From the time that humans are young, we’re told that we have to do certain things in life to be considered a “successful” member of society. We’re supposed to graduate from high school, go to college, start your career, get married, and then finally, have a baby. For many people, it doesn’t always work out like that.
Any time a person breaks that cycle of normalcy or goes outside of the “box” to live their own life, they’re deemed as abnormal or unsuccessful or a misfit. However, it’s not necessarily easy for every person to follow the guidelines that society has put into play. And for those that aren’t able to follow the dotted line, life can become quite unbearable.
Having a baby can be a blessing for most couples. But some people have a tough time conceiving a child. When that happens, surrogacy becomes an option. Being a surrogate appeared to be a good idea for one woman. She had a husband, but they were strapped for cash. And the surrogacy was offering them the money they needed badly. But this surrogacy took a wrong turn rather quickly for reasons that no one could have ever imagined.
Becoming a surrogate mother for a couple that can’t have their own child is a major decision for a woman. The woman makes the decision to take on the enormous responsibility of growing another person’s child in their own body, which comes with its own set of issues.
Not only is your body physically going through the changes that come with pregnancy, but your emotions are being affected, as well. You feel stressed out, sick, emotional, anxious, and tired all at one time. And the crazy part is that you’re not doing it for yourself, you’re doing it all for another family.
Some people choose to become a surrogate mother for friends who can’t have children, and others choose to become a surrogate mother to supplement their income. Either way, it takes a huge toll on a person’s body and mind, which is why many people choose not to do it at all.
Jessica Allen had the average American life. She was married and had two children, but the couple ran into a bit of a hiccup after they moved into their new home. They quickly realized that the house they had bought cost way too much. Now they were struggling financially, so Allen made a tough decision. She saw an ad from a couple looking for a surrogate. When Allen saw how much they were willing to pay, she called the couple right away. But that’s where the nightmare started.
What happens when a person ends up in the position where they’re not doing well financially? Typically, they have to find some way to come up with the money, which can be quite difficult to do, especially if you have a family to support.
In Jessica’s case, she found a way to make a difference in not only her own life but in another family’s life, as well. But was becoming a surrogate the right thing for her to do? Jessica had a lot to think about before making her decision.
Becoming a surrogate is most certainly a respectable thing to do, but sadly, there are a number of things that can go wrong with surrogacy. Women who are trying to help another family have a baby, or families that just want to have a baby of their own, can end up walking down a dark road in a living nightmare.
Take, for example, a mother of four from Colorado. She had signed a contract with a family from Austria to carry their child for them. But the Austrian family wanted more than just the baby. Once the woman delivered the baby, they took off with the $14,000 that they promised to pay her. And to make matters worse, the hospital billed the woman $217,000, as well. Was Jessica sure that she could trust this couple? Or would things turn out even worse for her?
Being a surrogate can be emotionally draining. So, even as she called the couple to be their surrogate, her own family had some serious doubts. Her husband feared that she would get too attached, and wouldn’t be able to part with the baby. But Allen felt that she was in a good place mentally to handle the situation when the baby arrived. But even he couldn’t foresee how attached they would both end up becoming to this child.
It’s understandable why someone would become attached to the child that they carried in their body for nine months. The mother feels every kick, every hiccup, and spends the entire nine months thinking about protecting the little being in her body to the best of her ability.
Typically, at the end of the pregnancy, the mother gets to bring her child home in the safety of her arms. Surrogacy isn’t like that. At the end of the pregnancy, the surrogate mother has to hand the baby who she spent nine months taking care of over to the baby’s parents.
Some surrogate mothers have an extremely difficult time saying goodbye to the child that they’ve been carrying around. Would Jessica be one of those women? Would she be able to give the baby to his or her parents and leave the hospital all on her own?
Wardell knew his wife, and although she had promised him that she wouldn’t get attached, he wasn’t happy with what happened next. After all, Allen loved her two kids and he feared that the bond she would form with this new child would be too strong. Also, they weren’t able to be intimate until she became a pregnant surrogate, and this didn’t make things any easier. But when Allen got pregnant, an ultrasound left the family utterly astounded.
Only a mother can truly understand the bond that is established with a baby during pregnancy. So it was a pretty big promise for Jessica to make when she said that she wouldn’t get attached to the child growing in her body. As good of intentions that Jessica had, her surrogacy could end up just like Shelley Baker’s.
Shelley Baker agreed to be the surrogate mother to a couple in Michigan. Once Shelley had given birth to twins, she found out some rather disturbing news about the mother. Apparently, the mother, Amy Kehoe, had been previously arrested for cocaine possession 9 years before. It was also reported that Amy had been diagnosed with an unspecified psychotic disorder.
So what did Shelley do with this unbelievable news? Shelley went and took both of the babies back, and it was actually within her rights that she did so. What do you think? Did Shelley do the right thing in taking the babies back?
And what about Jessica? Would she be able to keep her promise to her husband? Or could Wardell quite possibly know his wife better than she knew herself?
Allen had gone for her usual checkup. But she wasn’t expecting the surprise she got. When the doctor did the ultrasound, he noticed something strange. There were two heartbeats. When he told Allen, she was so stunned that she almost passed out. Afterwards, she walked out of the doctor’s office very confused. She was very excited when she called the couple to tell them the news.
Imagine walking into your first ultrasound appointment to make sure that your pregnancy is going as well as it should. Typically, at this appointment, the doctor is making sure that the pregnancy is considered a “viable pregnancy,” meaning the baby is able to go to full term. It’s an extremely exciting appointment, but it’s just as nervewracking, as well.
You sit down on the exam table, lift your shirt up a little bit, and wait. You hold your breath because you know that the ultrasound goo is going to be cold against your warm skin. Up until this moment you’re holding your own breath out of fear of not hearing anything at all. And then you hear the heartbeat.
Usually, one heartbeat is enough to make the tears start flowing onto your cheeks. This is when the reality that you’re carrying life in your body begins to sink in. Hearing two heartbeats must have been extremely overwhelming for Jessica.
She must have immediately gone into a panic thinking about two little bodies growing in her body. But then the excitement of carrying two small lives took hold of her. But would the soon-to-be-parents be as excited as Jessica was? Would they even want both babies or would it turn into a case like Cathleen’s?
Cathleen was a surrogate mother for an infertile couple in Nova Scotia. Everything seemed to be going well until Cathleen was in the third trimester of her pregnancy. When Cathleen was 27-weeks pregnant with twins she received a text message from the couple, saying that they were getting divorced and no longer wanted the babies. Cathleen ended up giving birth to two healthy babies and found an adoptive home for them. Hopefully, things turned out better for Jessica.
Allen had made arrangements with the family whose child she was carrying so she could have an hour of bonding time after the babies were born. This would give Allen the chance to say goodbye to the babies she carried, and she was grateful for this. After nine months, she’d grown very close to the babies. But time flew by and Allen knew it would be a tearful ending to a chapter in her life. But everything changed after she gave birth.
It must have been unbelievably hard for Jessica to prepare herself for saying goodbye, but she knew what was going to happen from the very beginning. But can a person actually prepare themselves for this sort of thing? Would she actually be able to go through with it?
So, Jessica was in the hospital and she had just given birth to twins. Knowing in her heart that something seemed wrong with one of the babies, she did what she needed to do. After carrying those babies for nine months, she kept to her word and gave both of the babies to their parents.
What would you do? Would you voice your concerns about the baby or would you “stick to the contract” and hand the babies over? Jessica would soon see that a mother’s instincts are never wrong.
Allen noticed something odd about the twins after giving birth to them. One of the boys was different. At first, she brushed it off and tried to enjoy the bonding hour that was granted to her. She was in awe at the twins she had carried in her womb for nine months. But she kept having this weird feeling whenever she looked at them. Something was wrong. But when the hour ended, Allen had to give the babies up. And yet, she couldn’t shake that uneasy feeling.
Allen found it difficult to say goodbye to the twins, but eventually, things started to get back to normal in her life. Plus, she was ecstatic that she managed to help another family out. What she’d done was something amazing, and she felt good about herself. Then, one night, Allen was getting ready for bed when she saw her phone flashing. She checked her phone and saw she had a message waiting, but when she read it, she was stunned.
Jessica did an incredibly noble thing for that couple. It couldn’t have been easy to say goodbye to the twins but Jessica knew that she needed to do it. But why did Jessica keep getting that nagging feeling that something was off?
Allen wasn’t the only one who noticed something was off about the twins. A few days later, the new mom reached out to her. The message said that the couple felt that one of the twins wasn’t really theirs. Allen felt a sense of relief because she had suspected this all along. As it turns out, Allen had been the surrogate for a Chinese couple, but one of the twins, who should have been identical to his brother, had no Chinese characteristics.
So, Jessica was pregnant with the couple’s child, as well as her own! How could something like this possibly have happened? Didn’t she listen to the rules about having relations with her husband? Was this her fault? And of course, how did the couple feel about it? It’s a pretty safe bet to say that everyone involved had a lot of questions.
Allen chatted briefly with the new mother as they tried to figure out what to do next. But the solution was clear. The only thing that could solve this mystery would be a DNA test. But Allen was still confused by the unusual circumstances of one of the baby’s origins. She tried to come up with all the possible scenarios that could explain this situation, but she came back empty. Then, the DNA results came back, and they revealed something miraculous.
Now all that they had to do was wait for the results. Surely enough, Jessica must have been undeniably anxious about the whole thing. Was the baby she spent nine months carrying actually hers? Was the baby someone else’s child? Could it really be possible the Jessica was pregnant with her baby and the couple’s child at the same time?
Finally, the results were in. Was Jessica about to find out that she has a newborn baby of her own, or was there something else going on? Well, one thing’s for sure, DNA doesn’t lie.
Everyone was stunned by the DNA results. One of the twins belonged to Allen and her husband, but everyone involved was in a state of shock. It turns out that the twins were a medical miracle. After the embryo of the surrogate couple was implanted, Allen ovulated, and while carrying the other family’s child, she and her husband conceived a baby of their own. But in the wake of such a surprising revelation, some major issues arose.
Such an intense turn of events! What was going to happen next? Would Jessica take back the baby that was hers? Would the other couple willingly give back the baby? Jessica had no clue then, but things were about to get nasty.
Allen and her husband were already financially overwhelmed, but with the surrogacy money, they decided that they could make it work. So, they were excited by this new child, but it didn’t last long. When Allen and her husband spoke with the other couple, they were told that if they wanted their baby, they would have to pay them back the $22,000 that had been given to them, or they’d have to try and legally adopt their own child. That’s when things got very nasty.
So, instead of cooperating and returning the baby to its biological parents, the couple thought that it would be best to try to extort money out of Jessica and her husband. How could Jessica and her family afford to pay the money back and afford to raise their new baby at the same time?
The other couple accused Allen of not following the rules of conception. Essentially, they were finger pointing. But Allen assured them that she had followed all the necessary protocols with her husband. But the other couple got angrier and warned Allen that if she didn’t give the money back, she would never lay eyes on her son again. This upset Allen, but then, she discovered the truth behind their mean approach.
Put yourself into Jessica’s shoes. She just spent nine months carrying these twins to term and did the right thing by giving both of the babies to the other couple. Only to later find out that one of the babies was actually hers. Then the couple threatens to keep their baby if they don’t pay them a large sum of money. Not only is this morally wrong, but it’s illegal, as well. Did things turn around for Jessica and her husband?
It sounds like Jessica was going through an extremely intense time in her life. It must have been truly unbearable for her to know that money was standing in the way of her reunion with her newborn baby. What was she going to do?
The couple later confessed that their lawyer was manipulating them into extorting money from Allen. The lawyer had been influencing them and twisting the story to make Allen out to be the bad guy. He even told the couple that Allen had threatened to sue for custody of her child. But Allen had never even considered taking legal actions. She just wanted to be with her son, Malachi. Eventually, they got their happy ending.
Jessica and her husband were dealing with something that no one has ever gone through before. Never, in the history of surrogacy, was there a case quite like this one. Would the courts allow Jessica to have her baby back? Without a precedent, the courts had a unique decision to make.
After a lot of deliberation and drama, Allen finally got custody of her baby boy, and both she and her husband, Wardell, got the chance to introduce their two kids to the latest addition to their nest. Now the family of four had become a family of five, and they were ecstatic. But the baby boy is still too young to realize the ordeal his parents went through to get him back. But at least, he’s home with his family where he belongs.
Finally, Jessica was able to bring home the little one that she had fought so hard for. After months of arguing, accusations, and waiting, their nightmare had come to an end. This family is fortunate to have a happy ending to their story because some aren’t so lucky.
Becoming a surrogate is a selfless, beautiful decision for a woman to make. So if you’re thinking about becoming a surrogate or hiring someone to be one for your family, then make sure that you truly understand what you’re getting into. Not everyone can be trusted, so just do your research before you make any decisions. But remember, not everyone’s surrogacy story sounds like Jessica’s, so don’t let this dissuade you from choosing to help a family create a life of their own.