‘I Had Thought That I’d Be Able to See Him’ : Surrogate: Despite contract, Anna Johnson says, she expected a role in the life of the child she bore for Mark and Crispina Calvert.

ORANGE — 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 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 her little 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 Sept. 19.

The baby is living with the Calverts at least until a court hearing Thursday in Santa Ana. Johnson visits daily, but she fears she might lose that right. The courts must still decide which of the participants in the case has 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--the first surrogate mother to demand custody of a child that is not genetically related to her--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.

“You say things in the beginning of pregnancy that you don’t mean,” Johnson said.

The contract said the Calverts would “take immediate, full and absolute custody of the child upon birth,” and that Johnson agreed she “will neither form nor attempt to form a parent-child relationship” with the baby.

But Johnson says now that she developed a deep connection to her child before his birth, and that she deserves to be part of his life.

“I bonded with my baby when I was pregnant and I didn’t want to give him up,” she said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Johnson has said that she agreed to bear the child because she needed the money and because she wanted to do something important for an infertile couple. Crispina Calvert cannot bear children.

Johnson said she knows that the child, whom she calls Matthew and the Calverts call Christopher Michael, is suffering because of the legal “tug-of-war,” but she feels her fight to maintain contact with him is best because he has a right to know his mother.

Johnson’s lawyer, Richard C. Gilbert, said that by early next week he will file papers with the appeals court seeking a declaration that Johnson is the child’s legal mother and deserves to have the child live with her.

Johnson and the Calverts agreed Friday that the child could stay with the Calverts temporarily.