A woman who signed on to be a surrogate mother said she was repeatedly pressured to have an abortion, but she refused.
Heathyr shared her experience with surrogacy earlier this month on TikTok. In 2019, she began the surrogacy process because she had wanted to be a surrogate for over five years. After signing on with an agency, it took time for her to match with a couple, but she eventually did, and was thrilled to get started.
She continued by pointing out that, in her first meeting with the would-be mom, she made sure to be clear about her stance on abortion. “… I personally do not believe in termination unless there is something that will hurt the quality of life of the child,” she said, adding, “I don’t think it’s fair to bring a child into the world if they have severe brain damage and are probably going to die a few days after birth, or something in that instance.”
The couple matched with Heathyr said they were Catholic, and agreed with her feelings about abortion. By December, they were able to try an embryo transfer, which failed; in February of 2020, they tried again, and this time, Heathyr became pregnant. The parents had told her, multiple times, they had been hoping for a pair of boy-girl twins.
“When I went to get my ultrasound done, my first ultrasound, it only showed one sac, which just means that only one of the embryos attached,” Heathyr said. “So we didn’t know if it was the boy or the girl but we knew that I was pregnant and the beta numbers were rising accordingly, which is the start of showing it’s a healthy, successful pregnancy.”
READ: This brave surrogate mother saved a tiny boy from abortion
Yet the would-be parents were not excited as Heathyr expected; instead, they seemed disappointed that she wasn’t carrying the hoped-for twins. So she had another ultrasound and confirmed that there was, in fact, just one baby, albeit one that was growing well and had a heartbeat. In the meantime, the COVID-19 pandemic had just began.
It was soon after that the baby’s intended parents asked her to have an abortion. Heathyr received the news when she was contacted by someone from the agency she was working with. “So she reads me this letter and the gist of it was, ‘Heathyr we are so sorry, but you know, this virus is getting pretty bad and we just think it would be best for you to have a termination at this time,” she said. “And we will try again when the virus is over with and we would be happy to work with you again. We will let you know what our doctor says about next steps, and about the termination. You can take a pill, and the termination will happen.”
Heathyr began crying hysterically and fought their efforts to force her into an abortion. She decided to immediately call her lawyer and see if she had to comply with the abortion request.
@heathyrwithay Part 1/3, reposting so my views count. 😢 thank you for liking, sharing and commenting!! ❤️ #surrogacytiktok #surrogacyprocess #surrogacynightmare #singlemom ♬ original sound – Heathyr
In her second video, Heathyr explained that her lawyer arranged for a Zoom meeting between her and the prospective parents, with the lawyer present. “Pretty much, the dad was yelling at me – and keep in mind, this is the first time I’ve ever come into contact with him,” she said. She continued, “He’s just yelling at me that I am going to have a termination, I’m doing it, it’s their baby, it’s not my decision, and if I don’t, they’re suing me.” The pressure was so intense that Heathyr left the call in tears.
The lawyer, as well as several other lawyers Heathyr consulted, assured her that the couple couldn’t force her to have an abortion – so Heathyr stood firm. She had not contracted COVID-19, and the baby was growing well, so her doctors agreed that an abortion wasn’t necessary. But the baby’s parents weren’t done.
Her obstetrician called her, concerned about the disturbing and strange behavior of the baby’s intended father.
“… [T]he intended dad… was sending my doctor e-mails; I don’t know how he got her e-mail,” she said. “He was sending her e-mails every day about different cases on the virus. He was sending her certified mail to the office about the e-mails; they were pretty much just printed out. And he was calling the office every day. And she said, ‘I’m going to have to reach out to the legal team here at the hospital… because this is like, borderline harassment at this point.'”
A lawyer for the couple then sent her a letter demanding she agree to get an abortion if she contracted COVID-19; Heathyr refused. At this point, she was 20 weeks pregnant, and an anatomy scan revealed that the baby boy she was carrying was healthy. During this ultrasound, the mom was on FaceTime with Heathyr, although she refused to speak to her and only asked questions of the doctor present — even when Heathyr asked if she could mail her the ultrasound pictures, which the intended mom refused.
Heathyr said she still, to this day, has all of the ultrasound photos because the baby’s parents didn’t want them.
By October, Heathyr was 38 weeks pregnant. “And even then, the couple had not told anybody they were expecting a baby,” she said, and added, “And they still are asking me if I’m going to terminate if I test positive for COVID. And I’m like, ‘you guys, I am 38 weeks! He is full — he is fully cooked in there, like, he is ready to come out. If he was born today, he would be OK.”
But that evidently didn’t matter, as she was still being pressured to kill the preborn baby boy.
At 38 weeks, the most likely abortion method would be an induction abortion, in which the abortionist would begin by inserting a needle into the baby’s head or heart to deliver a fatal shot of feticide, like digoxin. Several days later, the abortionist would induce labor to deliver a dead baby.
Ultimately, Heathyr was induced at 39 weeks, and the parents flew to Ohio to be at the hospital. “I was induced on a Wednesday night,” she said. “Wednesday, November 4th, and I will never forget that.”
Unfortunately, the labor didn’t go as planned; the baby had shoulder dystocia, meaning his shoulder was stuck under her cervix, so she was rushed into a c-section. During the surgery, she lost a lot of blood, and so had to remain in recovery for a long time. “I kept thinking I was going to die,” she said. “It was pretty traumatizing, honestly.”
Incredibly, the parents acted as if the past months never happened.
“The parents kept bringing him into my room. I would be wheeled over to him in their room,” she said. “I got to hold him and get pictures with him. They each wrote me cards thanking me for all I did and how I kept their baby safe, and how they’d never forget me and they just appreciate what I’ve done for them, I’ve completed their family. You wouldn’t have thought those last 9½, 10 months happened because it was just surreal.”
To this day, Heathyr said she doesn’t know if the couple was legitimately scared about COVID-19, or if they used that as an excuse because they didn’t get their preferred twins. “I just know I saw the way they looked at him and the mom was just so happy and crying,” she said. “And that’s what I wanted. You can’t force somebody to want a baby, but the whole journey I was so scared. And I just knew when I saw them that they are happy.”
They couple has kept Heathyr updated with videos and pictures of how the little boy, now three, is doing… and then, when he was around one, told Heathyr they thought he might need a sister.
To no one’s surprise, she refused to work with them again. “As happy as I am for how it all ended up, I could never carry for them again.”
Unfortunately, this is not the first time (and likely not the last) that a surrogate has been pressured to have an abortion. Stephanie Levesque had to fight for the life of a baby she was carrying after the baby was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a birth defect that prevents the left side of the heart from forming correctly, and affects blood flow through the body. The parents of the child wanted her to have an abortion, but she refused.
