Surrogate Says She Secretly Aimed to Keep Baby : Lawsuit: Orange County woman testifies she took payments from couple after deciding against giving up child.

Surrogate mother Anna L. Johnson, who is waging an unprecedented battle for custody of a baby she bore for an infertile Orange County couple, testified Wednesday that she accepted payments from the pair even after she secretly decided to keep the child.

Johnson, 29, who has attracted national attention in her effort to win the 3-week-old boy, admitted that she cashed a $2,100 check from Mark and Crispina Calvert in early June and another, for an unspecified sum, in early August, but that she no longer intended to give up the baby.

Johnson’s comments came during questioning by the Calverts’ attorney, Christian R. Van Deusen. Van Deusen tried to determine the point at which Johnson decided to keep the baby, and to imply that she is not telling the truth when she claims that she “bonded” to the child early in the pregnancy.

Johnson also admitted that the Calverts had made major payments earlier than required on at least two occasions. One of Johnson’s key claims in trying to win custody--one she repeated many times--is that the Calverts breached the $10,000 surrogation contract by consistently paying her late.

Johnson, a licensed vocational nurse and single mother, testified on the second day of a hearing to determine whether she can legally be considered the baby’s mother, even though she has no genetic connection to him. The Calverts provided the sperm and egg from which the baby grew. They have had temporary custody since the baby’s birth Sept. 19.

The proceeding in Orange County Superior Court is expected to extend into next week.

During more than two hours of intense examination by Van Deusen, Johnson denied telling The Times in an interview in early August that she felt no connection to the baby because she knew it did not belong to her. Johnson told a reporter that she did not feel bonded to the child in her womb because it was not made from her genetic material.

“If it had been my egg, it would have made a real big difference,” Johnson said. “But with (in-vitro fertilization), there’s no connection to me. . . . There’s been detachment from the baby from Day 1.”

Johnson told The Times that the sole reason she was seeking custody was that she believed the Calverts had lost interest and would make unfit parents. Her aim, she said, was to protect the child from being put into a bad environment.

Since she filed suit Aug. 13, Johnson has concentrated much more on her “bonding” to the baby, contending that she should keep him because the act of carrying and delivering him makes her the child’s mother. She has virtually dropped any discussion of whether the Calverts are unfit parents.

On Wednesday, Johnson admitted she “might have” told someone else earlier in the pregnancy that she had not become attached to the baby, but if she did say that, it was because she was “in a state of denial,” struggling with a bond she had developed even though she had signed a contract promising to surrender the child.

The baby’s court-appointed lawyer, Harold LaFlamme, also questioned Johnson about when she came to feel the baby was hers. He pointed to language she used in a July 23 letter to the Calverts, in which she refers to the fetus as “the child of someone else” and uses the phrase, “before your child is born.”

“I wrote the letter, yes, but in the state of mind I was in, I was confused, I was anxious and I was desperate,” Johnson testified.