The Brave New World of ‘Designer Babies’ : Matchmaker Helps Childless Find Surrogates

All Kathy Wyckoff’s clients want babies, and Wyckoff tries to oblige them.

If they want a talented baby, she’ll find them a mother who at least appreciates art.

If they want a baby of Chinese extraction, she can arrange it.

Perhaps a baby whose mother understands data processing or likes sports? Quite possible, Wyckoff says.

But because none of them want strings attached, Wyckoff said she also tries to find them happy, healthy mothers who will give up their newborns without noticeable anguish, resentment or public comment.

Welcome to the brave new world of designer babies.

A self-titled “surrogate practitioner,” Wyckoff is believed to be the first lay provider of surrogate mothers in Orange County. She operates her business, the Center for Reproductive Alternatives of Southern California, from her San Clemente home.

Since moving her practice from Columbus, Ohio, two years ago, she has found no lack of infertile couples desperate for a child who is at least half theirs genetically and who are willing to pay $27,000 to $29,000 for her “comprehensive program.” It includes a “custom chosen” surrogate, who will earn $12,000; a legal contract; psychological counseling for the surrogate; insurance policies for both parents; payment of hospital bills and even maternity clothes. Her own fee is $6,000.

No state laws in the United States prohibit or allow the practice; no state or professional license is required. Wyckoff, 33, a former physical education and ballet teacher, knows she works in a field fraught with risk and controversy, in territory that remains uncharted morally, emotionally and legally.

In Ohio, the former state attorney general issued an opinion that her surrogate agency there violated state law by acting as a child placement agency without a license.

Some Roman Catholics have denounced her kind of work for what they see as a violation of the sanctity of family life. Some sociologists object to women bearing children they will give away in an emotionally and socially confused climate.

But Wyckoff, who said she was once a surrogate herself, believes that becoming a surrogate mother is “the most Christian, loving, caring thing a woman can do for another woman. I believe in my heart the concept is good. I’ve seen it work.”

Despite the threat of a formal charge, Wyckoff said she still practices openly in Ohio, commuting from Orange County where she moved when she married. “We were not placing children,” she said about her work in Ohio. “We were transferring custody from one biological parent to another biological parent. . . . I was surely acting in the limits of the law or lack of law,” she said.

At the time, she said, “Ohio just wasn’t ready for this. It was shocking.”

Five years ago, any surrogate birth was news. Now the media chiefly notices the problems of a surrogate situation--such as the still unresolved Baby M case or the Chula Vista couple who agreed this week to share custody with their Mexican surrogate. It is estimated in the United States that 600 children have been borne by surrogates through formal arrangements; an unknown number--believed to be growing--have been borne through informal arrangements. Approximately two dozen agencies nationwide arrange surrogate births, in addition to those arranged for by independent doctors, lawyers and psychologists.

As a direct result of her own matchmaking, Wyckoff said, 23 children have been born, six of them in Orange County.

Surrogates are in demand because of a rising infertility rate (one in six U.S. couples), abortion and the dearth of white children available for adoption, Wyckoff said.

Both the American Medical Assn. and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology have sanctioned surrogate mother programs, said Charles W. Plows, an Anaheim obstetrician/gynecologist and former president of Orange County Medical Assn. “It is a one-time only chance for some families to have a baby. The nice part of it is with all the new technology, a surrogate mother actually can be impregnated with a fertile ovum from the natural mother and natural father with an in-vitro fertilization program.”

Most often, sperm from the husband is used to artificially impregnate the surrogate.

California attorneys raise the surrogate issue every year at California Bar Assn. delegate meetings to propose new legislation, said Jennifer J. King, secretary of the Orange County Bar Assn. “Nobody has been able to word (a law) that has won the approval of the entire delegation. We are still at a loss among ourselves to even propose it to someone who makes the laws.

“All attorneys would like to see something done about it,” she said. “It’s a field that is wide open to personal disaster without some kind of guidelines.”

“The problem comes down to: Can you contract for a baby? It’s a religious issue that can’t be ignored,” said King, who also practices family law in Tustin.

Surrogate parenting is not new, Wyckoff said, citing the biblical story of Hagar, a handmaiden who bore a child for Abraham when his wife Sarah could not conceive. “Only in the last 10 years have we been organized to the point where intermediaries are doing all the arranging. It’s my belief that even if it is deemed to be illegal, people will find a way to do this on their own. It will go underground.”

So far, no children with birth defects have been born to her surrogates, she said. No surrogate has died in childbirth. And--allaying her clients’ worst fear--none of the surrogate mothers have reneged on their contracts as in the highly publicized case of Mary Beth Whitehead and Baby M, she said.

In the Baby M case, Whitehead, a New Jersey surrogate, had second thoughts after delivering the child she had conceived through artificial insemination. Though she had agreed to turn over the infant to the natural father, William Stern and his wife Elizabeth, she begged them to let her keep the infant girl for a week, then fled to Florida with her family and the child. The Sterns sued to regain custody.

In a taped telephone conversation, Whitehead threatened to kill the child and herself before giving the infant to Stern, saying “I gave her life; I can take her life away.” Later she denied any intent to harm the child.

A New Jersey Superior Court judge will decide which parent will have custody, based on the best interest of the child. Wyckoff had hoped that the judge would also rule on the validity of the contract--even though such a ruling would not set a precedent in California.

Her couple clients will feel more secure if the case is decided in the father’s favor, Wyckoff said. “Until now lawyers have been telling couples if the (biological) mom keeps the baby, you can kiss it goodby.”

“I surely can sympathize with her and her heartache,” Wyckoff said of Whitehead. “But I can’t understand why she would interfere. Instinctively, you want to have time with the baby. But doing it outside the hospital setting (after leaving) is a mistake, especially when you’re so emotional.”

Most of the 10 surrogates now in her program would want to “string (Whitehead) up from the highest tree,” she said.

Surrogate applicants are motivated less by money than an altruistic mission to give a baby to infertile couples, she said.

The surrogate’s fee--$12,000 for an average 18 months of her time (including the time it takes to conceive)--is “fair compensation to her for the potential loss of gainful employment,” Wyckoff said. Moreover, she said, the couples genuinely want to repay the surrogates. Some have insisted paying more than the required $12,000, she said.

She denies that hiring women to be surrogates produces a “breeding class” of lower-class women as some critics have suggested. Two of her surrogates turned down the $12,000 payment, she said.

Contrary to popular belief, the surrogates in her program are not poor, uneducated, indigent women, she said. “You’d be surprised. Some wear blue suits and little ties and carry briefcases. . . . They’re the ladies next door. Real average.”

Surrogates in her program have included a nurse, a high school teacher, a bank loan officer, a writer, a dental assistant, a social worker, a medical student and homemakers, she said. If they are married, their husbands tend to be blue-collar workers, she said. Most have attended college, she said.

One 1981 study of 125 surrogate mother applicants found that over 90% required a fee but that money was rarely the sole reason they applied, according to Dr. Philip Parker, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. Two other reasons, which combine in differing proportions in any given applicant, were the desire to feel fulfilled as a pregnant woman and the desire to give up a baby as a way to absolve the pain or guilt of prior losses such as adoption or abortion.

Wyckoff said half her surrogates have had abortions, and six women told her that they hoped being a surrogate would relieve them of associated guilt.

“The more important (reasons) tended to be the fee and the desire to give the gift of a baby,” Parker said in a telephone interview. “As the pregnancy progressed, the fee tended to be the less important factor.”

Surrogate parenting differs from “baby selling” in that the children still have rights, Parker believes. But many surrogates have emotional problems with the idea that their child has been purchased, he said. Rather than receiving a lump sum at the end, most surrogates would prefer being paid in part along the way, said Parker, who is analyzing data on how the type of payment affects surrogates.

Studies also need to be done on how payment may affect the child in later life, he said.

Because surrogate mothers generally have less money than the couples who pay them, mental health professionals should be involved to help ensure that the decision is voluntary and informed, said Parker, who has seen 600 surrogate mothers in his private practice over the past seven years. “We have to make sure as best we can that there’s no coercion or undue influence.

“The potential for abuse needs to be controlled.”

Wyckoff said she screens out surrogate applicants who say money is their most important reason for applying. She requires that they be between the ages of 25 and 35, have already given birth to at least one healthy child and, most important, must truly want to help a couple, she said. “Some are thrill seekers. They’ve not made it into the program,” she said. Wyckoff denied one otherwise ideal surrogate because her children’s father had custody and she would be unable to go home to her own children after delivery, an act which Wyckoff believes soothes the emotional pain of separation.

Wyckoff limits her practice to 10 couples at a time in order to personally supervise the screening, matchmaking and trouble shooting. She criticized what she called a high volume program of Dearborn, Mich., attorney Noel Keane who matched the Whiteheads with the Sterns. “I don’t see how you can do any real screening with volume,” she said.

In her program, she said doctors also screen candidates for genetic history, illness, AIDS and chemical dependency. A psychologist checks them for emotional pathology and a lawyer explains the legal ramifications.

Couples she helps are usually referred from hospital in-vitro programs or attorneys. Initially, she may refer them to Resolve of Orange County, a support group for couples dealing with infertility. She also gives them information on new options such as implanting the wife with an embryo made from a donor egg and husband’s sperm or implanting a surrogate with embryo formed from wife’s egg and husband’s sperm.

Couples choose to artificially inseminate surrogate mothers with the husband’s sperm as a “last resort,” she said. “A lot choose it over adoption to have more control over the (baby’s) character. It’s not just that they want blond hair and blue eyes.”

Some, such as the couple who requested a surrogate who liked data processing, were looking for a kind of kinship they could develop with the surrogate mother, she said. Another pair of applicants, in which the husband was a music professor and the wife a symphony cellist, asked her to find a cello player surrogate.

“I don’t think playing the cello is a genetic trait,” Wyckoff said. But she did offer to find them a surrogate who appreciated music. “I think that could be genetic.”

She found a Chinese-American surrogate for a couple of Chinese descent. For a couple in which the wife was of Chinese origin and the husband Japanese, race did not matter. They were matched with a Latino surrogate, Wyckoff said.

Most of the time, artistic or physical abilities are a deciding factor only when other qualities are equal, she said.

If the surrogate and the couple decide they are right for one another--usually after an informal but tense meeting at Wyckoff’s home, a lawyer’s office or a restaurant--they sign their contracts.

The contracts, which may run as long as 25 pages, spell out the financial and other agreements. The surrogate agrees to abstain from sexual intercourse until she conceives through artificial insemination. An average 18 months are required for conception and birth.

The contract often stipulates the surrogate not seek out the child or the couple if they move. However, some couples have asked the surrogate to inform Wyckoff of her whereabouts in the event the child would want to meet her later in life. “Surrogates have a need to share their pregnancy with the couple,” said Wyckoff, who was denied that opportunity when she was a surrogate five years ago. But while many wives and surrogates become quite close, some wives--and even more fathers--don’t want to meet the surrogate during the pregnancy, and after the birth “they don’t want any contact with the surrogate at all.”

If the surrogate wants a picture of the child later, or a letter at Christmas, they will generally accommodate her, Wyckoff said.

Over time, feelings of pride and contributing to others’ happiness make up for the immediate emotional pain, Wyckoff said. But most first-time surrogates underestimate the anguish of surrendering their newborns on the day of delivery, she said. “They all think they can detach themselves from the pain of separation. To let someone enter into this situation with that kind of attitude is asking for trouble.”

Wanting to keep the baby is normal, she said. “I’ve never met a surrogate who said it never entered her mind. It does.”

Preparing surrogates for that moment is crucial for a successful outcome, she said. They attend regular support group meetings run by a Newport Beach psychologist. The psychologist declined to comment in order to protect the women’s confidentiality.

In the group, they discuss such problems as failing to conceive, lack of contact with couples or what to tell neighbors, friends or children, Wyckoff said.

One explained surrogate parenting to her 4-year-old this way: “Here is a picture of Peg and Earl. Her tummy is broken and she can’t have a baby. I thought it would be nice to let them grow a baby in my tummy.” The child later told a friend, “My mommy has a baby in her tummy. It’s Peg and Earl’s,” Wyckoff said.

Wyckoff also makes sure the surrogates hear veterans’ stories. “Nobody other than somebody who’s lived it can tell you what it’s like,” she said.

Handing her daughter over right after delivery was like “someone ripping my heart out of my chest,” said one Orange County surrogate, a mother of three other children. “There were times when I said, ‘She’s my baby and I’m not leaving. I don’t care how much I was paid.’ ” When she eventually did leave, she felt empty and used. Though proud of her gift to the couple, she said it took a year to get over the loss and she still thinks of her daughter every day.

Surrounded by risks and uncertainties, Wyckoff exudes confidence in her work. “I keep thinking how wonderful what I’m doing is,” she said. “As a teacher, I influenced lives, but there wasn’t the gratification I get doing this.”

Her life work differs from those whose efforts may be impermanent or lost to posterity, she said. At the end of her life, thinking back over the children born because of her, she believes that she’ll be able to say, “I was here. I made a difference. This will go on forever.”

Recently, she took her husband back to Ohio to visit children born as a result of her program. “He said if you took their diapers down, there should be a signature--Kathy Wyckoff. It’s like they’re all handcrafted.”