The Journey, Episode 1: Gifts

A woman in Texas agrees to carry a child for a wealthy couple in California. She thinks she’s helping a family in need. Then she becomes a whistle-blower. New Yorker subscribers get early, ad-free access to “The Journey.” In Apple Podcasts, tap the link at the top of the feed to subscribe or link an existing subscription. Or visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe and listen in the New Yorker app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Alrighty guys, so I know it's been a while. My name is Kayla. If y'all are just now stumbling upon my page, I am 26 years old. I live in Texas and this is my first time being a gestational surrogate. So I'm kind of sharing my experience, but um...

• 0:20Madeleine Baran?

  Last year, I started watching videos posted online by a woman in Corpus Christi, Texas.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  This will be my fifth pregnancy. I have four bio kids. I'm very new at YouTube, so bear with me. I'm still getting the hang of actually speaking and looking at the camera, making videos.

• 0:38Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla Elliott was about to carry a child for strangers. She figured about nine months of work and then it'd be over. In the delicate jargon of the fertility industry, the experience is called a journey.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  Please subscribe and you will get some little sneak peeks of my journey in pregnancy.

• 1:01Madeleine Baran?

  Like every surrogate mother, Kayla understood the baby was not hers. It was a gift for someone else.

• 1:09Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla was carrying a baby for a couple who told her they desperately wanted a second child and who tried unsuccessfully to conceive.

• 1:18Speaker 00

  And I say this with all my heart, guys. Like, if I could give my fertility, just a sliver of it, to every mom out there who's struggling with fertility, I would do it in a heartbeat. I mean, I would, like, no questions asked. Like, I, you know, I love the fact that I could help another family and I don't see...

• 1:39Madeleine Baran?

  She kept posting updates and videos, mostly on TikTok, so that her family and friends could follow along.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Here it is, guys. 17 weeks today. Little baby girl, belly bump. We're loving being a surrogate.

• 1:59Madeleine Baran?

  But Kayla's journey would take her somewhere unexpected. Her posts would eventually attract a very different audience.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  It popped up. My friend sent it to me on TikTok.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  I checked my email and here my attorney had sent us a TikTok. And that's what really stopped me in my tracks.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  And I was just scrolling and then I seen the names. And I was like, my heart just stopped. Like, are you serious?

• 2:23Speaker 04

  It started to, like, make me shake. I was getting so set and worried.

• 2:31Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla would end up becoming a whistleblower, drawing attention to a confounding scheme that had been going on for years.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  And now to a bizarre story in the San Gabriel Valley. The first thought that went into my head is, oh my God, like, what don't we know?

• 2:47Speaker 05

  This is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard.

• 2:50Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla would be swept up into a much larger scandal, one that's still unfolding and that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  There's clearly a loophole in relation to surrogacy. That's not a loophole. That's surrogacy has designed.

• 3:10Madeleine Baran?

  The scandal would raise uncomfortable questions about who gets to be a parent.

• 3:14Speaker 04

  I'm really afraid that people who have no other way to have a family, this will be taken away from them.

• 3:21Madeleine Baran?

  And it would prompt investigations by child welfare and law enforcement agencies.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  For all intents and purposes, she's kidnapped their child. That's what she's done.

• 3:30Speaker 05

  The Bureau refused to comment on the case, but Arcadia Police confirmed that their detectives are working with the FBI. We believe that it extended beyond our city and into possibly other parts of the country and maybe internationally.

• 3:49Madeleine Baran?

  I'm Ava Kaufman, an investigative reporter at The New Yorker.

• 3:54Madeleine Baran?

  From in the dark and The New Yorker, this is The Journey. Episode 1, Gifts.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Oh, hey. Thank you, Ava. Pleasure. I'm trying to dig up information for you on my old feedback. No rush. Hi, thanks for having me. Yes, I'm pretty sick. Kind of crazy here, I'm sorry. I'm trying to get my kids settled over there, eating with their movies so that they're not... No, there's no rush. So where do you live at? You live in New York? I live in Los Angeles. Oh, Los Angeles? Yeah. Oh, so you live right in the heart of all this crazy stuff? Yeah, so that's how I got onto the story. This is my local news, you know?

• 4:41Madeleine Baran?

  One day last fall, I visited Kayla Elliott and her boyfriend Blake Burry. They live in Corpus Christi, near the Gulf. It's marshy and at low tide, you can smell the water. Ducks, chickens, goats, and a pig roam their grassy backyard. Inside, it was crowded too. Four kids, plus cats, kittens, fish, even a foreign exchange student who'd recently arrived.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  This is Diego. Hey, this is Diego from France.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  He's our foreign exchange student. Well, kid, he got here in, like, the midst of it and he's like, what is going... I had to try to explain to him why you were coming, because I don't even think he... Do you even really understand what happened, like, with my surrogate thing? Yeah. Kind of?

• 5:28Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla's surrogate thing began in 2024, not long after she turned 26. What was the conversation between you guys about wanting to do that?

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Well, for us, the whole goal... Yeah, his dad's friend mentioned about how his friend's wife, like, made a lot of money doing surrogacy. She loves having babies and being a mother. And I love being pregnant, but my tubes are tied and so I can't have any more naturally. And so I was like, you know, what better way to, like, save money for our family and also give someone else, you know, a gift that they deserve to have a child? And that was the motivation behind it, you know?

• 6:02Madeleine Baran?

  Back then, Blake supported the family with his job as a pest control technician. Kayla was mostly a stay-at-home mom, though she sometimes took on work cleaning rich people's houses. The couple and Kayla's four kids lived with Blake's dad. With the money from surrogacy, they'd be able to rent a place of their own.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  So I joined some Facebook groups. I think it was Surrogates and Intended Parents and there was a few other groups. And then I posted, like, a picture of myself with a profile, like, this is who I am, this is my age, this is where I live, like, I'm just kind of curious for if anybody wants to reach out, kind of thing.

• 6:39Madeleine Baran?

  Almost immediately, Kayla got a message. It was from an agency in Los Angeles called Mark Surrogacy. Its coordinators told her they'd matched her with a set of intended parents, or IPs, as they're known in the industry. Okay, so they started by saying, hey, do you want to have a baby for this?

• 6:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, basically, they were like, hey, Kayla, we have a Chinese couple that's ready to get started, you know, are you interested in talking? And I was like, yes.

• 7:05Madeleine Baran?

  The agency shared a profile of the couple they had in mind. It showed a paunchy, 64-year-old man, his arm draped around a younger woman with short, cropped, black hair. The profile said they lived in Arcadia, California, a city just outside LA. They'd been married three years, had one child, a daughter. A sweetheart, the profile said, who wanted nothing more than a brother or sister. They'd already gone through 10 rounds of IVF.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  It seemed like, okay, you know, they've tried and tried, they've been unsuccessful, like, you know, all these years and so who better to come in and help have a baby than someone that's great at having a baby, you know?

• 7:46Madeleine Baran?

  The intended parents' names were Guo Junxuan and Sylvia Zhang. And after reading their story, Kayla was moved. Kayla herself had been adopted at birth by a woman who'd struggled with infertility. Now, she wanted to help this couple from Arcadia. She hadn't met or considered any other intended parents through the agency, but she was flattered that they seemed so eager to get started with her. "It would be an honor," they had written, "if you carry the baby for us."

• 8:20Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla said yes. Like most surrogates, Kayla would be what's known as a gestational carrier, meaning she wouldn't have any genetic ties to the child. It wasn't her egg. The couple's embryo was made from an anonymous donor egg and sperm from the intended father, Guo Jun. Kayla began the months-long process of preparing her body to receive the embryo. She posted about the steps on TikTok.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Long story short, guys, we're excited. It's happening. We're already...

• 8:52Madeleine Baran?

  There were medical screenings.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  ...in my life. They know it'll be my name when I walk in. Now, they're like, good morning, Kayla. I'm like, hello, just here for more blood work.

• 9:00Madeleine Baran?

  And rounds of hormone injections.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Wednesday, y'all can do my shots with me. First, I ice, then I find a location.

• 9:09Madeleine Baran?

  These shots came with side effects.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  My hips are bruised and knotted and red and itchy and it's just horrid. But totally a blessing for the IPs, of course.

• 9:25Madeleine Baran?

  After all this, Kayla grew concerned. She hadn't heard directly from the IPs. She sent worried messages to the agency, Mark Surrogacy. She read me a few of them.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  I remember reading their profile beforehand and they said they wanted their surrogate to be a lifelong friend, so I hope for more of that connection. It's sad not being able to talk to them, to be honest. Oh, wow. Yeah, see, I was really like, why am I not talking to them? What's going on? And see, I remember they kept telling me constantly IPs are very busy. That's what they tell me all the time. IPs are very busy, very busy. They're business owners, very busy. That's what they would tell me.

• 10:02Madeleine Baran?

  The coordinators reassured her she would meet the IPs on the day of the embryo transfer, which was scheduled for July 2024. For the procedure, Kayla flew from Corpus Christi to a fertility clinic in LA, where the couple's embryo was stored.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  As an adult, I haven't been on a plane, so this will be quite an experience.

• 10:21Madeleine Baran?

  The transfer was quick, like a pap smear. The doctor threaded a catheter through Kayla's cervix, and then, using a long syringe, gently placed the embryo in her uterus. In the waiting room, Kayla learned that Sylvia wasn't coming. Apparently, she was sick with a stomach bug. Guojun was there, though, looking just like his picture, if maybe a bit older.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  It was almost like relief actually seeing the dad walk in, because I was like, it is him, you know? And so it was kind of like a breath of, ah, breath of relief. It's him, and it's real.

• 10:56Madeleine Baran?

  Guojun presented Kayla with a series of gifts: a bouquet of pink roses, a red envelope stuffed with cash, and a gilded jade bracelet.

• 11:10Madeleine Baran?

  As Guojun fastened the bracelet onto Kayla's wrist, he explained through a translator that the jewelry represented an invitation to join his family.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  I just thought it was the coolest thing, like, oh, you know, they care about me. Like, this is really cool. Like, I felt honored, you know what I mean? That I was receiving this as a gift.

• 11:30Madeleine Baran?

  In a photograph taken that day, Kayla stands beside Guojun. He's petite, dressed like a businessman. She's wearing leggings, the new bracelet. Her neck tattoo peeks out from a yellow crop top hoodie that says Santa Monica. She'd visited the pier that morning. The two of them are smiling, showing off a printout of the ultrasound.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  He's holding a picture of the little, I mean, it's not much to see. It looks like a little grain of rice, but that's the embryo that they, they implanted.

• 12:03Madeleine Baran?

  That embryo stuck. Kayla was pregnant.

• 12:12Madeleine Baran?

  Now that she was caring for the couple, Kayla started receiving installments of her salary. It was good money, more than she'd ever made, around $4,500 a month, plus pregnancy-related expenses. She'd even get an allowance for a house cleaner of her own.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  Like, that's how we moved here. That's how we got my car. Like, there's a lot of things great that came from that to help my family as well.

• 12:36Madeleine Baran?

  Tell me a little bit more about that. What are the kinds of things you were able to start doing, you know?

• 12:39Speaker 00

  Oh, like, just taking the kid, like, I don't say like amusement parks, but stuff like that, you know what I mean? Just places that we normally wouldn't have money to save to go and do. We were able to just, like, not even think about it and just do it. You know what I mean? Which is cool.

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Besides having to pay bills and seeing what we had left. Christmas was awesome for the kids.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, Christmas, we went all out. Like, this money really ultimately went to the kids.

• 13:05Madeleine Baran?

  Surrogacy is difficult work. It requires not only physical fortitude, but a certain emotional rigor. To do a good job, you have to train yourself not to get too attached. At the same time, it's inevitable to be thinking about the living being you're growing. Everything you eat, how much you sleep, how much stress you're under, all of it can affect the baby.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  Hello, TikTok. Kayla here, surrogate, almost 31 weeks.

• 13:35Madeleine Baran?

  As Kayla entered her third trimester, communication with the IPs was still spotty. And now, she was dealing with some medical complications.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  I spent 10 hours in the ER yesterday, and it's just been a nightmare.

• 13:51Madeleine Baran?

  There were migraines that made it impossible for her to stand, and she was having trouble with her vision.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  I'm tired. I don't feel like myself. I can't even go outside because the light hurts my eyes. I'm, I'm just, I'm miserable.

• 14:04Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla was diagnosed with papilledema, which is when excess pressure in the brain causes the optic nerve to swell.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  I kept telling myself, you know, I have four beautiful children, and I want to see them grow up, and I can't lose my eyesight over this.

• 14:20Madeleine Baran?

  A doctor told her the condition could make an epidural risky, so she might need to have an unmedicated labor, a prospect which terrified her.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  Do you have any tips for me for an all-natural, unmedicated birth? Please let me know. This is delivery number five, and I'm, like, totally freaked.

• 14:38Madeleine Baran?

  With her due date approaching, Kayla was trying to stay upbeat.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  I have, at the minimum, at least seven weeks left to bake this little baby, get her all nice and plump for her mom and dad. Bake little baby bake.

• 14:56Madeleine Baran?

  She was scheduled for an induction on March 13th, 2025. That night, as she lay in bed at the hospital in Corpus Christi, waiting for an IV drip to start, Kayla kept making videos.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  All right, guys, we made it. I think Blake's nervous. I'm not nervous. I think you're nervous. No, I think you're nervous. No, I don't think you're nervous. They're about to take us to labor and delivery. To start the process, I'm nervous. But let's get this baby out.

• 15:33Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla had shared the date with the agency, marked "surrogacy" beforehand, so the intended parents would be ready to travel to Texas and take their baby back to LA. But as Kayla started having contractions, Sylvia and Guojun hadn't yet arrived.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  I was getting worried, you know? Like, oh, my gosh, are they coming or what's happening? And really, I was just confused, because it's like, hello, I'm about to have your, your child.

• 15:58Madeleine Baran?

  The labor started in the early afternoon. Around 8 that night, Kayla gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Still, no sign of Guojun or Sylvia. The nurses brought the baby over to Kayla for skin-to-skin contact. Her tiny hand rested on Kayla's tattooed chest. She was a long baby with a shock of black hair tucked beneath a pink and blue beanie, and her mouth was open, as though she'd just been surprised. Kayla was enthralled, though she knew these were probably their last moments together. After an hour, the nurses took the infant away. Later that night, Kayla got a text from Sylvia that she'd made it to the hospital.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  I was almost kind of like, okay, like, someone's there with her, you know, someone that's not just a hospital worker or a nursery worker, you know what I mean? So it felt almost, like, safe at that point, because it was like, okay, I can kind of rest now.

• 16:59Madeleine Baran?

  The next morning, Sylvia came to see Kayla. It was the first time the two women actually met. Sylvia looked frail, and when they hugged, Kayla could feel the bones through her leather jacket. Sylvia showed the same largesse that Guojun had at the embryo transfer, placing $2,000 in cash in Kayla's lap and doling out $100 bills to everyone else in the room: Kayla's mom, Blake, two of Kayla's kids. But when it came to the actual baby, Sylvia seemed a little blasé.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  She didn't really hold the baby much. She didn't really look at the baby. The baby was just kind of laying in the little bassinet thing they roll them around in, you know? She just wasn't very attentive, I guess you could say. It was just very, like, like a nanny picking up a baby or something, you know what I mean? It was, it was so weird.

• 17:59Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia asked Blake and Kayla for a ride to the airport, so they got to see the baby one more time. As they said goodbye, Sylvia handed them $500. And then, the journey was over.

• 18:17Madeleine Baran?

  Back home, Kayla cried for two weeks. She'd mentally prepared herself to give up the child, but it was as if her body had yet to catch up with what her mind already knew. She posted on TikTok.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  It was really hard. And like I said, guys, I'm, I'm not crying, you know, mourning the, the, uh, the baby specifically. I'm mourning the chapter closing, because it was, um, it was an experience for sure, a beautiful one. And, um, it just flew by like so fast. And, um, a lot of my hormones are just like postpartum baby blues kind of thing, but, um, I didn't expect to be this emotional, so it's really just kind of strange to me.

• 19:15Madeleine Baran?

  It helped that Sylvia became somewhat more responsive. She shared with Kayla the baby's name and sent her some videos.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  She was big old cheek.

• 19:24Madeleine Baran?

  Oh my god.

• 19:27Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla showed me one where the baby girl, bright eyed and square faced, is wiggling around in a onesie, patterned with hearts. I haven't seen the pictures of her face up close.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  No.

• 19:42Madeleine Baran?

  As they began to text a little more, Sylvia shared she was in a hurry to have another child and asked Kayla if she would carry for her family again.

• 19:52Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla wasn't sure. She'd only been not pregnant for just a few weeks, and it'd be several months until her body would be ready. And she had another reason to hesitate.

• 20:05Madeleine Baran?

  About halfway through Kayla's pregnancy, she'd heard something weird, though it seemed, at the time, easy enough to explain away.

• 20:15Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla had been scrolling through Facebook when she discovered there was a woman in Pennsylvania who was also carrying a baby for Sylvia and Guojun. This was a surprise. Kayla wasn't aware that the couple had hired another surrogate. The two women started messaging, and the other surrogate told Kayla something else. Like Kayla, she'd been led to believe that the IPs had just one child, when in fact, they already had multiple children.

• 20:45Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla was shocked, but the surrogate in Pennsylvania told her she didn't think the situation was shady, just strange.

• 20:55Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla wrote to the agency, Mark Surrogacy, to express her confusion. A coordinator there told her the couple just wanted a large family, and noted, a little casually, quote, "They definitely don't have a million kids lol."

• 21:12Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla felt uneasy, but it wasn't as though she could just back out. She was already pregnant. The baby was coming, as was the salary. She decided to follow the advice of the couple's other surrogate, who told her they both just had to suck it up and deal.

• 21:30Madeleine Baran?

  But now, two months after Kayla gave birth, the mystery of the intended parents and their many children returned. This time, at a far more alarming scale.

• 21:44Madeleine Baran?

  It began, again, on Facebook. Kayla was added to a group chat by someone who'd seen one of her posts on social media. The chat contained a few more women who'd also been surrogates for Sylvia and Guojun.

• 21:59Madeleine Baran?

  Even stranger, these women had discovered that Mark's surrogacy had been opened by Sylvia. The couple had set up the agency for themselves, and they seemed to be using it to recruit women across the country to have multiple children for them at the same time. The idea the couple just wanted a big family now seemed less plausible. If that was the case, why'd they open their own agency? And why'd they lie to the surrogates about only having one or two kids?

• 22:30Madeleine Baran?

  Some of the women in the group chat formed the suspicion that Sylvia and Guojun might be selling the children. Kayla was horrified. She'd put herself through a grueling experience, all to give strangers the gift of life. Now she felt manipulated, used.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  I was really upset. Like, I was, I was really mad because, um, it was crazy, you know? And it, it just, it was a lot.

• 22:57Madeleine Baran?

  She decided to post again on TikTok. In the video, she shared what she'd been hearing about the couple and their dubious agency. "We don't have the audio of this one." Kayla said she was soon asked to take it down by an FBI agent. But before she removed it, the video went viral.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  So, it blew up. It really, it blew up really quick.

• 23:23Madeleine Baran?

  As Kayla's story made its way around the internet, it was seen by one set of people in particular. The many, many other surrogates who'd also carried for the same couple, each believing they'd been the only one.

• 23:39Speaker 06

  It popped up, my friend sent it to me on TikTok.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  And so I checked my email, and here my attorney had sent us a TikTok. And I'm like, oh, well, why is my attorney sending me TikTok videos?

• 23:49Speaker 06

  She's like, "Look at this." She's all, "Can you imagine?" I go, "I, what do you mean, can I imagine? That's the lady we had the baby for."

• 23:55Speaker 00

  I was like, "Yeah, that's the name in my contract. That's the father in my contract."

• 23:59Speaker 04

  So, already at that point, I'm like, "Oh my god, okay, we're linked."

• 24:06Speaker 02

  And that's what really stopped me in my tracks.

• 24:08Speaker 00

  I started crying. I was like, "What the heck did I just get myself into?"

• 24:24Madeleine Baran?

  That spring and summer, the surrogates for Sylvia and Guojun began to find one another. Under different circumstances, they might have had a little in common. They lived in Virginia, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida, California. They were white, Hispanic, black, Asian, lesbians, aspiring tradwives, military spouses, single moms. Some opposed abortion. One had worked in an abortion clinic. But thrust into the same unnerving situation, they quickly bonded as they tried to figure out what was going on. Some of the surrogates created group chats on Facebook. They started swapping photographs of the same jade bracelets, same envelopes filled with cash,

• 25:09Madeleine Baran?

  and same intended mother, smiling at their bedsides hours after they'd given birth.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  These were pictures, like, of Sylvia in the same exact outfit, the same leather jacket, like, the same outfit to the T. I mean, you just can't say, like, "Oh no, that's not me." Like, it is you, you know what I mean? And it's, like, indisputable evidence.

• 25:31Madeleine Baran?

  For the surrogates, even sharing these details could be risky. Most surrogacy contracts require confidentiality. If the Mark surrogates revealed personal information about the intended parents, they could be forced to repay the money they'd earned, or even be sued. But the risk seemed worth taking. The surrogates worried about the children they'd carried and why the couple had wanted so many of them. They wondered whether they'd been unwitting participants in some kind of dystopian mass breeding scheme, or if they'd carried babies for human traffickers. They started sending tips to the FBI. An FBI agent responded and asked the women questions about their journeys, though the agent wouldn't tell them much in return.

• 26:16Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla was desperate to find out if the newborn she'd carried was okay. For days, she texted and called Sylvia. She was hoping Sylvia might be able to reassure her. Finally, Sylvia called her back. And immediately, Sylvia told Kayla something that made Kayla even more alarmed. She and Guojun had just spent four days in jail. When Kayla heard this, she started recording the call.

• 26:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, they put my husband and me all in the jail.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Oh my goodness.

• 26:51Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia didn't explain exactly why she'd been arrested.

• 26:55Speaker 06

  They, they took me into a jail for days. They took my phone, used my phone to text to everybody. This is so bad, the police officer.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh.

• 27:05Madeleine Baran?

  But she alluded to a police investigation regarding child trafficking.

• 27:10Speaker 06

  So, they say I'm selling the baby. I'm not selling the baby, all the baby is living with me.

• 27:16Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia said, "I'm not selling the baby. The babies were all living with her and Guojun."

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:22Speaker 06

  We spent a lot of money. We want to be the family here.

• 27:27Madeleine Baran?

  "We spent a lot of money," Sylvia told Kayla. "We want to be the family here."

• 27:32Speaker 00

  No, I, I, I believe you. I understand what you're saying. I just was, I was trying to figure out why all these other girls were saying these horrible things.

• 27:42Madeleine Baran?

  The conversation was bizarre. Sylvia spent the first few minutes lamenting that the police had taken away her phone.

• 27:48Speaker 06

  So, they still holding my phone. Don't want to give it to me. They, they also, I have my phone. I don't have a phone to call.

• 27:56Madeleine Baran?

  Kayla remained sympathetic and kept trying to steer the conversation back to the baby she'd carried. Was she safe?

• 28:03Speaker 00

  No, I understand. I believe you. I just, like I said, I was really concerned. And then, of course, you know, I understand that, you know, she, uh, isn't my baby, but still having, you know, giving birth to her and meeting you and caring about you, it's just, I mean...

• 28:18Madeleine Baran?

  It wasn't entirely clear whether Sylvia even knew which of her surrogates she was talking to. At one point, she mentioned what sounded like a different baby, carried by someone else.

• 28:28Speaker 06

  Yeah, I found attorney to, to contact with your, your...

• 28:32Speaker 00

  Uh, to get a baby back. Okay, wait, I think you're confused as to who you're talking to. Because I think, this is Kayla.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, Kayla was helping me to have the baby, right? Yes, yeah, I had the baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

• 28:54Madeleine Baran?

  After a lot of unsatisfying back and forth, Kayla got one clue about the baby. She wasn't with Sylvia. She was with DCFS, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. So Kayla dialed the DCFS hotline, hoping someone official could finally tell her what was going on.

• 29:15Speaker 00

  I called and spoke to a lady, I guess it's the main line, whoever you call. And she basically, I kind of had to haggle with her for a minute because she didn't want to tell me anything. And I said, look, I'm a surrogate. I am the child's birth mom. I gave birth to this baby. And she was like, okay, she said, well, uh, she said, I can't give, you know, any, you know, too much information.

• 29:37Madeleine Baran?

  Child welfare cases in California are confidential. Since Kayla wasn't actually related to the baby, she didn't have the legal right to know anything about her. But by emphasizing her unusual connection to the child, she managed to get herself transferred to two caseworkers.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  And I'm just like pacing back and forth through the house, like absolutely just shocked at what I was hearing.

• 30:00Madeleine Baran?

  This is when Kayla learned the true number of children that the couple had.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  The man, I never got his name, but he said that, yeah, there was like 21 children.

• 30:10Madeleine Baran?

  21 children, most under the age of three.

• 30:14Speaker 00

  And he was saying that it was just the wildest thing ever, that like all these children looked like related but not related, like hair colors were semi-different and eye colors, and some looked more mixed than others. And it was just a really crazy, like, they said they'd never seen anything like that.

• 30:34Madeleine Baran?

  It turned out that Sylvia and Guojun had been jailed on suspicion of child endangerment. The couple had been released without charges, but the police investigation was ongoing. Meanwhile, the children had been taken into temporary foster care. A juvenile dependency court in LA would be looking into the situation to decide whether or not Sylvia and Guojun could get them back.

• 31:02Madeleine Baran?

  This was an overwhelming set of facts for Kayla and the other surrogates to take in. And there wasn't much they could do. Surrogacy in the United States is largely unregulated, a multi-billion dollar industry underwritten by good intentions. It's harder to open a hair salon than it is to open a surrogacy agency. And if something goes wrong at an agency, there's no licensing department to appeal to, no regulatory body to report to, no federal laws govern the intimate act of bringing strangers together to create a new life.

• 31:39Madeleine Baran?

  There is, however, that one universal rule for surrogates. Don't get attached. The marked surrogates had known this from the start of their journeys.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  You tell yourself, like, this, this isn't your child. I mean, and those are things that you should know before even like applying to be a surrogate. Like, this is not your baby. Like, you don't get attached.

• 32:01Madeleine Baran?

  But now, they began to question whether that rule still applied.

• 32:07Madeleine Baran?

  The intended parents had been in jail and were under investigation by police and the FBI. And their children had been placed in foster care. Kayla said if she'd known that this was going to happen to the baby she'd given birth to, she would have never handed her over to Sylvia. She liked to say that she would have fled with her over the border to Mexico. For Kayla, this was just a soothing fantasy. The baby she'd carried was already in the foster system. But that wasn't true for everyone. Because at that very moment, several women were still caring for Sylvia and Guojun. In fact, in May 2025, at the time of the parents' arrest,

• 32:50Madeleine Baran?

  six more babies were still on the way.

• 33:05Madeleine Baran?

  Record your message at the tone. When you are finished, hang up or press pound for more options.

• 33:12Speaker 04

  Yes, Detective, hi, my name is Stacy King. I am currently pregnant in the state of Virginia with a couple's baby. And I'm just trying to see what I can come up with paperwork-wise to protect the baby that will be coming in the next little while. Um, if you could please give me a call back, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

• 33:43Madeleine Baran?

  Stacy King lives in Chesapeake, Virginia, and works at a shop that installs audio accessories.

• 33:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, we do boats, we do cars, we do houses. Um, they even do the little golf carts.

• 33:57Madeleine Baran?

  I met up with her in the shop one afternoon with our producer Natalie Jablonsky. And Stacy led us to her office in the back.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  So I can't guarantee it's going to be quiet.

• 34:06Madeleine Baran?

  Oh, that's okay.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Understood. You might hear bass occasionally.

• 34:10Madeleine Baran?

  Oh, that's great. Stacy is the shop's bookkeeper. She's exceptionally organized. And like Kayla, she was so excited about her surrogacy journey that she documented nearly every step along the way. She and her husband got matching t-shirts. His read, "It's not mine." Hers, "It's not mine either." She was nearly four months away from giving birth to a baby girl for Sylvia and Guojun when she first heard about the other women. She'd come across a warning posted on Facebook by a surrogate who'd seen Kayla's TikTok.

• 34:43Speaker 04

  I freaked out. I was at home. Um, my husband was in the shower. Um, I was trying to read through it. And I can feel like my heart rate speeding up and time slowing down.

• 34:59Madeleine Baran?

  It was as if she'd taken a fast-acting drug.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  And it's already, like, it was already starting to take effect at that point of figuring out, holy crap, this is real.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  And I, my daughter coming up to me, mommy, mommy. And I'm trying to pay attention to her, but read this at the same time.

• 35:25Madeleine Baran?

  She wasn't sure what to do. So she contacted the lawyer who'd reviewed her surrogacy contract.

• 35:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, I emailed him, he emailed me that evening. What does your email first say? Uh, scared spitless. What do I do?

• 35:39Madeleine Baran?

  It read, scared spitless. What do I do? The lawyer didn't seem too concerned. Basically, he said, as long as she was still getting paid and as long as the pregnancy was going smoothly, she should keep calm and carry on. She eventually talked to other lawyers, who told her the same thing. She should follow the terms of her contract, which meant staying in touch with the intended parents and handing over the baby as soon as she was born. What are the thoughts going through your head in terms of what's going to happen to, to baby girl?

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Um, this is a lot. There was a whole lot. I just wanted her, I wanted to be safe. I wanted her to be safe. Um, my next thought was just trying to make sure she came out healthy.

• 36:29Madeleine Baran?

  Stacy panicked, and then she felt guilty for panicking. She didn't want to cause any stress to the baby.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  There were days where I couldn't come to work. Like, I had to call in and say, like, look, this is what I've hit. I can't come in today.

• 36:44Madeleine Baran?

  She had so many questions. Would Sylvia and Guojun still be allowed to come to Virginia to pick up the baby if they were under investigation? And even if Stacy could hand the baby over to them, would it be the right thing to do? Stacy joined one of the group chats made up of surrogates who'd carried for the couple. One of them had delivered a baby girl the same weekend that Sylvia and Guojun had spent in jail. That surrogate was still recovering from a C-section when her county's Child Welfare Agency took the newborn away.

• 37:17Madeleine Baran?

  Stacy wanted to find out whether there was anything she could do to intervene before it was too late. Record your message at the tone. When you are finished, hang up or press. She started calling around to all the authorities she could think of.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Yes, Detective, hi, my name is Stacy King. Uh, yes, hi, my name is Stacy King. I'm almost 38 weeks pregnant. And I'm just trying to see what I can. I just, I need some advice. And she referred me to you guys.

• 37:51Madeleine Baran?

  Press nine to continue.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  Good morning, Stacy. I'm a victim specialist with FBI LA. If you would, give me a call. Hi, Ms. King, this is Anthony, Los Angeles County DCFS. Chesapeake CPS. Could you please give me a call back?

• 38:06Madeleine Baran?

  As soon as possible. Thank you.

• 38:11Madeleine Baran?

  Just going through these and just thinking about the number of agencies too you're dealing with. It's so many different entities from the law firm, from the LA Social Services, Virginia Social Services, FBI, local police, I mean.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  I even tried calling and talking to people in the foster care system, trying to figure out how to become a foster parent to her.

• 38:31Madeleine Baran?

  Stacy wasn't even sure if that would be legal. In states like California, the courts are explicit that gestational surrogates don't have any claim to the children they're carrying. If a surrogate could change her mind at any point in the process, then the contract she'd signed would be meaningless. It's not difficult to see how introducing ambiguity into these kinds of transactions could lead the surrogacy industry to collapse.

• 38:59Madeleine Baran?

  None of the couple's surrogates had gone into this line of work because they'd wanted another kid of their own. If anything, the opposite was true. Kayla had had her tubes tied. Stacy had that "it's not mine" t-shirt. But now, many of the surrogates were raising questions about their contracts. They were wondering about their custody rights. And in doing so, they were unintentionally putting the industry to an unprecedented test.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  We ended up calling Children in Youth and explaining it to them really early on back in June or July.

• 39:36Madeleine Baran?

  Alexa Fossil was a long-distance bus driver in central Pennsylvania. She was due around the same time as Stacy, in October 2025, and she had a lot of the same questions.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  And everybody kept telling us the answer of, "There's no baby yet, so we can't help you." And so I was like, "Oh, okay. Like, so what does that mean? Like, you're gonna wait till the day I give birth to step in and help us? Like, what does that mean for us? Like, am I gonna have to take the baby home and then call Children in Youth afterwards?"

• 40:11Madeleine Baran?

  Making things even trickier was the fact that it's difficult to report concerns to a child welfare agency about a child that doesn't yet exist. Alexa told me she kept being asked for the child's date of birth, which was obviously impossible to provide.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  They didn't know what to tell us because there was no baby yet. They're like, "Well, are you like reporting, are you reporting yourself?" Like, it was really confusing to them.

• 40:37Madeleine Baran?

  Stacy, Alexa, and the other pregnant surrogates made dozens of calls like this, trying to figure out what to do. Mostly what they learned was that, at least for now, they were completely on their own. All they had was one another. They woke up messaging the group chat and went to sleep the same way. They traded notes on their doctor's appointments, sent each other ultrasound photos. They still weren't sure what would happen when they gave birth, if they'd even be allowed to bring the babies home. But tentatively, the women started to get ready. They texted about baby fever and how their "inner mama bears" were coming out in, quote, "full effing force."

• 41:19Madeleine Baran?

  Joked about buying land for a commune where they could collectively babysit. They traded advice on breast pumps, knit baby blankets, collected baby clothes. Even as they made these backup plans in secret, they stayed in touch with the intended parents, as required by their contracts. They shared screenshots of their ongoing communications with Sylvia. It was now a little funny when Sylvia mixed up their names, or mailed them identical tins of mooncakes, or sent them the same texts at the same time. "You're doing an amazing job," one of the messages said. "I am reaching out in the hope that I might have the opportunity to visit you," said another.

• 42:00Madeleine Baran?

  As part of this charm offensive, Sylvia also called some of the pregnant surrogates. Stacy was two months away from delivering and decided to record their conversation.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  So I don't need a cell baby to keep it alive, you know?

• 42:15Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia sounded calm, even as she defended herself against some of the rumors Stacy might have heard.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  They just want to, I'm not sure why they say I'm a human trafficking. And I told my, all my story to my attorney, several attorney, they say there's nothing looks like you have a criminal case here. So they are going to contact with a detective to find out what's going on. Okay. It's been a lot, Tom.

• 42:50Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia offered to fly to Stacy's house to explain herself in person.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  Even I think I should fly to your place to tell you the stories. I'm not a bad person. We're working super hard to keep our life. And we just want to have a family.

• 43:12Madeleine Baran?

  "I'm not a bad person," she said. "We just want to have a family."

• 43:17Speaker 04

  I know you guys work, so like I've tried not to bother you too much. And, but like, honestly, it's scary for us, or for me too. Because like, when they said you guys had more than one child, that kind of caught me off guard. Because I only thought you had one child.

• 43:41Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia said she never tried to cheat anyone, and it sounds like Stacy is longing to believe her.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  We're praying. It's like, maybe it's just a misunderstanding, you know? We've got to let the law and the courts do what they're supposed to.

• 43:56Madeleine Baran?

  You can hear Stacy trying to imagine what a mother separated from her children must be going through.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  It's heartbreaking to even think about losing, you know, losing your kids, let alone someone coming in and taking them. So my heart goes out to you. I know you're not doing well.

• 44:16Madeleine Baran?

  Sylvia told her the arrest in May was a big mix-up. She insisted she was a good mother. She'd done a good job raising her children.

• 44:25Speaker 04

  Someday, maybe I can invite you to my house. I can buy the ticket for you. You can see my child. They are really healthy and they are friendly. They're helping each other. They are independent.

• 44:42Madeleine Baran?

  "They're helping each other. They're independent," she said.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  They know put the trash to the trash can. They know how to take the shoes out, clothes out. Some of the children know how to put the clothes to the washer. Then they're eating well, sleeping well. I follow my doctor's appointment.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  I think I'm doing pretty good for the child. And we can, sometimes I bring them to go out to play.

• 45:18Madeleine Baran?

  The household Sylvia was describing sounded a bit austere. Little kids who knew how to throw away trash, put their clothes in the washing machine, and who sometimes were taken outside to play. Still, Stacy hoped for a connection, and she and Sylvia went on for a few minutes, trading notes about being mothers, about homeschooling and juggling work. Throughout the conversation, Sylvia seemed like she was confiding in Stacy.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  I never talk with anyone. You are the only person I talk with. The story, trust me, yeah. I don't want you to tell anybody the stories. Yeah, I might share it with my husband, if that's okay.

• 46:06Madeleine Baran?

  "That's okay," Sylvia said. "Just don't talk to reporters."

• 46:10Speaker 04

  I don't want some news reporter know the court process. I don't want anybody to report anything.

• 46:19Madeleine Baran?

  "I don't want anybody to report anything."

• 46:23Madeleine Baran?

  But in early August, not long after that phone call, there was more reporting. New at five, disturbing details in police records as Arcadia. Local news outlets obtained a copy of the police affidavit from the parents' arrest. Suddenly, Stacy and the surrogates had a clearer picture of why Sylvia and Guojun had ended up in jail and why all their kids had been taken away. We do have to warn you, the details and images in these documents are graphic.

• 46:54Madeleine Baran?

  According to the police, this had all started one morning three months earlier, when officers showed up at Sylvia and Guojun's house. They had just gotten a call from a nearby hospital. One of the couple's babies, who was two months old, had been admitted to the intensive care unit with severe head injuries, and doctors were concerned that he might have been abused. So detectives went to check out the baby's home address, a 10,000-square-foot mansion in the city of Arcadia. Inside, the police wondered if they'd entered some sort of unlicensed daycare. There were rooms filled with cribs, and at least a dozen toddlers and infants seated at desks and high chairs inside makeshift classrooms.

• 47:38Madeleine Baran?

  It was impossible to tell the girls and boys apart, since all the children had their head shaved. Police also noticed CCTV cameras everywhere, recording audio and video. On one tape, a nanny named Chunmei Li appeared to hit the two-month-old child who'd ended up in the hospital.

• 47:58Madeleine Baran?

  Arcadia police say security cameras inside this home show Li placing him down out of camera sight while he.

• 48:06Speaker 06

  Be heard crying. The baby cries for a few seconds until a thud or a hit is heard and crying suddenly stops.

• 48:15Madeleine Baran?

  This wasn't the only child who'd allegedly been abused. The footage also showed nannies forcing other children into squats, hitting them in the face and spanking them on a table at the front of the classroom. There were so many hours of video, police were still going through it.

• 48:32Speaker 06

  Police say while Sylvia Zhang and Guo Jun Chen were arrested and released, their investigation into them and what went on inside this home continues.

• 48:43Madeleine Baran?

  When we reached out to Sylvia and Guo Jun for comment on the series, one of their legal representatives told us he'd instructed the couple not to respond. But the couple is previously denied abusing any of their children or trafficking them. And one of their lawyers has told me the couple had done everything they could to protect their family. After seeing the images from inside the house, Stacy made a decision.

• 49:13Speaker 04

  So, yeah, there is a switch. And it was around the, I want to say, the August timeframe. The switch did definitely flip. Like, you know what? Let's start preparing to possibly bring her home.

• 49:34Madeleine Baran?

  It was a decision that, months ago, would have seemed unthinkable, even irrational. It would mean taking a huge legal risk, and it would mean getting attached.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  No, we're not biologically related, but, okay, even at that point, everything I eat, my blood, everything else of me goes into her to help her be better. So she is a part of me at that point. And then Mama Bear comes out, and no, she's not mine. But you want to protect a child, an innocent being that you are carrying.

• 50:16Madeleine Baran?

  Stacy's two children embraced the idea of adding a new sibling to their home.

• 50:20Speaker 04

  They would listen to me put the monitor on my stomach, and they could hear her heartbeat. And they would get so excited that they could hear her heartbeat and they would talk to her.

• 50:32Madeleine Baran?

  Her son raced cars on her stomach. Her daughter sang to the baby.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  So, like, there was a point there where we were calling her sissy. Because we were, you know, considering further on into the pregnancy of keeping her.

• 50:50Madeleine Baran?

  Stacy was due in less than two months.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Like, every bone in our bodies was to protect this child. And if we could keep her, we would.

• 51:06Madeleine Baran?

  Coming up on The Journey. Everybody always goes back to the same thing. Mihha, how is it that the agency didn't know?

• 51:16Speaker 00

  Everybody always asks me that. Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp. She wanted to have a lot of surrogates at one time. We're here because we love families.

• 51:30Speaker 06

  We want families to grow. And then he pulled out a gun. And, I mean, there was kind of like a standoff. The sheriffs came. It's patently false that my client incited any sort of abuse of the child. He doesn't believe in abusing children.

• 51:44Madeleine Baran?

  He actually believes in enriching them and giving them the best opportunities to succeed. I was curious what you make of that decision, just given the fact pattern so far. That's insane. That is fucking insane. I mean, we're at insane already. I'm keep going, but, I mean, we're at insane. I don't know what the next word will be. I'll have to go check my theusaurus or something.

• 52:24Madeleine Baran?

  The Journey is written and produced by me, Eva Kaufman, senior producer Natalie Jablonski, and producer Raymond Tungakar. Samara Freemark is the managing producer for the series. It's edited by Alison McAdam. Additional editing by Willing Davidson and Madeline Barron. Theme and original music by Alex Weston. Additional music by Chris Julin and Alison Leighton-Brown. This episode was mixed by Corey Shreppel. Our art is by Vartika Sharma. Art direction by Aviva Mike Love and Ben Koffey. Fact checking by Enwell Shuh and Aman Husein. Our summer research assistant is Ethan Khan.

• 53:08Madeleine Baran?

  Legal review by Fabio Bertoni and Ben Murray. Our managing editor is Julia Rothschild, with additional support from Kiara Ortiz. Thanks also to Parker Yesko. The editor of The New Yorker is David Remnick. If you have comments or story tips, please send them to theteam@[email protected]. And make sure to follow In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts.