O.C. Surrogate Gets Support of Baby M’s Mom

The surrogate mother in the celebrated Baby M case rose to the defense of Anna L. Johnson on Friday, saying she has counseled the Orange County woman by phone and believes she is simply fighting to keep what is rightfully hers.

“I’ll do anything in my power to help her keep her child even if that means flying to California and testifying for her,” Mary Beth Whitehead-Gould said from her home in Long Island, N.Y. “I know the pain of not having the child is very great.”

Other surrogate mothers, however, said that Johnson’s case casts a dark shadow on what they described as their own exhilarating and honorable experiences.

Johnson, who Wednesday gave birth to a 6-pound, 10-ounce boy, had touched off a legal firestorm after deciding earlier to keep the child rather than honor her $10,000-surrogacy agreement with Mark and Crispina Calvert.

The 29-year-old Johnson agreed to carry the embryo made from the couple’s sperm and egg, and is the first surrogate mother to ask a judge for parental rights to a baby who has no genetic relationship to her. Friday, a judge gave temporary custody of the baby to the Calverts.

Whitehead-Gould, who lost a long and ugly court struggle to keep a little girl who in 1986 was born as Baby M, said that Johnson should not be blamed for asserting her parental rights.

“First, I don’t think it’s anybody’s business,” Whitehead-Gould said. “The couple (Calverts) had nothing to begin with, so Anna has not taken anything away. It’s Anna’s breasts that are filled with milk.

“I feel for the child,” she continued. “The child knows his mother as Anna. I don’t think it’s fair to have the child ripped away.”

Whitehead-Gould said she spoke to Johnson three weeks ago and advised her that “it would not be easy when the entire population is against her.”

She said she tried calling Anna’s room at St. Joseph Hospital on Thursday night but could not get through. “I wanted to tell her, ‘Hang in there, Anna.’ My heart goes out to her.”

However, a Huntington Beach surrogate mother who delivered triplets for a couple last July, said the Johnson case has dealt a setback to those surrogates who take more than financial rewards from their experiences.

“I feel like it makes us all look like flakes,” said Catherine Toole, 36, whose surrogacy was arranged through the Center for Surrogate Parenting in Beverly Hills. “Most of us aren’t desperate. I feel like it gives us a bad name. It makes it look like we were out to get the money and the publicity.”

Toole, who said she received $10,000 in addition to hospital expenses and other “gifts” from the parents, said she sought out a surrogacy arrangement because she wanted to provide help to people who could not have children.

While she carried the triplets, Toole, who has four children of her own, said she would speak to the unborn children.

“I really was concerned for them as human beings,” she said. “I would talk to them as if I were an aunt or close relative. I would talk to them about their mom and dad. While I was carrying them, I felt really special.”

Toole said the money was a consideration, but later found that it amounted to something less than minimum wage for all of her time.

“When they looked at those babies, that was the real payoff for me,” Toole said.

Lydia Linget of Upland also sought a surrogacy arrangement through the Beverly Hills center to ease the “pain” of an infertile couple and for the money.

“It’s like a gift,” Linget said of the baby girl she helped produce. “I loved her from the minute I knew I was pregnant, but I never thought of her as my daughter. I knew she was not my daughter. She was my womb-mate.”

Linget, a single mother with three children of her own, said the Johnson case makes her angry.

“She signed a contract,” Linget said, referring to Johnson. “She has no right. She was a carrier. She should never have gone into it.”

Like Johnson, Whitehead-Gould was to be paid $10,000 in a contract she signed with William and Elizabeth Stern. She agreed to surrender the child but later changed her mind and decided to fight for parental rights. The child was swapped back and forth between the Sterns and Whitehead-Gould before the child was ordered to be placed with the Sterns.

Now associated with the National Coalition Against Surrogacy, which has been providing legal help to Johnson’s lawyer, Richard C. Gilbert, Whitehead-Gould said Johnson’s case is yet another opportunity for lawmakers to take a closer look at surrogacy agreements.

“I have no problem with surrogacy as long as no money changes hands,” Whitehead-Gould said. “All surrogacy does is try to get around adoption. People should look at the long-term effects of surrogacy.

“Really, I do feel bad for infertile people,” she said. “But surrogacy does not deal with infertility. If you took away the money, I don’t think you would find anybody doing this. It’s just not right. It’s time it stopped. Infertility is just something we’ll have to deal with.”

Whitehead-Gould also questioned possible motives in Johnson’s selection.

“Why did they pick Anna?” she asked rhetorically. “Was it because she was poor? Was it because she was black and may not stand a chance in court?”

Although her surrogacy was somewhat different than Johnson’s in that the child was conceived using Whitehead-Gould’s egg and Stern’s sperm, Whitehead-Gould said there is very little that separates them emotionally.

“I know that my baby was genetically connected to me, but Anna carried her baby. It wasn’t a fetus until Anna carried it.”

In the years since her unsuccessful fight, Whitehead-Gould still is emotional and has come to resent the term “surrogate mother.”

“If I wasn’t the real mother, then why was I on the delivery room table feeling all that pain. As far as I’m concerned, the other woman is the surrogate mother. We have to look at human bonding.”

Whitehead-Gould, who now has four children at home, said there has been little consideration given in Johnson’s case and other surrogate cases to the future of children born in these contracts.

“What about the child who years later learns he or she was sold for $10,000?”