Jessica Allen is a 31-year-old mom who decided to become a surrogate back in 2016.
Jessica and her partner Wardell were matched with the Liu family from China, and in return for carrying their baby, Jessica was set to receive $30,000, which would allow her to save money for a new home while helping another couple have a baby along the way.
After undergoing IVF treatments, Jessica Allen learned that she was pregnant with Liu’s baby. Or better yet, babies. It was twins.
According to doctors, the transferred embryo split in two, and the twins were identical. Nine months later, Jessica gave birth to both babies via C-sections, but the babies were quickly rushed away before she could even see them (even though she was supposed to have an hour with them before saying one final goodbye).
Mrs. Liu sent Jessica a photo of the twins the next day, but Jessica immediately noticed how different the babies looked. The Lius grew more and more concerned about how different the babies looked, so they decided to do a DNA test.
Amazingly, the test showed that while one of the babies biologically belonged to the Lius family, the other baby belonged to Jessica and Wardell.
As it turns out, an extremely rare pregnancy phenomenon called superfetation had occurred, and when Jessica was impregnated with the Liu’s embryo through IVF, she also fell pregnant naturally with her own baby.
Jessica was contacted by the matching agency Omega and was told that someone was looking after Max (her and Wardell’s baby) because the Lius wanted nothing to do with him. To add to that, the Lius expected between $18,000 and $22,000 as compensation.
Even though Jessica and her partner had already spent most of the money they earned from the surrogacy contract, their priority was to get Max back.
However, a caseworker from the agency had already lined up parents to adopt him and ‘absorb’ the money they owned the Lius, as the Lius were still his legal parents.
The agency also said that Jessica and Wardell owed them a further $7,000 for the expenses they had incurred for the bureaucracy and for looking after their son, and they spent a further $3,000 on an attorney.
The agency finally reduced the ‘fee’ they owed the Lius to zero, and Omega’s CEO said that the company would likely pay the Lius some compensation out of its own funds.
And so, on February 5, Jessica and Wardell were handed over their son, whom they renamed Malachi.
Although Jessica and Wardell weren’t planning on expanding their family so soon, they treasure Malachi with all their hearts. In a story for the New York Post, Jessica urged other women considering surrogacy to learn from her story, but she’s happy that a greater good came out of this nightmare.