Surrogate Expected Mother Role : Custody battle: Woman seeks parental rights of boy born last week. She signed contract to give baby to Orange County couple who provided the genetic material.

Surrogate mother Anna L. Johnson said Tuesday that she never expected she would have to forgo a mothering role in the life of the child she agreed to bear for an infertile Orange County couple, even though she signed a contract that prohibited her from trying to have a “parent-child relationship” with the baby.

In a news conference in her lawyer’s office, Johnson told reporters that Mark and Crispina Calvert, who donated the sperm and egg that were united in a laboratory and implanted in Johnson’s uterus in January, promised her verbally that regardless of what the surrogate contract said, she would be able to see the boy.

“I had thought in the beginning that I’d be able to see him,” said Johnson, who delivered a 6-pound, 10-ounce boy last Wednesday.

The baby is living with the Calverts at least until a court hearing Thursday. Johnson visits daily, but she fears she might lose that right. The courts must decide which of the participants in the case have the right to claim parentage and custody of the child.

Johnson, 29, who agreed to bear the Calverts’ child for $10,000, contends that even though the child is not genetically related to her, she has parental rights because she carried and gave birth to the baby. The Calverts argue that they are the legal parents because they provided the genetic material that formed the embryo.

Johnson said that when she signed the contract, she did not anticipate backing out and trying to wage a custody battle, but added: “You don’t think that far down the line.”