The parental establishment confirmation process aims to establish your rights as parent(s) and terminate the rights your surrogate (and the surrogate’s husband, if she is married) may be presumed to have under law. The process generally begins once you are safely into the second trimester and in the fourth month of the pregnancy. At that time we will schedule a consultation with you to go over the next steps of the process, discuss the documents that will be prepared, and begin collecting information from you, your surrogate and your IVF physician that we will need to insert into the parentage documents. In the following month, we will draft and file documents for your case in the appropriate state agency or court. In some states, we are allowed to file the matter before the birth and obtain a “pre-birth order”; in others, state law requires that we file for the parental order after the birth and attend a court hearing. International Fertility Law Group has experienced reproductive law attorneys available throughout the United States. The judges who review these types of parental establishment cases are familiar with the subject matter and are generally on a first-name basis with our attorneys. Barring any extraordinary circumstances, a pre-birth order is generally issued two to five weeks after the matter is filed, and in “post-birth” states a post-birth order is generally issued the same day as the post-birth hearing. Certified copies of the parental order confirming your legal rights as parent(s) to your baby are generally available to you shortly thereafter.