A woman from Vernon was hired to be a surrogate and was then faced with an agonizing decision.
The couple whose child Crystal Kelley was carrying asked her to get an abortion. She refused and gave birth to the child last summer.
Kelley has two girls of her own and also has had two miscarriages. She says she wanted to go ahead with it because she understood the heartbreak of not having a child when you’re expecting one.
“They were fantastic for a long time,” said Kelley describing her first meeting with the couple whose baby she planned to carry.
“They gave me the impression that they definitely cared about their children very much. They were very involved in their kids’ lives.”
Kelley met this couple from New York in mid 2011 at a playground near her Vernon home. They discussed their plans about providing a good home for their children—immediately Kelley wanted to be their surrogate.
“They were very attentive. They wanted to be involved in the pregnancy. She said she really felt like she was living through me in this pregnancy and she wished she could experience it.”
It’s an experience that more than five months into the pregnancy turned negative. After several ultrasounds, doctors at Hartford Hospital determined the baby had a number of medical problems.
“They didn't believe it was fair to bring a child into the world that would only know pain and suffering,” said Kelley.
The couple offered her $10,000 to terminate the pregnancy.
“If I don’t have support of these people what am I going to do with a baby? I didn’t get into this to have a baby. I can't deny that I did say if you give me $15,000 I'll think about doing it,” said Kelley.
A thought she dismissed when she got home from the hospital.
Several lawsuits later, Kelley moved to Michigan to have the child. It’s a state that let her have full control over the child’s rights.
Then on June 25th of last year, Kelley gave birth to a girl who is known to the public simply as “Baby S.”
She says she found a couple from the area--that has the financial means to take care of “Baby-S.” Doctors say that if the child makes it through the first five years of her life she has a great chance of to make it to adulthood.
“I had a very hard time giving her up for adoption. I really wanted to keep her,” Kelley said.
Kelley says she still sees Baby-S, who’s now 9 months old, about once a month.