Introducing: “The Journey,” from In the Dark

“The Journey,” an audio investigation hosted by the New Yorker staff writer Ava Kofman, unravels the mystery of how Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, a wealthy Los Angeles couple, obtained dozens of children through nearly as many surrogates—and exposes a scandal that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry. In Episode 1, "Gifts," a woman in Texas agrees to carry a child for the couple. She thinks she’s helping a family in need. Then, she becomes a whistleblower. In the Dark is an acclaimed investigative-journalism podcast that launched in 2016. Its third season won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for audio. To keep listening to "The Journey," search for In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Hey, everyone. This is Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. You know what you believe. Maybe your faith is at the center of your life. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Maybe religion just isn't your thing. Those choices are personal, and in America, they should stay personal. That's why Americans United for Separation of Church and State is fighting for something that affects all of us. The freedom to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Because religious freedom isn't just about protecting your right to practice or not. And it surely isn't about having one forced government sanctioned religion. It's about protecting your right to say, this is what I believe, while your neighbor

• 0:44Speaker 00

  says, I believe something completely different. And honestly, that's the whole point. If that sounds like the kind of America you want, learn more at au.org/gettingbetter. Because your beliefs are yours, and theirs are theirs.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now. Hello, everyone. It's Sabrina from Two Girls, One Ghost. I am so excited to share a new series from the award-winning team behind In the Dark, The New Yorker's investigative podcast. The Journey, an audio investigation hosted by the staff writer Ava Kaufman, explores

• 1:45Speaker 01

  how a wealthy Los Angeles couple obtained dozens of children through nearly as many surrogates, and uncovers a scandal that could have far-reaching consequences for the entire surrogacy industry. And right now, we have episode one for you to listen to, so be sure to listen and then follow In the Dark wherever you listen to podcasts. Take a listen to episode one. It's so good.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  All righty, 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...

• 2:29Speaker 01

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

• 2:35Speaker 02

  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.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  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.

• 3:03Speaker 02

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

• 3:10Speaker 01

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

• 3:18Speaker 01

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

• 3:28Speaker 02

  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...

• 3:48Speaker 01

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

• 3:55Speaker 02

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

• 4:09Speaker 01

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

• 4:17Speaker 03

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

• 4:20Speaker 04

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

• 4:25Speaker 02

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

• 4:32Speaker 05

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

• 4:40Speaker 01

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

• 4:48Speaker 05

  And now to a bizarre story in the San Gabriel Valley.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  The first thought that went into my head is, oh, my God. Like, what don't we know? This is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard. Kayla would be swept up into a much larger scandal, one that's still unfolding, and that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry. There's clearly a loophole in relation to surrogacy. That's not a loophole. That's surrogacy as designed. The scandal would raise uncomfortable questions about who gets to be a parent. I'm really afraid that people who have no other way to have a family, this will be taken away from them. And it would prompt investigations by child welfare and law enforcement agencies.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  For all intents and purposes, she's kidnapped their child. That's what she's done. The Bureau refused to comment on the case, but Arcadia Police confirmed that their detectives are working with the FBI.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  We believe that it extended beyond our city and into possibly other parts of the country, and maybe internationally.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  I'm Ava Kaufman, an investigative reporter at The New Yorker. From In the Dark and The New Yorker, this is The Journey. Episode One, Gifts.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Hey, good to meet you.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Ava.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Pleasure.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  I'm trying to dig up information for you on my old feed.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  No rush.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Hi. Thanks for having me.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm present.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Kind of crazy here. I'm sorry.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  All good.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get my kids settled over there, eating with their movies, so that they're not...

• 6:34Speaker 01

  There's no rush.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  So where do you live at? You live in New York?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  I live in Los Angeles.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Oh, Los Angeles. Okay, so you live... Oh, so you live right in the heart.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  I live 20 minutes from their house.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Of all this crazy stuff.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's how I got onto this story. This is my local news, you know? 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.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Diego. Hey, this is Diego from France.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  He's our quarantine student. Yeah, 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.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  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?

• 7:46Speaker 02

  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?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  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.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  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.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  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?

• 9:05Speaker 02

  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.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  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?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  The intended parents' names were Guojun Xuan and Silvia 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.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  "It would be an honor," they had written, "if you carry the baby for us."

• 10:30Speaker 01

  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, Guojun.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Kayla began the months-long process of preparing her body to receive the embryo. She posted about the steps on TikTok.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Long story short, guys, we're excited it's happening.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  There were medical screenings.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  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."

• 11:09Speaker 01

  And rounds of hormone injections.

• 11:10Speaker 02

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

• 11:18Speaker 01

  These shots came with side effects.

• 11:19Speaker 02

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

• 11:34Speaker 01

  After all this, Kayla grew concerned. She hadn't heard directly from the IPs.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  She sent worried messages to the agency, Mark's Surrogacy. She read me a few of them.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  I remember reading their profile beforehand and they said they wanted their surrogates to be lifelong friends. 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.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 12:26Speaker 02

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

• 12:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  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.

• 13:06Speaker 01

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

• 13:19Speaker 01

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

• 13:29Speaker 02

  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.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  The two of them are smiling, showing off a printout of the ultrasound.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  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 implanted.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  That embryo stuck. Kayla was pregnant.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  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.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  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.

• 14:45Speaker 01

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

• 14:48Speaker 02

  You know? 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.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Besides paying bills and seeing what we had left. Christmas was awesome for the kids.

• 15:06Speaker 02

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

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Surrogacy is difficult work. It requires not only physical fortitude, but a certain emotional rigor.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:39Speaker 02

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

• 15:44Speaker 01

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

• 15:53Speaker 02

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

• 16:00Speaker 01

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

• 16:05Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:13Speaker 01

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

• 16:20Speaker 02

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

• 16:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  If 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.

• 16:47Speaker 01

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

• 16:51Speaker 02

  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.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  Bake little baby bake.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  She was scheduled for an induction on March 13, 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.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  All right, guys, we made it. I think Blake's nervous.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  I'm not nervous. I think you're nervous.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  No, I think you're nervous.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  No, I think you're nervous.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  They're about to take us to labor and delivery. To start the process, I'm nervous.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  But let's get this baby out.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Kayla had shared the date with the agency, Mark's 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.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Later that night, Kayla got a text from Sylvia that she made it to the hospital.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  I was almost kind of like, okay, like, someone's there with. 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.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  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 large ass 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.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  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.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 20:40Speaker 02

  It was really hard.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  And like I said, guys, I'm not crying, you know, mourning the, the, the baby specifically. I'm mourning the chapter closing because it was,

• 20:56Speaker 02

  it was an experience for sure, a beautiful one. And it just flew by like so fast. And a lot of my hormones are just like postpartum baby blues kind of thing. But I didn't expect to be this emotional. So it's really just kind of strange to me.

• 21:25Speaker 01

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

• 21:32Speaker 02

  She was big old cheek. Oh, my God.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Kayla showed me one where the baby girl, bright eyed and square faced, is wiggling around in a onesie patterned with hearts.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  I haven't seen the pictures of her face up close. Oh.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  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. 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.

• 22:15Speaker 01

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

• 22:54Speaker 01

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

• 23:04Speaker 01

  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."

• 23:22Speaker 01

  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.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  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?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:55Speaker 02

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

• 25:07Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:26Speaker 02

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

• 25:32Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:48Speaker 03

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

• 25:51Speaker 04

  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?

• 25:58Speaker 03

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

• 26:05Speaker 01

  I was like, yeah, that's the name in my contract. That's the father in my contract. So already at that point, I'm like, oh, my God. Okay, we're linked.

• 26:15Speaker 04

  And that's what really stopped me in my tracks. I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?

• 26:33Speaker 01

  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,

• 27:16Speaker 01

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

• 27:24Speaker 02

  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.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  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.

• 28:54Speaker 02

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

• 29:00Speaker 01

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

• 29:04Speaker 02

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

• 29:14Speaker 01

  But she alluded to a police investigation regarding child trafficking.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  So they say I'm sending the baby. I'm not sending the baby. All the baby living with me.

• 29:25Speaker 01

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

• 29:30Speaker 02

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

• 29:36Speaker 01

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

• 29:41Speaker 02

  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.

• 29:51Speaker 01

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

• 29:57Speaker 02

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

• 30:05Speaker 01

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

• 30:12Speaker 02

  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 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.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  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.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I found a turning to to contact with your your state to get the baby back. Okay, wait, I think you're confused as to who you're talking to. Because I think this is Kayla.

• 30:53Speaker 02

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

• 31:03Speaker 01

  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.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  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 childbirth mom. I gave birth to this baby. And she was like, okay, she said, well, she said, I can't give, you know, any, you know, too much information.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  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.

• 32:02Speaker 02

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

• 32:09Speaker 01

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

• 32:14Speaker 02

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

• 32:20Speaker 01

  21 children, most under the age of three.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  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.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  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.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  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.

• 34:10Speaker 01

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

• 34:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  For Kayla, this was just a soothing fantasy.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  The baby she'd carried was already in the foster system.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  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, six more babies were still on the way.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  Record your message at the tone. When you are finished, hang up or press pound for more options. 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 that will be coming in the next little while. If you could please give me a call back, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

• 35:52Speaker 01

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

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, we do boats, we do cars, we do houses.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  They even do the little golf carts.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  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.

• 36:13Speaker 04

  So I can't guarantee it's going to be quiet. Oh, that's okay. Understood. You might hear bass occasionally.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  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.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  I freaked out. I was at home.

• 36:56Speaker 04

  My husband was in the shower. I was trying to read through it and I can feel like my heart rate speeding up and time slowing down.

• 37:09Speaker 01

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

• 37:12Speaker 04

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

• 37:23Speaker 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.

• 37:34Speaker 01

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

• 37:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I emailed him, he emailed me that evening.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  What does your email first say?

• 37:45Speaker 04

  Uh, scared spitless. What do I do?

• 37:49Speaker 01

  It read scared spitless. What do I do?

• 37:53Speaker 01

  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?

• 38:21Speaker 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.

• 38:38Speaker 01

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

• 38:44Speaker 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.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  She had so many questions. Would Sylvia and Guojin 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 Guojin had spent in jail. That surrogate was still recovering from a C-section when her county's child welfare agency took the newborn away.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  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.

• 39:42Speaker 04

  Yes, Detective. Hi, my name is Stacy King. Uh, yes, hi. My name is Stacy King. I, I'm almost thirty eight 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.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Press nine to continue.

• 40:04Speaker 04

  Good morning, Stacy. I'm a victim specialist with FBI LA. Um, if you would, give me a call.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Uh, hi, Ms. King. This is Anthony, uh, Los Angeles County DCFS Social Worker. Could you please give me a call back as soon as possible? Thank you.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  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.

• 40:32Speaker 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.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  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.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 41:38Speaker 04

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

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Alexa Fossold 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.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  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, wait, like, what does that mean? Like, you're gonna wait till the day I give birth to step in and help us? Like, what, what does that mean for us? Like, am I gonna have to take the baby home and then, and then call Children in Youth afterwards?

• 42:20Speaker 01

  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.

• 42:35Speaker 04

  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's like, it was, it was really confusing to them.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  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, done 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.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  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.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  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. So I don't need a cell baby to keep it alive, you know? Sylvia sounded calm, even as she defended herself against some of the rumors Stacy might have heard. 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.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  Okay. It's, it's, it's, it's been a, a lot, um.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Sylvia offered to fly to Stacy's house to explain herself in person. Even I think I should fly to your place to tell you the stories. Uh, I'm not a bad person. We, we are working super hard to keep our life. And keep, we just want to have a family. "I'm not a bad person," she said. "We just want to have a family."

• 45:26Speaker 04

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

• 45:50Speaker 01

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

• 45:56Speaker 04

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

• 46:06Speaker 01

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

• 46:11Speaker 04

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

• 46:25Speaker 01

  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. Someday, maybe I can invite you to my house and come by the, um, ticket for you. You can see my child. They are really healthy and they are friendly. They're helping each other. They are, they are independent. They're helping each other. They're independent, she said. They know, uh, put the trash to the trash can. They know how to take the shoes out, clothes out. Some of the child, you know, how to put the clothes to the washer.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Then they, they eating well, sleeping well. I following the doctor's appointment. Um, um, I, I think I'm doing pretty good for the child. And we can, sometimes I bring them to go out to play.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  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. I never talk with anyone. You are the only person I talk with. The story, trust me, yeah. Uh, I don't want to, you tell anybody the stories.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, I, I, I might share it with my husband if, if that's okay.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  "That's okay," Sylvia said. "Just don't talk to reporters." I don't want some news reporter know my, know the, the. I don't want anybody to report anything. I don't want anybody to report anything.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  But in early August, not long after that phone call, there was more reporting.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  New at five, disturbing details in police records as Arcadia.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  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 kits had been taken away.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  We do have to warn you, the details and images in these documents are graphic.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  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.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  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. 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.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Arcadia police say security cameras inside this home show Li placing him down out of camera sight while he can be heard crying. The baby cries for a few seconds until a thud or a hit is heard, and crying suddenly stops.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  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.

• 50:42Speaker 00

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

• 50:54Speaker 01

  When we reached out to Sylvia and Guojun 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.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  After seeing the images from inside the house, Stacy made a decision. So, yeah, there is a switch. And it was around the, I want to say, the August timeframe.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  The switch did definitely flip. Like, you know what? Let's start preparing to possibly bring her home. 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.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  No, we're not biologically related. But, okay, even at that point,

• 52:05Speaker 01

  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.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Stacy's two children embraced the idea of adding a new sibling to their home. 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. Her son raced cars on her stomach. Her daughter sang to the baby. 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.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Stacy was due in less than two months. Like, every bone in our bodies was to protect this child. And if we could keep her, we would.

• 53:15Speaker 01

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

• 53:26Speaker 02

  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.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  We're here because we love families. 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.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  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 thesaurus or something.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  The Journey is written and produced by me, Eva Kaufman, senior producer Natalie Jablonsky, 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.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Theme and original music by Alex Weston. Additional music by Chris Julin and Alison Leighton Brown. This episode was mixed by Corey Shrupple. Our art is by Vartika Sharma. Art direction by Aviva Miklov and Ben Kofi. Fact checking by Enwell Shuh and Aman Hussain. Our summer research assistant is Ethan Khan. 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.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  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.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode as much as Karin and I did, go make sure to follow In the Dark to hear the rest of the series wherever you get your podcasts. When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.