The Daily Mail is reporting that Crystal Kelley, 29, of Connecticut fled to Michigan to escape the parents of her unborn child who was found to be suffering from serious disabilities during an ultrasound test administered during her fifth month of pregnancy.
The ultrasound kicked off a heartbreaking ordeal for both Kelley and the child's parents who paid her $22,000 in 2011 to carry their child. Kelley became pregnant 10 days after being artificially inseminated with an embryo that was "left over" from the couple's attempts to conceive via in-vitro fertilization.
Thrilled, the parents wanted to be a part of every day of the pregnancy, even buying Christmas gifts for Kelley's two daughters and paying portions of the surrogacy fee early in order to help her out.
But the relationship soured on February 16, 2012, when an ultra sound revealed that the baby had a cleft lip and heart problems that doctors said would give her only a 25 percent chance of living a normal life. The parents, who had three previous premature births that left two of their children with medical problems, decided abortion was the most "humane" option.
Kelley, who is staunchly religious, refused, saying that "all efforts should be made to give the baby a chance."
"They said they didn't want to bring a baby into the world only for that child to suffer. ... They said I should try to be God-like and have mercy on the child and let her go," Kelley told CNN.
"I told them that they had chosen me to carry and protect this child, and that was exactly what I was going to do," said Kelley. "I told them it wasn't their decision to play God."
Because the law allows only the surrogate mother to arrange and go through with an abortion, the parents turned to the surrogacy agency, Surrogacy International, to let them know if Kelley carried the child to term, she would be completely responsible for the child. If not, they were willing to pay her $10,000 to have an abortion.
Kelley countered by asking for $15,000, a move she immediately regretted because she had no intention of having an abortion.
The couple refused the counter and instead hired a lawyer to try to frighten her into aborting.
"You are obligated to terminate this pregnancy immediately," wrote Douglas Fishman, an attorney in West Hartford, Connecticut, and reminded her that she had signed a contract agreeing to "abortion in case of severe fetus abnormality."
However, the contract did not stipulate just what was meant by "severe fetus abnormality."
Kelley responded by hiring her own lawyer, Michael DePrimo, an attorney in Hamden, Connecticut.
The parents then decided they would exercise their legal rights to take custody of the child but would surrender it to the state of Connecticut for foster care after its birth.
Unable to stand the thought of putting the baby in foster care, Kelley decided to flee the state and find sanctuary somewhere where the birth-mother rather than the genetic parents was considered the legal guardian.
This turned out to be the state of Michigan.
In April of last year, in her seventh month of pregnancy, Crystal and her two daughters moved to Michigan.
"Once I realized that I was going to be the only person really fighting for her, that Mama bear instinct kicked in, and there was no way I was giving up without a fight," Kelley told CNN.
She also chose Michigan because the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital has one of the best pediatric heart programs in the country.
While she awaited the birth of her daughter, she concentrated on finding a couple willing to take on a special needs child. One was found just in time for the birth of the baby, a little girl, on June 25, 2012.
Known only as Baby S, she weighed six pounds at birth and is suffering from several serious abnormalities. In addition to a cleft lip/palate and complex heart defects, she also has holoprosencephaly,where the brain doesn't completely divide into distinct hemispheres. The child is also suffering from heterotaxy, which means many of her internal organs, such as her liver and stomach, are in the wrong places in her body.
To date, she has already had open-heart surgery and surgery on her intestines and is expected to have one or two more cardiac surgeries over the course of the next year.
The child's parents reached an agreement with the adoptive parents to be able to keep in touch with their daughter, and have visited the child in Michigan.
Kelley firmly believes she did the right thing.
"No one else was feeling this pregnancy the way that I was. No one else could feel her kicking and moving around inside," she said. "I knew from the beginning that this little girl had an amazing fighting spirit, and whatever challenges were thrown at her, she would go at them with every ounce of spirit that she could possibly have."
She concluded: "No matter what anybody told me, I became her mother."
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