Crystal Kelley was offered $10,000
to have an abortion after ultrasounds showed the baby she was carrying
for another couple had severe medical problems. Click through the
gallery to see how Kelley's gut-wrenching surrogacy story played out.
- Surrogate mother refuses to have abortion after abnormalities spotted on ultrasound
- Baby's parents sue for custody of the child, plan to surrender her to the state of Connecticut
- Surrogate mother moves to Michigan where she is legally the mother
- Baby lives with adoptive parents, has extensive medical problems
It was August, and if she
got pregnant soon, she could avoid carrying during the hot summer
months -- she'd done that before and didn't want to do it again. There
was no time to lose.
But there was one problem: She had no one to get her pregnant.
Kelley picked up the
phone and called a familiar number. What about the nice single man who'd
inquired before -- would he be interested? No, the woman told her. She
hadn't heard from him in weeks.
Surrogate mom offered $10K to abort baby
Disappointed, Kelley
asked if there was anyone else who would hire her. She'd had two
miscarriages herself and wanted to help someone else with fertility
problems. Plus, she really needed the $22,000 fee.
Hold on, the woman said, let me see.
Yes, she said, there was a couple who wanted to meet her. Was she ready to take down their e-mail address?
Absolutely, Kelley answered.
A playground meeting
Most surrogacies have
happy endings, and this one should have too -- with a couple welcoming a
new baby into their home and Kelley enjoying her fee, plus the
satisfaction that she'd helped another family.
Instead, it ended with
legal actions, a secretive flight to another state, and a frenzied rush
to find parents for a fragile baby.
After speaking with the
surrogacy agency, Kelley, then 29, arranged to meet the couple at a
playground near her home in Vernon, Connecticut, a suburb of Hartford.
When she arrived, she liked what she saw. The couple was caring and
attentive with their three children, who were sweet and well-mannered
and played nicely with her own two daughters. The couple desperately
wanted a fourth child, but the mother couldn't have any more babies.
Yes, Kelley told them right then and there. Yes, I will have a child for
you.
CNN made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the couple by phone and e-mail.
The couple had conceived
their children through in-vitro fertilization and had two frozen
embryos left over. Doctors thawed them out and on October 8, 2011, put
them in Kelley's uterus.
About 10 days later, a blood test showed she was pregnant -- one of the embryos had taken.
Kelley and the parents
were thrilled, and over the next few weeks, the mother was attentive and
caring. When Kelley had morning sickness the mother called every day to
see how she was feeling. She gave Kelley and Kelley's daughters
Christmas presents. When Kelley couldn't make rent, the mother made sure
she got her monthly surrogate fee a few days early.
"She said, 'I want you to come to us with anything because you're going to be part of our lives forever,' " Kelley remembers.
'There's something wrong with the baby'
"Congratulations! You made it half through!" the mother emailed Kelley on February 6.
It was one of the last friendly e-mails between Kelley and the woman who'd hired her.
A few days later,
Kelley, five months pregnant, had a routine ultrasound to make sure the
baby was developing properly. The ultrasound technician struggled to see
the baby's tiny heart and asked her to come back the next week when the
baby would be more developed.
At that next ultrasound,
the technician said it was still hard to see the heart and asked Kelley
to go to Hartford Hospital, where they could do a higher-level
ultrasound.
Apparently, there was more to it than that.
As Kelley was driving home, her cell phone rang. It was the baby's mother.
"She kept saying,
'There's something wrong with the baby. There's something wrong with the
baby. What are we going to do?' " Kelley remembers. "She was frantic.
She was panicking."
Then the midwife called.
She told Kelley the ultrasound showed the baby had a cleft lip and
palate, a cyst in her brain and serious heart defects. They couldn't see
a stomach or a spleen.
The next ultrasound was
three days away, and Kelley grew increasingly anxious with each passing
day. By the time she walked into Hartford Hospital on February 16, 2012,
she was 21 weeks pregnant and "absolutely terrified" of what the
ultrasound would show and what the parents' reaction would be.
An emotional standoff
With the parents
standing behind her, the ultrasound technician at the hospital put the
wand on Kelley's stomach. The test confirmed her worst fears: It showed
the baby did have a cleft lip and palate, a cyst in the brain, and a
complex heart abnormality.
The doctors explained
the baby would need several heart surgeries after she was born. She
would likely survive the pregnancy, but had only about a 25% chance of
having a "normal life," Kelley remembers the doctors saying.
In a letter to Kelley's
midwife, Dr. Elisa Gianferrari, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at
Hartford Hospital, and Leslie Ciarleglio, a genetic counselor, described
what happened next.
"Given the ultrasound
findings, (the parents) feel that the interventions required to manage
(the baby's medical problems) are overwhelming for an infant, and that
it is a more humane option to consider pregnancy termination," they
wrote.
Kelley disagreed.
"Ms. Kelley feels that
all efforts should be made to 'give the baby a chance' and seems
adamantly opposed to termination," they wrote.
The letter describes how
the parents tried to convince Kelley to change her mind. Their three
children were born prematurely, and two of them had to spend months in
the hospital and still had medical problems. They wanted something
better for this child.
"The (parents) feel
strongly that they pursued surrogacy in order to minimize the risk of
pain and suffering for their baby," Gianferrari and Ciarleglio wrote.
They "explained their feelings in detail to Ms. Kelley in hopes of
coming to an agreement."
The two sides were at a
standoff. The doctor and the genetic counselor offered an amniocentesis
in the hope that by analyzing the baby's genes, they could learn more
about her condition. Kelley was amenable, they noted, but the parents
"feel that the information gained from this testing would not influence
their decision to consider pregnancy termination."
The atmosphere in the
room became very tense, Kelley remembers. The parents were brought into
the geneticist's office to give everyone some privacy.
After a while, Kelley was reunited with the parents.
"They were both visibly
upset. The mother was crying," she remembers. "They said they didn't
want to bring a baby into the world only for that child to suffer. ...
They said I should try to be God-like and have mercy on the child and
let her go."
"I told them that they
had chosen me to carry and protect this child, and that was exactly what
I was going to do," Kelley said. "I told them it wasn't their decision
to play God."
Then she walked out of the room.
"I couldn't look at them anymore," she said.
$10,000 to have an abortion
The next day, according
to medical records, the mother called Hartford Hospital to ask about
different types of abortion. It was explained to her that they could
induce birth (the baby wouldn't survive) or they could do a dilation and
evacuation, in which case the pregnancy would be vacuumed out of the
womb. The mother, after asking about whether the fetus would feel any
pain, said she thought the second option was best.
She asked if the procedure had been scheduled. No, she was told. Only Kelley could do that.
The mother noted that
the surrogacy agency was getting in touch with Kelley, and a few days
later, Kelley received an e-mail from Rita Kron at Surrogacy
International telling her that if she chose to have the baby, the couple
wouldn't agree to be the baby's legal parents.
"You will be the only person who will be making decision (sic) about the child, should the child is born," Kron wrote.
CNN contacted Surrogacy International, and a woman who said her name was Rita answered the phone.
"You have to understand
something -- there is a privacy that exists and that's the end of the
story," she said and then hung up. Kron did not return CNN's e-mails.
Kelley didn't want to be
the baby's mother -- she'd gotten pregnant to help another family, not
to have a child of her own. Kron gave her an option: the parents would
pay her $10,000 to have an abortion.
The offer tested
Kelley's convictions. She'd always been against abortion for religious
and moral reasons, but she really needed the money. Just before getting
pregnant, she'd lost her job as a nanny, and the only income she had
coming in was child support from her daughters' father and her monthly
surrogacy fee of $2,222, which was about to end because of the dispute
with the parents.
Her resolve began to falter. Then it nearly crumbled.
Kron took Kelley to lunch.
"She painted a picture
of a life of a person who had a child with special needs. She told me
how it would be painful, it would be taxing, it would be strenuous and
stressful. She told me it would financially drain me, that my children
would suffer because of it," Kelley remembers.
Kelley had a counter
offer. "In a weak moment I asked her to tell them that for $15,000 I
would consider going forward with the termination," she said.
But as soon as she got in the car to go home, she regretted it, Kelley said.
Kron let Kelley know the
parents had refused to pay $15,000. By that point, it didn't matter to
Kelley -- she'd decided against abortion no matter what. Kron sent her
an e-mail asking if she'd scheduled the appointment for the abortion.
Kelley wrote back a one-word answer: no.
'TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE'
On February 22, 2012, six days after the fateful ultrasound, Kelley received a letter. The parents had hired a lawyer.
"You are obligated to
terminate this pregnancy immediately," wrote Douglas Fishman, an
attorney in West Hartford, Connecticut. "You have squandered precious
time."
On March 5, Kelley would be 24 weeks pregnant, and after that, she couldn't legally abort the pregnancy, he said.
"TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE," he wrote.
Fishman reminded Kelley
that she'd signed a contract, agreeing to "abortion in case of severe
fetus abnormality." The contract did not define what constituted such an
abnormality.
Kelley was in breach of
contract, he wrote, and if she did not abort, the parents would sue her
to get back the fees they'd already paid her -- around $8,000 -- plus
all of the medical expenses and legal fees.
Fishman did not return phone calls and e-mails from CNN.
Kelley decided it was time to get her own attorney.
Michael DePrimo, an
attorney in Hamden, Connecticut, took the case for free. He explained
that no matter what the contract said, she couldn't be forced to have an
abortion.
DePrimo sent an e-mail to Fishman, the parents' lawyer, stating that Kelley was not going to have an abortion.
"Ms. Kelley was more than willing to abort this fetus if the dollars were right," Fishman shot back.
"The not-so-subtle
insinuation that Ms. Kelley attempted to extort money from your clients
is unfounded and reprehensible," DePrimo responded. "If you wish to
propose a solution to this unspeakable tragedy, I will listen and
apprize (sic)my client accordingly."
"However, as I mentioned
in my previous correspondence, abortion is off the table and will not
be considered under any circumstance," he said.
A secret flight
In an affidavit filed in Connecticut Superior Court, DePrimo described what happened next.
DePrimo received a phone
call from Fishman telling him the parents had changed their minds. They
now planned to exercise their legal right to take custody of their
child -- and then immediately after birth surrender her to the state of
Connecticut. She would become a ward of the state.
DePrimo explained to Kelley that this was no empty threat. Under state law, they were the parents, not her, and under Connecticut's Safe Haven Act for Newborns, parents can voluntarily give up custody of a baby less than a month old without being arrested for child abandonment.
Kelley couldn't stand the thought of the baby in foster care. She'd heard the nightmare stories.
She felt like her back was up against the wall.
Her lawyer explained she
could go to court and fight to get custody of the baby, or fight to
appoint a guardian for the baby, but Connecticut law is very clear that
the genetic parents are the legal parents, so she'd likely lose in
court.
There was one more
option, DePrimo told her. She could go to a place where she, not the
genetic parents, would be considered the baby's legal mother.
That place was 700 miles away.
Over the years, states
have developed different laws about surrogacy. Some, like Connecticut,
say the genetic parents -- the ones who supplied the sperm and the egg
-- are the baby's legal parents. Other states don't recognize surrogacy
contracts, and so the baby legally belongs to the woman who's carrying
the baby.
On April 11, in her
seventh month of pregnancy, Kelley and her daughters left for one of
those states -- Michigan. While she was gassing up her car to leave, her
lawyer informed the parents' lawyer about her plans.
"Once I realized that I
was going to be the only person really fighting for her, that Mama bear
instinct kicked in, and there was no way I was giving up without a
fight," Kelley said.
Kelley chose Michigan
because of its laws, but also its medicine: she'd been doing research on
the baby's condition, and concluded C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at
the University of Michigan had one of the best pediatric heart programs
in the country.
When she arrived, she
found an inexpensive summer sublet from a University of Michigan student
and applied for Michigan Medicaid. She made appointments with a
high-risk pregnancy specialist and a pediatric cardiologist and settled
into life in Ann Arbor with her girls.
There was one thing left to do: She had to decide if she would keep the baby.
She was a single mother
with no job and no permanent place to live, but she'd grown emotionally
attached to the life inside her, and some days she wanted to keep her.
Kelley struggled, and
finally decided she wasn't the right person to raise the child. But she
knew who was: in her online research, she'd met other mothers of
children with special needs. One of them had been particularly helpful,
putting her in touch with support groups and sharing stories and photos
of her own children -- both biological and adopted -- with medical
problems.
The woman and her husband helped Kelley pack up to move to Michigan, and gave her emotional support as well.
"While it is true that
(the baby) will face some life-long challenges, it is also true that it
is also more than possible for her to have a wonderful life and to
thrive," the mother wrote to Kelley in an e-mail. "I am sorry that (her)
biological parents have abandoned their daughter and left you
navigating this new, unexpected journey as the sole person bearing
responsibility for (her) well-being and care."
Kelley asked the couple to adopt the baby.
They said yes. The baby now had a home, and it would be undisputed.
Or so Kelley thought.
An unexpected challenge
Kelley hadn't heard
from the biological parents in months when in May, about one month
before the baby's due date, the parents filed in Connecticut Superior
Court for parental rights. They wanted to be the legal parents. They
wanted their names on the birth certificate.
The legal papers
included a stunning admission: the wife was not the baby's genetic
mother -- they'd used an anonymous egg donor.
The case had now become
very complicated. The lawyers were still negotiating about who would be
the legal parents when the baby was born June 25.
She was full-term and
six pounds nine ounces, but she wasn't breathing. Her body was limp and
blue. Her heart rate was dangerously low.
The pediatricians
pumped oxygen into her tiny lungs, and in about 20 seconds her heart
rate went up to normal. She breathed on her own. Her color normalized.
"Infant appears to be moving all extremities and crying appropriately," the medical record stated.
Kelley's name went on the birth certificate. Kelley said she left the space for the father's name blank.
Three weeks later, the
two sides struck a deal: The father agreed to give up his paternal
rights as long as he and his wife could keep in touch with the adoptive
family about the baby's health. Since then, the couple has visited the
baby. The father has held her.
"They do care about her well-being. They do care about how she's doing," the adoptive mother said.
A long list of med problems -- and an infectious smile
The baby's medical problems turned out to be much more extensive than the ultrasound at Hartford Hospital had revealed.
She has a birth defect called holoprosencephaly, where the brain fails to completely divide into distinct hemispheres. She has heterotaxy,
which means many of her internal organs, such as her liver and stomach,
are in the wrong places. She has at least two spleens, neither of which
works properly. Her head is very small, her right ear is misshapen, she
has a cleft lip and a cleft palate, and a long list of complex heart
defects, among other problems.
Baby S. -- her adoptive
parents are comfortable using her first initial -- has a long road in
front of her. She's already had one open-heart surgery and surgery on
her intestines, and in the next year she'll need one or two more cardiac
surgeries in addition to procedures to repair her cleft lip and palate.
Later in childhood she'll need surgeries on her jaw and ear and more
heart surgeries.
Her adoptive parents,
who asked to remain anonymous to protect their family's privacy, know
Baby S. might not be with them for long. The cardiac procedures she
needs are risky, and her heterotaxy and holoprosencephaly, though mild,
carry a risk of early death, according to doctors.
If Baby S. does survive, there's a 50% chance she won't be able to walk, talk or use her hands normally.
In some ways, Baby S.
looks different from other 8-month-olds babies. In addition to the
facial abnormalities, she's very small, weighing only 11 pounds and she
gets food through a tube directly into her stomach so she'll grow
faster.
Her adoptive parents
know some people look at her and see a baby born to suffer -- a baby
who's suffering could have been prevented with an abortion.
But that's not the way
they see it. They see a little girl who's defied the odds, who
constantly surprises her doctors with what she's able to do -- make eye
contact, giggle at her siblings, grab toys, eye strangers warily.
"S. wakes up every
single morning with an infectious smile. She greets her world with a
constant sense of enthusiasm," her mother said in an e-mail to CNN.
"Ultimately, we hold onto a faith that in providing S. with love,
opportunity, encouragement, she will be the one to show us what is
possible for her life and what she is capable of achieving."
Savior or Satan?
Just as there are two ways to look at Baby S., there are two ways to look at Crystal Kelley, the woman who carried her.
In one view, she's a
saint who fought at great personal sacrifice for an unborn child whose
own parents did not want her to live. In another view, she recklessly
absconded with someone else's child and brought into the world a baby
who faces serious medical challenges when that wasn't her decision to
make.
Kelley knows some people hate her.
She's blogged about Baby S., and many readers, especially other surrogates, have attacked her.
"I can't tell you how
many people told me that I was bad, that I was wrong, that I should go
have an abortion, that I would be damned to hell," she said.
In the end, she feels like she did the right thing.
"No one else was
feeling this pregnancy the way that I was. No one else could feel her
kicking and moving around inside," she said. "I knew from the beginning
that this little girl had an amazing fighting spirit, and whatever
challenges were thrown at her, she would go at them with every ounce of
spirit that she could possibly have."
"No matter what anybody told me, I became her mother."
Source: CNN.com
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