Surrogate Was Horrified To Learn The Couple She Bore A Baby For Had 21 Children

LOS ANGELES — Kayla Elliott thought she was helping a family who couldn't conceive by birthing a surrogate kid for a mates successful Southern California.

Instead, she said, she was caught successful a web of deceit that led constabulary to uncover 21 children, who were calved to different surrogate mothers, surviving successful nan location of Silvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan successful Arcadia, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles.

Zhang and Xuan were arrested successful May connected suspicion of felony kid endangerment and neglect aft a section infirmary called constabulary to study that a 2-month-old babe had arrived pinch caput injuries, Arcadia constabulary said successful a statement.

A nanny who worked pinch nan mates is suspected of violently shaking nan child, causing nan babe to suffer consciousness. According to police, nan parents were alert of nan maltreatment but grounded to activity timely aesculapian help.

A warrant has been issued for nan nanny, whom constabulary haven’t been capable to locate, constabulary said.

Elliott said Wednesday that she was dumbstruck erstwhile she learned nan kid she bore was among them.

“I was a spot hysterical,” she said. “You conscionable don’t expect that you’re going to spell done a gestation and a transportation and past manus nan babe complete to their parents and past each of a abrupt find retired that location was maltreatment and neglect going on.”

Kayla Elliot.NBC Los Angeles

The surrogacy agency, Mark Surrogacy Investment LLC, told her that nan mates had 1 teenage kid and that they had fixed up connected trying to person a 2nd aft 10 rounds of grounded fertility treatments, Elliott said.

She later learned that Mark Surrogacy was registered astatine nan couple’s Arcadia address.

During their kid endangerment investigation, constabulary discovered 15 children astatine nan couple's house. Six much children belonging to nan mates were recovered successful nan attraction of family members and friends. The youngest was nan 2-month-old, and nan eldest was 13, constabulary said.

“We judge 1 aliases 2 were calved biologically to nan mother,” Police Lt. Kollin Cieadlo said. “There are immoderate surrogates who person travel guardant and said they were surrogates for nan children.”

It wasn’t instantly clear whether Zhang and Xuan had a lawyer who could speak connected their behalf.

While nationalist records show nan business licence for Mark Surrogacy was precocious terminated, a pregnant surrogate told NBC News nan agency continues to interaction her.

On Wednesday, KTLA-TV of Los Angeles reported that it received a matter connection from a telephone associated pinch Zhang that read: “Any accusations of wrongdoing are misguided and wrong. We look guardant to vindicating immoderate specified claims astatine nan due clip erstwhile and if immoderate actions are brought.”

More than 20 children, galore calved to surrogate mothers, were recovered astatine nan location successful Arcadia, Calif.NBC Los Angeles

After nan babe Elliott carried for Zhang and Xuan was born, she learned it was surviving not successful Cuba pinch nan mates but pinch a nanny and different kid of akin age, she said.

Kallie Fell, executive head of nan nonprofit Center for Bioethics & Culture Network, said Elliott's acquisition isn't wholly uncommon. She said she has spoken pinch hundreds of surrogates worldwide who shared nightmare scenarios, including a female whose surrogate family refused to supply patient surviving conditions while she was pregnant.

"There's truthful galore ways these kinds of things tin spell sideways, and nary magnitude of rule will protect a female aliases child, because surrogate pregnancies are high-risk by nature," she said.

In Elliott's case, thing seemed disconnected arsenic soon arsenic nan babe was born, she said. Zhang was hours precocious for nan commencement and hardly looked astatine nan babe successful nan infirmary room, Elliott said. Before she left, Zhang handed Elliot $2,000 successful cash.

"I don’t cognize what nan motive was now, but it was conscionable very, very not what you would expect retired of personification who really wanted a child," Elliott said. "It was very transactional."

The kid Kayla birthed is now successful foster care, and she said she is moving connected gaining custody of nan baby.

The 20 different children are successful nan custody of a California child-welfare agency while Arcadia constabulary and nan FBI analyse nan mates and find whether they misled surrogate mothers astir nan country, officials said.

Bail for Zhang and Xuan was group astatine $500,000 each. They were released, Cieadlo said.

Emilie Ikeda and Alicia Victoria Lozano reported from Los Angeles and Minyvonne Burke from Pittsburgh.