How being a surrogate mother went horribly wrong for local woman
This is a preview of Anna Canzano's full story that aired at 6 p.m. on Thursday. Click here to read the full story.
VANCOUVER, Wash. – Becoming a mother was one of the best things that ever happened to Cari Byers of Vancouver. That love of family influenced her decision to help other women who couldn’t carry a child on their own; twice Cari has agreed to be a surrogate mom for a local family.
“The first two surrogacies were pretty awesome experiences looking back,” she said.
So when Cari was contacted to help a couple in China start a family following several miscarriages, she agreed.
But more than halfway through the pregnancy, Cari began to realize the baby she was carrying amounted to little more than a contingency plan.
"This is not what surrogacy is at all," Cari said. "Surrogacy can be awesome. This is not what it is."
Cari described her experience with this Chinese couple - and the agencies helping to manage the transaction - as bizarre, horrific and heartbreaking.
And she's getting her story out the best way she knows how, by sharing what happened with KATU News.
As On Your Side Investigator Anna Canzano discovered, American-born children are something many Chinese parents have come to covet. There is a growing number of Chinese couples hiring surrogates in America to have babies on their behalf.
It is expensive for the Chinese. The babies born here that return to China are called “million dollar babies” because the surrogate process, through delivery, really does cost the equivalent of one million U.S. dollars.
The surging Chinese economy has given some couples the resources to go to great lengths to secure a successful birth.
"It was almost from the get go really weird and strange," said Cari. "And a lot of it, you're just like well there's a cultural difference."
In Cari's case, she didn't know her baby was competing with another woman's fetus.
This is a preview of Anna Canzano's full story that aired at 6 p.m. on Thursday. Click here to read the full story.
I think a better story would have been how a couple in China was going to be able to have 3 babies in China. I think most of us have the understanding that China is a 1 kid place. How about a follow up story setting us straight on what the real rules are for how many children a couple in China can have?
This was her 3rd surrogate baby. Sounds like she was only doing it for the money.
I missed the report. Competing with another surrogate? Sounds like a horror story. It's one thing to work for something with foreigners either in your home or in their home. I imagine this is more like ordering out for pizza?
Disgusting. A baby machine. There are already enough kids that need help in this world and we don't need anymore.
just say no.
Can you post the whole story please?
Stephanie I agree with you that in this specific case their motives were different .
So, will the tag say "made in China" or "assembled in U.S.A?'
All I can get from this blurb is that our new leading export to China is babies.Â
Jennifer, there is no way this was a search for a biologocal child. They are Chinese seeking an American child. Re: NOT biological. Put the emotions aside.
i dont understand...whats wrong? is it they spend a million dollars? so what if they spend that much....im confused on what the big prob is here!!!!!
I thought China had major population trouble? Aren't they still only allowed to have 1 child? Why on earth then are the Chinese paying gobs of money to mail order their baby? Sounds like someone needs to kick it up a notch on adoption advocacy over there.
@The_AnnaCannard They're paying gobs of money because they are only allowed the one child( or, in the case of multiples, children).  They don't want girls.  They don't want imperfect children.  They want the perfect male baby because it is the only chance they have at having children.
Until you go through the heartbreak if infertility you should not speak on the subject. It's easy for people to judge when they haven't been placed in such a Position as not being able to have their own biological child. While I do believe in adoption and providing homes for Orphaned children is necessary , also believe in people having the option to have a biological child of their own. There is no greater gift to give another human than life.
Disgraceful. How about unclogging the orphanages and streets where thousands of beautiful babies, mostly girls are abandoned.
Meanwhile, babies all over China are abandoned and packed into orphanages....
This is nothing more then playing into the market of selling children. There are orphaned children living on the streets, and worse. If the well to do can't have a baby let them adopt. Buying, and selling an American born child is a fad that should be outlawed both here and in China.
World population: Almost 7 billion. Orphaned children in the world: nearly 150 MILLION. Please stop!
Welcome to the liberal world where babies are nothing more than a cost or a hindrance to the party
I think they are just asking for it. Stay far away from anything like that. DUhhhhhhh'
It almost sounds like an anchor baby scam. Wonder what the news report will be like.Â
Like china has not bought up enough of america
I'm honestly surprised the story doesn't seem to address the India surrogacy situation, either. Â
http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/features/womb-rent-surrogate-mothers-india
Fertility clinics here and in other countries could easily sell embryos, eggs, or sperm to have them implanted in the poor women in India. Â It would cost even less money for the Chinese to go to India and get their children (India is saddled with the same situation -- the "unwanted" kids generated from these factories which end up in their orphanages).
My thought is that, because the child is born of a US parent, it has naturalized US citizen status so, in essence, they're really buying US citizenship (just like the pregnant Mexican women who cross the border to have their children here).
 (I wonder if courts have even addressed the legality of the nationalization of the genetic material -- in other words if the sperm and egg both come from, say, China, and the baby clearly has asian features but the birth mom is anglo, is the baby American or Chinese -- especially if it is returned to China).
If used as intended, I think surrogacy is a wonderful thing (I can't, apparently have kids of my own even after going to fertility clinics but the cost of stranger surrogacy is too high for me) but this, taking it to an "industrial" level is simply wrong.
I've never felt comfortable with the idea of surrogacy. Women's bodies should not be for sale, and carrying a baby for another person for compensation, that most certainly IS buying a women's body.  It's unethical. This is a terrible slippery slope, that I don't believe should be legal.  Having a child causes wear and tear to the body, so this is an exchange of one's health for money. It creates a very strange class situation, where poorer women's bodies can be bought and used by the wealthy to carry their children. I don't doubt it's caused emotional damage, as well.  It shouldn't be allowed.
@NancyJ.I have a very different view, being one of those babies. My birth mother (who was/is not poor) didn't receive compensation for being a surrogate and I am so thankful that not only do I have life (!), but my parents were able to have the daughter they always longed for and I couldn't have asked for a better family. I'm loved and treasured because another woman knew what having a child would be for my mother who couldn't. It's a choice and one women are allowed to make on their own. I don't believe it's ever been sunk to the low of a way to 'make money'.
"help a couple in China start a family " Dead give away right there!!!!!!! Are you interested in some swamp land in Florida?
Either tell the whole story or not at all. Very frustrating.....
sounds like a bad idea to me
Not enough info here!
I'm surpised KATU didn't throw in some sort of militlary style weapon comment just to get more people to read it. Talk about an article not worth reading.Â
@2012 Hope and Change Cake?  That would get some talk going. Â
There is not enough info here and I am disappointed after having read it.Â
@Just_one_opinion I said the same earlier and got a ruler tap on the back of the hand by the nun.  Or someone.
"In Cari's case, she didn't know her baby was competing with another woman's fetus. "
Ahh, the old "Fetus accompli".
This story reads like is a comercial for tonight NEWS at 6:00.....LAME Move KATU...LAMEÂ I expect this from KPTVÂ
Hi welcome to walmart would you like to rent out your uterus??
The chinese  version of"" I am too rich to carry a baby my servants do that for me""Â
Unclear and poorly witten story. Competing with another baby in the womb? Â Or is to have a baby born in the United States that can get US citizenship. Â I read a lot of out of the country woman come to the US and give birth to the baby and later parents can have US citizenship and priviledges. Â Seriously.
Dang Chinese are trying to take everything over!
@deejm2112 yea, and she sold herself just like other companies in the USA
I read the story twice. Â I guess I don't "get" what went horribly wrong. Â Someone paid her to have a baby, she did, she gave it up, end of story. Â Or did I miss something?
@Sundowner
She was not the only one being "paid to have their child". There was at least one other.Â
The idea is, you have one child, then a backup. Pick the best, send the other to the orphanage.Â
Not exactly what you think of when you become a surrogate. Bear in mind, surrogacy isnât like other jobs, it is far more intimate and as such the idea of you doing this (even for money) to have the child end up as a second fiddle (at best) or thrown in an orphanage is heartbreaking.
@Repoman @Sundowner My bet is they get more then one cooking so they have a better chance of getting a boy...
@Repoman I was going by what was said in this story.  There was no mention in this story about any of what you claim.  Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but my comment was based on what was reported on this site in this story.
@pdxd I'm guessing they had 2 surrogates to double their chance of having a boy.
@badcat ,,,,,,,,,bingo !
@sundowner it took me some time to really get what she is upset over. It sounds as though the other fetus that is being carried by another woman to "compete" with this fetus, is being done as the "contingency" plan to deem one baby more worthy of their love than the other baby, which to me is just sick and disgusting.Â
BUt yeah, I hate feeling like a Lee sometimes.......but then I remember to breathe and realize it was just a nightmare
@badcat Thanks...thought I was pulling a lee and becoming dyslectic or losing all ability to read.  So I was right -- there's nothing in this story to indicate how this woman thought everything went "horribly wrong".  Glad I live over here so I don't have to watch the 6:30 news.
It's just a plug to get you to watch the 6:30 news and the commercials they'll play during that broadcast.
@Repoman I'm still missing it.  Who's the other woman?  Another woman in Oregon is pregnant (or was) with the same couple's baby?  Maybe I should have just said, "This story is very poorly written and leaves out too many details".
@Sundowner@Repoman
"In Cari's case, she didn't know her baby was competing with another woman's fetus. "