A St. Augustine woman who carried triplets as a gestational surrogate is now asking a judge to name her the legal parent of two surviving boys, after the man who commissioned the pregnancy never came to take custody. For roughly 20 months, the infants were effectively left in limbo, according to court filings.
Kyla Simpson says she delivered the triplets at UF Health Jacksonville in November 2024. After an extended stay in the NICU, she and her husband brought the two surviving boys home in January 2025. One of the three babies later died, Simpson told reporters, and the custody battle is now tangled up with Florida's newly tightened surrogacy rules that went into effect this year.
Simpson's attorney says the hospital's surrogacy plan granted Simpson "physical custody and decision-making authority" until the intended parent arrived. But the intended parent, described in filings as a single man from China, never came to pick up the newborns before they were discharged. Attorney Ellen Kaplan responded by filing an emergency child pick-up order and then an appeal after a St. Johns County judge approved the removal. The dispute has since moved into Florida's appellate courts, according to First Coast News.
The case is unfolding just as new statewide limits on surrogacy and preplanned adoptions kicked in this summer. A package of bills that became Chapter 2026-66 tightened the rules on preplanned adoptions and barred gestational-surrogacy contracts when any party is a citizen or resident of designated "foreign countries of concern." Those countries include the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro, and the Syrian Arab Republic. The law took effect July 1, as recorded in Laws of Florida.
What the Statute Now Demands
Under the amended surrogacy statute, a commissioning couple must ask a court for an expedited affirmation of parental status "within 3 days after the birth" of the child. When that petition is filed, court clerks are required to obtain level-2 security background checks.
The law also spells out what happens if the court refuses to affirm parental status because the commissioning couple is considered a "disqualified person." In that scenario, the surrogate may be treated as the child's natural mother, a provision that looms large in cases where the intended parent is missing or contested, according to the bill text from the Florida Senate.
On Wednesday, the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal rejected Simpson's emergency motion, and her attorney promptly filed a motion for rehearing, according to local reporting. Court records cited in that coverage show the boys have been in "cradle care" since June 17 and that a ten-minute hearing is scheduled for July 29 in St. Johns County court. An FBI spokesperson told reporters the agency "cannot confirm whether an investigation is underway," as reported by First Coast News.
Legal Gray Areas and What’s on the Line
Beyond the urgent question of who tucks these boys in at night, the case spotlights a thorny legal issue: who qualifies as a parent when an intended parent fails to show up, and how new foreign-influence rules collide with long-standing family law principles.
Practitioners say the outcome is likely to hinge on the exact surrogacy contract language, the timing of any expedited parental-status petitions, and whether the intended parent's background makes him a "disqualified person" under provisions spelled out in several sections of the enacted bill from the Florida Senate.
The next step on the calendar is a short hearing at the Richard O. Watson Judicial Center in St. Augustine on July 29. The St. Johns County clerk, based at 4010 Lewis Speedway, lists the proceeding as a brief ten-minute session that could determine whether any temporary orders change before the case rolls into a lengthier battle over custody and parental status. Simpson's attorney has said she plans to keep pressing for rehearing and appeal as the legal fight continues.
