Surrogate delivers second child to family

November 18, 2004 BY JIM RITTER Health Reporter

Two years ago, surrogate mother Melissa Bolton of Grayslake gave birth to a baby boy for another couple she met on the Internet.

It worked out so well she agreed to do it again. On Tuesday, Bolton gave birth to a second baby at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.

Claire Melissa weighs 9 pounds, 6 ounces and is in excellent health. The biological parents, Dave and Kelly Nesemann, said Claire's middle name is in honor of her surrogate mom.

"I'm very honored," Melissa Bolton said.

No one keeps statistics, but it's not unusual for surrogate moms to give birth to more than one child for the same family, said Joanne Bubrick of the Center for Surrogate Parenting.

"It makes for a nice history for the children," Bubrick said.

Kelly Nesemann, 38, can't bear children because she had cervical cancer and a hysterectomy when she was in her 20s. However, she still has her ovaries.

Woman enjoys being pregnant

The Nesemanns, who live in Menomonee Falls, Wis., found Bolton through an ad they placed on Surrogate Mothers Online.

"We didn't want someone who wanted to do it just for the money," Kelly Nesemann said. "We wanted someone who wanted to help somebody else."

Bubrick said surrogate moms typically are paid between $20,000 and $25,000. However, the Nesemanns and Boltons declined to discuss their financial arrangement.

Bolton, 30, and her husband, Darin, already had two sons and felt their family was complete when Melissa agreed to become a surrogate. She became pregnant through in vitro fertilization at Advanced Institute of Fertility, with the Nesemanns contributing the egg and sperm.

Bolton said she wanted to help the Nesemanns have a family. And she enjoys being pregnant, despite the first trimester fatigue and nausea. She said she especially likes "the whole miracle of having something growing inside. I enjoy having a baby moving around."

Yet, Bolton never developed an attachment. "You have the mind- set that the baby is not yours," she said.

The Nesemanns' first baby, Alex, was born Oct. 18, 2002, at Northwest Community, and afterward, the two couples remained close.

"It was completely beyond my expectations," Melissa Bolton said. "I made two new friends, and I know we'll be friends for a very long time."

Obvious choice

The Nesemanns wanted a second child to complete their family, and Bolton was the obvious choice to be their surrogate again.

During the pregnancy, Kelly Nesemann accompanied Bolton on all her checkups. And when Bolton delivered, the Nesemanns were with her in the delivery room, along with her husband.

It doesn't bother Kelly Nesemann that she did not give birth to her babies. She reasons that she doesn't have to carry children in order to rear them.

Bolton's pregnancy was a "gestational surrogacy," meaning she is not the biological mother. Gestational surrogacy is becoming more common than traditional surrogacy, in which the surrogate mother is artificially inseminated and becomes the biological mother, Bubrick said.