Passed Baby M Through Window : Surrogate Mother Relates How She Fled With Infant

A surrogate mother who wants to keep the child she bore under contract testified Wednesday that she fled to Florida with the infant because she feared the couple who hired her would “come knock me down and take my baby.”

“I was afraid. I don’t know, just afraid,” Mary Beth Whitehead said. “I didn’t want to lose my baby.”

William and Elizabeth Stern hired Whitehead for $10,000 to be artificially inseminated with Stern’s sperm and bear a child for them. After the birth last March 27, Whitehead changed her mind, rejected the money and took the child, called Baby M in court papers.

Under cross-examination Wednesday, she told Superior Court Judge Harvey R. Sorkow how she fled with her daughter rather than turn her over to the Sterns. She also told of several other problems her family has faced.

Whitehead said she decided to leave New Jersey after Stern sent the police to her Brick Township home on May 5.

Hid Baby From Police

While five officers were in her living room, Whitehead testified, she passed the baby through a bedroom window to her husband, Richard. Then, she said, she told the officers that “there was no more baby. That seemed to be what they wanted.”

After that, Whitehead said, she took 11-year-old daughter, Tuesday, out of school, and met her husband at his mother’s home. With $1,500 and one suitcase, the family went to Florida, she said.

For 87 days, Whitehead testified, they stayed with relatives and moved from hotel to hotel. Richard Whitehead worked at odd jobs while she searched unsuccessfully for an attorney, she said.

“The only people I was afraid of was Bill and Betsy. I felt like they were going to come knock me down and take my baby,” she said.

Authorities found the Whiteheads on July 31, and the child was placed in the temporary custody of the Sterns. Whitehead is allowed to visit with the baby twice a week. She calls her Sara; the Sterns have named her Melissa.

Third Time on Stand

Whitehead testified Wednesday for the third time in the trial to determine who gets custody of the child. She was calm, but often became flushed and seemed confused by questions from the Sterns’ attorney, Gary N. Skoloff.

Whitehead, who has been characterized as impulsive and immature in psychiatric profiles commissioned by Baby M’s court-appointed guardian, testified that her 13-year marriage has been through financial problems, and that she and her husband filed bankruptcy papers in 1983.

She also said that she and her husband were separated in either 1977 or 1978, and that during that time, she received welfare payments. Richard Whitehead was arrested for insufficient support of Tuesday and their 12-year-old son, Ryan, who has had learning difficulties at school, she said.