After the order — the Parental Order Register and your child's new birth certificate

The final hearing is the end of the court process. It is not quite the end of the paperwork, and almost nobody explains what happens next — which is a pity, because it is the part where your child's legal identity is actually rewritten.

Here is the sequence from the moment the order is made, what documents you end up with, and what they say. Guidance only, not legal advice.

What the order does, legally

A Parental Order does two things at once. It makes you your child's legal parents, and it extinguishes the legal parenthood of the surrogate — and of her spouse or civil partner, if they were treated as the second parent. The order is permanent and it operates for all purposes: inheritance, nationality, parental responsibility, the lot.

Because the 2010 Regulations apply the machinery of adoption law to Parental Orders, what happens to the birth record afterwards mirrors what happens after an adoption.

The Parental Order Register

The court sends the sealed order to the Registrar General for England and Wales. The General Register Office then makes an entry in the Parental Order Register — a separate register from the register of births, held by the GRO in the same way it holds the Adopted Children Register.

You do not apply for this. It follows from the order.

For a child born in England or Wales, the GRO also marks the original birth entry to show that a Parental Order has been made. The original record is not destroyed or altered; it is annotated and, in effect, sealed.

For a child born abroad, there is no English birth entry to annotate. The entry in the Parental Order Register is the child's UK record.

The new birth certificate

Once the entry is made, you can obtain a certificate from the Parental Order Register. In everyday use this is your child's birth certificate — it is what you present for a passport, a school, a GP.

What it shows:

your child's name and date of birth
you, as "parent" — the certificate lists intended parents as parent, not as mother or father, whichever your sex
a short note that it is issued following a Parental Order

What it does not show:

the surrogate
her spouse or partner
any indication of donor gametes
for a child born abroad, anything about the overseas birth record beyond the place of birth

Both a long-form and a short-form version exist, as with an ordinary birth certificate. Order two or three of the long form; you will be asked for it more than you expect.

What your child can see at 18

Here is the part the certificate quietly points at.

Because the Parental Order Register works like the Adopted Children Register, a person who was the subject of a Parental Order can, from the age of 18, apply to the Registrar General for the information that connects the Parental Order Register entry to their original birth record. In practice that means they can obtain a copy of the original birth certificate — the one that names the surrogate.

You cannot prevent that, and you should not want to. The system is built on the principle that a person is entitled to know the circumstances of their own birth. The practical implication for you is that the story is going to be knowable, so it is far better told by you, early and plainly, than discovered from a certificate at 18.

The practical checklist after the hearing

Wait for the sealed order. The court sends it to you and to the GRO. Allow a couple of weeks.
Give it time to be registered. The GRO entry follows the order; certificates cannot be issued until it exists.
Order certificates from the GRO — long form, several copies.
Update everyone who holds the old details: GP, HMRC (Child Benefit), the passport office if you already hold a passport in the child's name, nursery or school, any insurance. Where the child's surname is changing, this is where it happens.
Nationality and passport. If the order has made your child British — which it often does — the new certificate is the document that supports the first passport application, or the replacement of a foreign one.
Keep the overseas documents. The foreign birth certificate, the surrogacy agreement, the translated consent, the parental order itself: file them together and keep them permanently. Your child may want them one day, and so may a solicitor.

Two things families ask

Will the certificate say "surrogacy" on it? No. It carries a short note that it was issued following the making of a Parental Order, and nothing more.

Can we change our child's name? The order itself can include the child's name as you wish it registered — the C51 asks for it — so the new certificate can carry a different name from the original birth record. Raise it in the application, not afterwards.

The free two-minute check tells you whether your case looks straightforward. PO Navigator tracks your deadline and builds the bundle — and its journey map runs past the final hearing, through registration and the certificate, so nothing at the end is a surprise.

Sources: HFEA 2008 s.54; HFEA 2008 (Parental Orders) Regulations 2010, applying provisions of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 including those on the register and on access to birth records; GOV.UK — order a birth certificate. Positions stated here are as at September 2026. General information about the law of England and Wales, not legal advice.