SPECIAL BONDS
Unusual Relationships Develop When Mom Is a Surrogate
By SUSAN CAMPBELL  April 27, 2004
The Ledger Online

New parents Tony and Lisa Velardo are sobbing at an entrance to sprawling Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. They're watching a Toyota Corolla pull from the curb, carrying Joy Murray, a 37-year- old wise-cracking, gentle woman who is their child's surrogate mother.

It has been a yearlong ride of doctor's appointments, frantic e-mails and extended long-distance phone calls from the Velardo home in Middleton, Mass., to Murray's in Wallingford, Conn. And now the Velardos hold their son, Dylan, a dark-skinned baby with a head full of black hair.

Already, they miss Joy.

Commercial surrogacy has been in this country since the 1970s, but there aren't words yet -- or sometimes emotions -- to define the relationships that grow around the pregnancies. It's difficult to know how many surrogacies occur in the country each year; many of them are still privately arranged, between family members, but there are roughly 100 surrogacy agencies.

In traditional surrogacies, the surrogate mother provides the egg, and the intended father, or a donor, provides the sperm. Those arrangements sometimes go awry, as in the famous Baby M case in which the surrogate mother refused to give up the child; in 1988, the New Jersey Supreme Court awarded custody to the child's biological father, with visitation rights to the surrogate mother.

In gestational surrogacies like Murray's, the egg and sperm belong to the intended parents and are inserted through in vitro fertilization into the uterus of the surrogate mother, who has no genetic bond with the fetus.

The Velardos, who've been married 10 years, suffered four miscarriages. They met Murray through a clinic in their hometown and began an emotional and taxing journey for which there are no maps.

When Joy -- mother of two small boys and owner of five cats, one parakeet and a beagle -- became interested in surrogate mothering in 1999, she contacted an agency in California, where surrogacy seemed to be practiced more than back East. But laws vary from state to state, so she eventually worked through a Massachusetts agency (she couldn't find one in Connecticut), and it was the same business later contacted by the Velardos.

In March 2003, Joy and her husband, Jim, sat down with Tony and Lisa to talk about the younger couple's hoped-for pregnancy.

Lisa was nervous. What would Joy do if the pregnancy began to affect her health? How did she feel about selective reduction if there was the possibility of multiple births? When Joy told the Velardos her fee -- $5,000 -they asked her to repeat it. She could get many times that, but, she said, "I know what they'd been through, and I felt like what I was asking was enough. It's not ego. I think it's empowerment. That's my social-work word. It's empowering for me to be able to do this."

In many states, including Connecticut, the laws are mostly silent in regard to surrogacy. States have laws that are more or less accepting of surrogacies. Connecticut falls somewhere in the middle. There, couples must go to court to get a birth order, which allows the biological parents' names on the birth certificate. Although they already have a contract, the couples say the court appearance feels like a custody battle.

"The judge asks all these questions, like if we're sure that the baby isn't ours," said Jim, who works at Liberty Bank in Middletown, Conn.

BECOMING A SURROGATE

Joy and Jim Murray have lived in Wallingford six years, since Jim retired from the Navy. After the birth of their sons (Brendan and Andrew, now 6 and 4), Joy wanted another baby, but Jim was adamant they stop at two. Surrogacy seemed a good compromise.

"I think he thought this was a way for me to get this out of my system, but we are not bringing them home," said Joy, laughing.

Joy signed her first surrogate contract with a Massachusetts couple in 2001 and carried and delivered their twin girls.

Although their contract ended with the girls' birth, the girls' family remains in touch. They send gifts -- a bouquet at Thanksgiving, gifts for Brendan and Andrew at Christmas. Their attention makes Joy a little uncomfortable.

"I don't want them to ever feel like they have to do this," Joy said. "They do this out of the goodness of their heart."

But a certain amount of family blending feels inevitable.

The January weekend of baby Dylan's shower, the Murrays went to Massachusetts. Joy and Lisa met with 40 of Lisa's friends and family at a restaurant, while Jim and Tony went to a New England Patriots game.

"As far as this process (is concerned), I think it depends on the couple you are dealing with. We have been lucky," Jim said in January.

Joy said Brendan and Andrew don't talk about their surrogate siblings. To them, she said, a surrogate arrangement is normal.

Tony and Lisa often drove 21/2 hours from northeast Massachusetts to accompany Joy on her appointments. At one mid-February appointment, they sat in the small waiting room at Obstetrics, Midwifery and Gynecology in Cheshire, Conn., as the midwife, Susan Miller, examined Joy.

"We definitely want our child to know Joy and know the big role she played in bringing him into the world," said Lisa, an accountant. "This is an incredible bond that is forming with us. We've spent weekends together; we've done outings together. It really does feel like they're extended family. It's strange to describe. We didn't know them a year ago, but the relationship is very intimate."

In mid-February, the Velardos started to carry their suitcases in the car, just in case. No one slept well -- Joy, because of her growing belly; Tony and Lisa, because of the anticipation.

The midwife told them the baby was large-ish.

"Maybe you should induce her now," Tony said quickly. He was half-kidding, and Joy agreed. She had tickets to see Rod Stewart on March 6, so she was hoping to avoid a conflict. While Miller checked the baby's heartbeat, the Velardos fell silent, but in a few seconds, the room filled with the squishing sound of a strong heart, and Tony reached for Lisa's hand.

Later, Tony said, "We get nervous. We were always in the third month" when they miscarried.

As a gift to the Velardos, Joy contacted Kerby Gernander, who paints pregnant bellies (she'd done so for Joy's previous couple). For the Velardos' baby, Kerby painted a plump baby-Patriot. Ten minutes into the 45minute session at Kerby's New Britain, Conn., home, the women were laughing.

"Is your arm tired?" asked Joy. "Get out the paint roller." Later, Kerby took a picture of her work, and Joy e-mailed it to the Velardos, who were thrilled.

IT'S BABY TIME

It's 4 a.m. on Tuesday, March 2. Joy calls the Velardos. Lisa answers and shouts, "He's coming; he's coming!" Tony sits upright in the bed. It has been a sleepless night.

Jim drives Joy to the hospital. While Tony drives from Massachusetts, Lisa works the cell phone. She calls Jim three times and is happy they make it to the delivery room before their son is born.

Later, watching Joy breathe through the pain of labor, Lisa wonders (not for the first time) why would someone do this for them? When the midwife tells Joy to push, Lisa adds, "With all your might!"

At 10:53 a.m., a year after the Velardos met the Murrays, they are all there to greet 9-pound, 4ounce Dylan Robert Velardo. Joy hands her hospital bracelet to Tony so he can go to the nursery. She is exhausted; the Velardos are ecstatic.

That night, the twins and their parents arrive from Massachusetts, again bearing gifts. There are new clothes for Dylan, flowers for Joy. The twins, who will be 2 soon, pose with Dylan, Brendan and Andrew around a tired and smiling Joy. Tony croons to Dylan, "Meet your surro-sisters." He calls Jim "surro-dad." It's as good a term as any.

Joy cuddles all the children. The twins and Dylan are beloved, but, she says later, they are more like friends who've come to visit rather than children she's birthed.

While nurses finish Dylan's paperwork in the nursery, Joy nuzzles her son Andrew.

He tries to fit his 4-year-old body into her lap. He's missed his mom, but he's concerned that Dylan won't be breastfeeding. Joy jokes that Andrew is fixated on his mother's breasts. She says she's retiring and sending her uterus to Florida. Jim jokes they should instead "send it to a farm upstate and let it run free." She will continue to counsel parents or surrogate mothers, however.

The christening will be in June or July. Of course, the Murrays are invited.

When it's time to leave, Joy helps the Velardos thread Dylan's arms into his snowsuit. She grabs a balloon that will go home with the Velardos and, smiling, refuses a wheelchair.

"You're an old pro at this," the nurse says.

Outside, Jim sits patiently at the wheel of the car, with Andrew and a spray of flowers in the backseat. When Tony reaches to hug Joy, he nearly mashes his face into hers. Joy's cheeks are wet, but she's smiling as she bends to kiss Dylan and tells him, "Be good to your parents."

"Thank you, thank you," Lisa says and sobs.

"You're welcome," Joy says quietly.

"We will be in touch," Lisa says, and Joy smiles as she climbs into the car. Jim drives away, and Lisa and Tony stand watching.

"I am so sad it's over," Lisa says. "It's been such an amazing, awesome part of my life, and now it's over."