Sleepy Bridget crawls onto her mother's lap. Dylan goes
for plastic toys on the high chair. Christopher -- well, Christopher
decides to flirt with me.
Marcy and Rick Fetherston have three beautiful children.
But the 18-month-olds who were the center of attention in the
couple's Lake Stevens home last week aren't the Fetherston kids. The
triplets belong to Colleen and David Maier, who were here from
Philadelphia visiting dear friends.
The Fetherston kids are Casey, 14; Hannah, 10; and Tatum, 8.
Got that? Good. It gets more involved.
There's a bond here, but it's invisible in this friendly domestic
scene.
Marcy Fetherston, 38, served as a gestational surrogate for the
Maiers, who were unable to conceive a baby. Fetherston carried and
gave birth to the toddlers who were running around her living room
Wednesday.
The triplets are Maiers in every sense. They were born of
Colleen's eggs and David's sperm.
I wrote about the science and the legalities that brought these
families together after the babies were born at Philadelphia's
Pennsylvania Hospital on New Year's Eve 2001. Revisiting them, I saw
that medicine and the law no longer matter.
"We don't know where one family ends and the other begins," Marcy
Fetherston said.
They began as strangers with a common interest in surrogacy.
Long before she married, Fetherston thought about helping another
woman become a mother. She shared that dream more than 15 years ago
with husband-to-be Rick, now a SeaTac city firefighter.
Would most men be so understanding? He only wanted to have their
own children first.
On the East Coast, the Maiers were married 10 years before their
first child was born. Colleen's sister carried MaryKate Maier, now
6, in what was a difficult pregnancy. The Maiers longed for a larger
family.
The women connected on a surrogate motherhood Web site.
"I'm always worried about the negative spin put on surrogacy,"
said 39-year-old Colleen Maier. "It's been described as 'my car and
your garage' or 'my cookies and your oven.' "
Certainly, it's more complex than that.
The Maier embryos were created at the Cooper Center for In-Vitro
Fertilization in Marlton, N.J., and transferred into Fetherston's
womb. The pregnancy beat odds, according to Dr. Jung Choe, program
director of the Cooper Center.
Choe said in 2002 that while the chance of a single pregnancy was
as high as 60 percent, with age and other factors the chance of all
three embryos taking was about 5 percent.
Seattle attorney Mark Demaray helped with the contract.
Pennsylvania law puts biological parents' names on birth
certificates, one reason the babies were born there. In Washington,
court action is required.
Had the triplets been born here, the Maiers would have had to
adopt their own babies, according to Demaray, whose expertise is
adoption law.
In the 1980s, the high-profile case of "Baby M" cast a cloud on
surrogacy. Mary Beth Whitehead, both the surrogate and biological
mother, sued William and Elizabeth Stern, the baby's father and his
wife. Whitehead won visitation rights.
Since the Maier babies were born, the families have no further
legal arrangement. And no one got rich except, as Casey Fetherston
says, "rich with love -- we get a whole other family."
While states such as California allow for-profit deals, a 1989
Washington law bans any person or agency from arranging a surrogate
parent contract for compensation. The state law allows payment for
health care and travel.
Medical procedures can cost $6,000 to $15,000. The Maiers don't
say how much they spent. David Maier is a mechanic, his wife is a
nurse.
Their spending has just begun. Back home, they have a new Ford
van big enough to fit four kids and a triplet stroller.
Who was there to go car shopping? The Fetherstons, who have made
several trips to Philadelphia. They were there, too, for the
christening and the babies' first birthdays.
"We are very lucky. It's a small percentage of surrogates who
ever have one big happy family," Marcy Fetherston said. Although she
considers herself "retired," she chats online with other surrogates.
"Most haven't seen the babies since birth. All our kids play
together," Fetherston said.
Her friend Colleen Maier -- there must be a stronger word than
friend for what they share -- finished the thought, "We're very
blessed."
Casey Fetherston has heard people say of surrogacy, "Why would
you do it?" Looking at the three tykes who came to liven up his
summer, the 14-year-old answered, "Why wouldn't you?"
Oh, and he doesn't necessarily think his mom is retired from
childbearing.
"I want a brother," he said.
