▶ Watch Video: Testing the ethical boundaries of surrogacy
Lured by an ad on Instagram promising a hefty payout, Andrea, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras living in California, decided to explore becoming a surrogate mother.
After some agencies expressed concerns about her immigration status, she found one that said yes. Before signing the agreement, she asked the firm, San Diego-based Creating Your Dreams Surrogacy, to set up a video introduction call with the young couple seeking to become parents. It was that call, Andrea said, that convinced her to make the complicated decision, as a single mother of two, to carry another couple’s child.
“It was an opportunity to provide for my two daughters,” she said. CBS News is withholding her full identity due to her immigration status.
But what happened after delivering the baby was beyond anything Andrea imagined possible.
After the birth, in October 2024, an elderly couple — people Andrea had never seen — arrived at the hospital to pick up the newborn.
“When the baby was born and they arrived at the hospital, it was a completely different couple,” she said.
Worried about her immigration status and money she still was owed, Andrea handed over the infant and said she was paid about $40,000. The elderly couple took the newborn, and she never saw any of them again.
