So many questions are keeping me up at night. Do we book seats for them on the flights or keep them in our laps? If we do book seats, when can we do that (they don’t have names yet!)? Should we try to bring car seats on to the plane? Will they get sick being so young on a flight surrounded by so many strangers and germs? How will we handle two newborns on a flight for over three hours? Questions, questions, questions! And I haven’t even gotten in to the details of the actual surrogate baby birth, and what that looks like at the hospital. Let me save that for another post, and in the meantime, I’ll take any and all thoughts, advice and tips that you all may have for me!