The Journey, Episode 1: Gifts

In The Dark

A woman from Texas named Kayla Elliott agrees to be a gestational surrogate for a wealthy couple in California, believing she is helping the

Key takeaways

The surrogacy process, often framed as altruistic, can mask deep systemic flaws and ethical breaches.
Surrogate mothers like Kayla may be unaware of the true identities or intentions of intended parents due to lack of transparency from agencies.

Main topics

Gestational surrogacy
Ethical failures in the fertility industry

Notable quotes

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

Conclusion

Kayla Elliott's journey from helping a struggling couple to becoming a whistleblower exposes the

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hi, it's Madeline Barron. I'm so excited to bring you this new story from the brilliant investigative reporter Ava Kaufman and our longtime incredible producer Natalie Jablonski. Ava is a staff writer for The New Yorker and, in my perhaps biased view, one of the most astounding investigative reporters working today. And the story, well, I'll let it speak for itself, but this one has really made me think deeply about what makes a family. Who gets to be a parent? and how little recourse there is for anyone when things go terribly wrong. We'll be releasing new episodes every week, but if you want to listen to the entire series right now, with no waiting and no ads, you can do that by subscribing to The New Yorker. And you can take advantage of a special deal for In the Dark listeners, a seven-day free trial. not just to this series, but to all of our past seasons and to everything the magazine offers. Just tap the button at the top of the In the Dark feed right here on Apple Podcasts to subscribe. And here's the thing about becoming a subscriber. This kind of work we do, this in-depth investigative reporting and meticulous production, can take a long time. We actually have a whole other story that's coming out soon that I've been working on for more than a year. All of this is expensive. We're traveling. We're knocking on doors. We're reviewing thousands of pages of records. If you're already a subscriber to The New Yorker, thank you. And if not, please help us out by subscribing today. Speaker 7 (1:28) 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. Speaker 3 (1:46) Last year, I started watching videos posted online by a woman in Corpus Christi, Texas. Speaker 7 (1:52) This will be my fifth pregnancy. I have four bio kids. I'm very new at YouTubing, so bear with me. I'm still getting the hang of actually speaking and looking at the camera and making videos. Speaker 3 (2:04) 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. Speaker 7 (2:21) Please subscribe and you will get some little sneak peeks of my journey in pregnancy. Speaker 3 (2:28) Like every surrogate mother, Kayla understood the baby was not hers. It was a gift for someone else. Kayla was carrying a baby for a couple who told her they desperately wanted a second child and who tried, unsuccessfully, to conceive. Speaker 7 (2:45) 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 can help another family and I don't see. Speaker 3 (3:06) She kept posting updates and videos, mostly on TikTok, so that her family and friends could follow along. Speaker 7 (3:12) Here it is, guys. 17 weeks today. Little baby girl, belly bump. We're loving being a surrogate. Speaker 3 (3:26) But Kayla's journey would take her somewhere unexpected. Speaker 3 (3:31) Her posts would eventually attract a very different audience. Speaker 5 (3:35) Popped up, my friend sent it to me on TikTok. I checked my email and here my attorney had sent us a TikTok. And that's what really stopped me in my tracks. And I was just scrolling and then Speaker 6 (3:44) I seen the names. And I was like, my heart just stopped. Like, are you serious? Started to like make me shake. I was getting so set and worried. Speaker 3 (3:58) Kayla would end up becoming a whistleblower, drawing attention to a confounding scheme that had been going on for years. And Speaker 6 (4:06) 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? Speaker 4 (4:14) This is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard. Speaker 3 (4:17) Kayla would be swept up into a much larger scandal, one that's still unfolding and that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry. Speaker 4 (4:27) There's clearly a loophole in relation to surrogacy. That's Speaker 3 (4:32) not a loophole. That's surrogacy as designed. The scandal would raise uncomfortable questions about who gets to be a parent. Speaker 6 (4:41) I'm really afraid that people who have no other way to have a family, this will be taken away from them. Speaker 3 (4:47) And it would prompt investigations by child welfare and law enforcement agencies. Speaker 7 (4:52) For all intents and purposes, she's kidnapped their child. That's what she's done. Speaker 4 (4:56) The Bureau refused to comment on the case, but Arcadia Speaker 1 (5:00) police confirmed that their detectives are working with the FBI. Speaker 4 (5:04) We believe that it extended beyond our city and into possibly other parts of the country and maybe internationally. Speaker 3 (5:15) I'm Ava Kaufman, an investigative reporter at The New Yorker. From In the Dark and The New Yorker, this is The Journey. Episode 1, Gifts. Speaker 3 (5:37) Ava. Pleasure. I'm Speaker 7 (5:39) trying to dig up information for you on my old Weebs. No rush. Thanks for having me. It's kind of crazy here. I'm sorry. I'm Speaker 6 (5:48) going Speaker 7 (5:48) to get my kids settled over there eating with their movies so that they're not... There's no rush. So where do you live at? Do you live Speaker 3 (5:54) in New York? I live in Los Angeles. Oh, Los Angeles. Yeah. Speaker 7 (5:58) Oh, so you live right in the heart of all this crazy stuff. I live 20 minutes from their house. Speaker 3 (6:02) Yeah, Speaker 4 (6:02) so that's how I got onto this story. This is my local news, you know. Speaker 3 (6:07) One day last fall, I visited Kayla Elliott and her boyfriend, Blake Murray. 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. Speaker 4 (6:31) Diego. Speaker 7 (6:32) Hey, this is Diego from France. He's our quarantine Speaker 4 (6:37) students. Speaker 3 (6:54) Kayla's surrogate thing began in 2024, not long after she turned 26. What Speaker 7 (7:00) was Speaker 2 (7:01) the conversation between you guys about Speaker 3 (7:02) wanting to do that? Well, Speaker 7 (7:04) 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 Speaker 4 (7:12) having babies and being a mother. And I love being pregnant, but my Speaker 7 (7:14) 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 Speaker 4 (7:27) was the motivation behind it, you know. Speaker 3 (7:29) 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 Speaker 7 (7:46) be Speaker 3 (7:46) able to rent a place of their own. Speaker 7 (7:48) 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 a picture of myself with a profile. This is who I am. This is my age. This is where I live. I'm just kind of curious for if anybody wants to Speaker 3 (8:04) reach out kind of thing. 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. Speaker 7 (8:20) Okay, so they started by saying, hey, do you want Speaker 3 (8:22) to have a baby for this? Speaker 7 (8:23) 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. Speaker 3 (8:31) 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 L.A. 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. Speaker 7 (9:00) It seemed like, OK, 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? Speaker 3 (9:13) The intended parents' names were Guojun Xuan 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. Kayla said yes. Speaker 3 (9:50) 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. Kayla began the months-long process of preparing her body to receive the embryo. She posted about the steps on TikTok. Speaker 7 (10:15) Long story short, guys, we're excited. It's happening. Speaker 3 (10:18) There were medical screenings. Speaker 7 (10:20) They know me by name when I walk in now. They're like, good morning, Kayla. I'm like, hello, just here for more blood work. Speaker 3 (10:27) and rounds of hormone injections. Speaker 7 (10:31) These shots Speaker 3 (10:36) came with side effects. Speaker 7 (10:42) After all Speaker 3 (10:52) this, Kayla grew concerned. She hadn't heard directly from the IPs. She sent worried messages to the agency, Mark's Surrogacy. She read me a few of them. Speaker 7 (11:03) 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. Speaker 3 (11:28) 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 L.A., where the couple's embryo was stored. Speaker 7 (11:44) As an adult, I haven't been on a plane, so this will be quite an experience. Speaker 3 (11:48) 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. Speaker 7 (12:12) 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, a breath of relief, it's him, and it's Speaker 3 (12:22) real. Gojoon presented Kayla with a series of gifts, a bouquet of pink roses, a red envelope stuffed with cash, and a gilded jade bracelet. As Gojoon fastened the bracelet onto Kayla's wrist, he explained through a translator that the jewelry represented an invitation to join his family. Speaker 7