Surrogate Chose to Keep Baby During Delivery

The surrogate mother who agreed to have a baby for a childless couple and then changed her mind testified today in a bitter custody battle that she decided while giving birth not to give up her daughter.

“I started out really wanting to do this,” a tearful Mary Beth Whitehead said of her agreement with William and Elizabeth Stern. “In the end, something really took over. I think it was just being a mother.”

The 29-year-old Brick Township housewife is battling the Sterns for custody of the baby, who was conceived through artificial insemination with Stern’s sperm under a $10,000 contract.

She told a judge hearing the non-jury trial that while in the delivery room last March 27, “it overpowered me. . . . I had no control.”

Whitehead added that she did not know how to tell the Sterns of her decision.

‘Really Big Obligation’

“I felt a really big obligation, not because of the contract but because I felt the obligation to my child was stronger,” she said.

Whitehead, who has two other children, said she never wanted to hurt the Sterns.

“It was something I didn’t want to tell them,” she said.

Whitehead eventually fled to Florida with the infant and had to be returned to New Jersey by authorities. The baby has been in the temporary custody of the Sterns since then.

Whitehead is the first surrogate mother taken to trial for backing out of her contract.

Gave Up Baby After Birth

She said she realized in the delivery room she did not want to part with the baby but did give her to the Sterns a few days after the birth. On March 31, she demanded the baby back and then refused to give her up again.

On Wednesday, Whitehead’s husband, Richard, testified that he didn’t know what to do after his sobbing and depressed wife handed over the child to the Sterns.

“I just tried to comfort her,” he said.

The trial is expected to last until about a month before the baby’s first birthday. The ruling would be the first in the United States on the legality of surrogate motherhood contracts.

The baby has been named Melissa by the Sterns. The Whiteheads call her Sara. Court documents refer to the infant as Baby M.