Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 836 | Surrogacy Horror: Gay ‘Dads’ Demand Abortion | Guest: Brittney Pearson

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Today we're joined by Brittney Pearson, a mother of four and a two-time surrogate who found herself in a horrific situation when she was diagnosed with aggressive cancer 24 weeks into her most recent surrogacy journey. Since the baby she was carrying was already viable, she could have delivered the baby early and doctors could have attempted to save the boy, but the two men who hired Brittney refused to go that route. They wanted the “fetus,” as they called their son, aborted, even when Brittney and her family members offered to adopt the child. Brittney shares her gut-wrenching story, walking us through the details. We give a little background on surrogacy and share some stories in the news that further prove Brittney's story is not the only horror story out there. Support Brittney's GoFundMe: https://bit.ly/44DMeYv Email encouragement to Brittney: [e-mail] --- Timecodes: (01:05) Intro / position on surrogacy (06:13) Surrogacy horror stories (19:25) Shane Dawson (24:03) Is IVF linked to cancer? (27:31) Brittney's story (32:57) Cancer diagnosis & "fathers" response (45:29) Options: terminate or deliver & "fathers" threaten to sue (50:20) The delivery (55:15) Attempts to keep the baby alive --- Today's Sponsors: Birch Gold — protect your future with gold. Text 'ALLIE' to 989898 for a free, zero obligation info kit on diversifying and protecting your savings with gold. Carly Jean Los Angeles — use promo code 'ALLIEB' to save 25% off your first order at CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com! Range Leather — highest quality leather, age old techniques and all backed up with a “forever guarantee." Go to rangeleather.com and use coupon code "ALLIE" to receive 15% off your first order. Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE”. Family Leadership Summit — Blaze Media is teaming up with “The FAMiLY Leader,” a pro-family, pro-marriage, pro-life organization, to host The Summit, the first presidential forum of the election season. Join us this Friday in Iowa as Tucker Carlson sits down one-on-one with each of the candidates to ask them the questions Christian voters want to hear answered. Head over to BlazeMediaSummit.com to subscribe and use the code SUMMIT for 30 percent off your subscription. --- Links: Jennifer Lahl's piece: https://cbc-network.org/2023/06/when-surrogacy-goes-bad-there-are-never-any-winners/ --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 825 | Dystopia Update: Synthetic Embryos, Frozen Brothers & Rented Wombs | Guest: Libby Emmons Ep 554 | IVF, Embryo Adoption, & Surrogacy: Answering the Hard Questions | Guest: Jennifer Lahl https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-554-ivf-embryo-adoption-surrogacy-answering-the/id1359249098?i=1000549207733 Ep 552 | "Big Fertility" & the Truth Behind The Surrogacy Industry | Guest: Jennifer Lahl https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-552-big-fertility-the-truth-behind-the/id1359249098?i=1000548511958 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Brittany Pearson is a mother of four and a two-time surrogate. 24 weeks into her most recent surrogacy journey, she was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. Since the baby she was carrying was already viable, she could have delivered the baby early and doctors could have done what was possible to save the boy. But the two men who hired Brittany refused to go that route. They

wanted the fetus, as they repeatedly called their son, abort it. Period. Even when Brittany and her family members offered to adopt the child, the men said no. So Brittany is here today. Unrelatable to share her gut-wrenching story. And there is so much we can learn from this about the practice and the industry of surrogacy. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. So as you could probably tell yesterday, it sounds a little different as I'm talking right now. I am recording remote. So it sounds different than the cold open and the interview that you're about to listen to because those were recorded late last week.

I really, really wanted to talk to the woman, Brittany Pearson, that we are talking to today. And she is actually going through treatments this week for her cancer diagnosis. And so please be praying for her. But before we get into the conversation about exactly what went down and this horrific journey that she has been on over the past few months, I do want to give a little bit more context about why we're talking about this, why I keep talking. talking about the surrogacy industry. The story that you're about to hear,

unfortunately, is not all that rare. It's heartbreaking. It's gut-wrenching. I'm certainly not the only one talking about it. Kudos to Jennifer Law, whom we've had on this podcast several times, who broke this story originally and now other commentators have talked about it

and for good reason, because it shines a light on some really serious moral and ethical problems with not just surrogacy and the surrogacy industry, but also the reproductive industry. Now, if you are listening to this episode and you've never really thought about surrogacy, you've never really thought about the industry, you've never really thought about IVF, you just kind of thought, these are great scientific mechanisms to help people have babies who want to have babies who may have a difficult time doing it the natural way. Or if you're talking about two men or two women, maybe you think that it's great that they can use something like surrogacy or sperm or egg

donation to create a child. I encourage you to go back and listen to some previous episodes that we've done on this that probably answer a lot of the questions that you have. If you listen to this episode and you're like, well, hey, you don't need to be hating on this. There are lots of different positive stories of surrogacy and you don't know, Strugnell, whatever, you might. you might, you know, bring to the table in this conversation, we probably have addressed your concern or addressed your question on previous episodes about all of this reproductive technology, including the surrogacy industry. Now, my position is that commercial surrogacy should be outlawed as it is in several countries around the world because it disregards the well-being of the child

and very often disregards the well-being of the woman, the womb, that is being a woman. And that is being hired. And even those who are choosing to sell their eggs, there are health consequences that come from that that I don't think that we've explored. Because like in so many things, we've talked about many, many times, children are being placed on the altar of adult desires when it comes to this. The thing that we said so much during COVID was kids are always the unconsenting subjects of progressive social experiments. So whether it was forced mass masking or school shutdowns during COVID, or whether it is the rearrangement, redefinition of the family, or whether it is gender ideology and the puberty blockers that young

kids are being prescribed because they say they're confused about their gender, these are all dangerous social experiments and kids are being sacrificed because of them. And in the case of the reproductive industry, the well-being and the needs of children are disregarded in favor of adult desires. And that is a misordering, a disordering of how societies, how healthy societies are supposed to function and certainly how Christianity functions. Christianity is the sacrifice of the strong on behalf of the more vulnerable. that is what we are called to do that is the history of the church. Well, very often reproductive technology does the opposite. It's asking children, as Katie Faust often says, to do difficult things in order for adults

to fulfill their wants. Again, if you want more color on that, more explanation on that, go back and listen to some previous episodes. But I do want to give some examples, some recent examples that I've seen that I think make the conversation that we're about to have so. incredibly relevant and to show you why, okay, this is not happening in a vacuum, the discussion that we're about to have. This is not something that is all that rare, but is actually, again, part of a much larger problem. There were two stories that caught my eye over the past couple of

years that showed, wow, there's a lot going on. There are a lot of things that we just don't notice and haven't been paying attention to when it comes to fertility clinics, when it comes to the surrogacy industry. I was someone who didn't know that this was happening until the last few years or so. This is according to CBS, July 6, 2022. So a year ago, same-sex couples sue fertility clinic over alleged wrong sex embryo implant. Two men, Albert and Anthony Saniger, filed a lawsuit against their IVF clinic, HRC fertility and their doctor claiming that their hopes of having a son were hampered after a female

embryo was wrongly implanted in their surrogate, resulting in a daughter being born in 2021. So their daughter was born. Their daughter was born using at least one of their sperm. So for one of them, it was their biological daughter. And they're so incensed about this. They're still so angry about this that they're actually suing the fertility clinic over it because they were promised a son. According to the New York Post, this is in March of 2022,

a couple who asked for a female embryos sues fertility clinic over baby boy. So here we have the opposite. A lesbian couple, Heather and Robin, said that they would only have children if they could have girls because Heather was still traumatized from being sexually assaulted on two different occasions. The New York fertility clinic assured them it would not be a problem to only implant female embryos. And we should stop right there and consider like what it takes to create these embryos and then to select embryos. Of course, you have to go through the IVF process. In the case of two men, this is an egg donor who has to go through the IVF process.

In the case of two women, probably one of the women is going through the IVF process. And in the case of two women, you have a sperm donor. In the case of two men, you've got an egg donor in one of their own sperms. They come together, created in a lab. You create as many embryos as you want to. and then from there, doctors in a lab can test whether or not these are female or male embryos. And so if they have a sex preference, then the rest of the embryos that do not meet that sex preference are discarded. For those of us who are pro-life, who know that life, human life starts a conception and therefore has value from the point of conception, this is a problem.

This is eugenics, right? So even to be able to have a preference and then select for that preference, that is at least, that is one, consequence of separating the conception of life from sex. There are some things that are supposed to be a mystery. There are some things that are supposed to be left up to the Lord. And so you see how there are already, just in the IVF process, there are some moral and ethical questions that need to be confronted and answered. And in this case, they're so angry that their plain God didn't work out how they wanted it to, that they are actually suing for money these fertility clinics, because they conceived a child that was the quote unquote wrong gender.

The funny thing is, I don't know this for sure, but it's probably a pretty safe assumption that both of these are progressive couples probably think gender in some cases is some kind of construct that a child can choose. And yet they are so adamant that from the point of conception, they either need to have a son or a daughter, a male or a female. So Heather, one part of the couple, one lady, she was implanted with the embryo from Robbins' egg. So many different parts of this. The OB offered her the decision to abort the baby boy when she found out that it was a boy. She declined because she thought she was carrying someone else's embryo and that person would just switch babies with her after birth.

Delusion, delusion, delusion. Heather says not only was the baby in my body, not ours, but the baby in my body was male. and he was put there against my will just like rape. These poor children, these poor children, like this little girl of these two men going to grow up knowing that she was so fiercely unwanted that her two quote-unquote dads decided to sue for money, the fertility clinic that caused her existence.

This poor boy, just a baby in the womb, who also did not consent to any of this, is now being likened to a sex criminal simply because of his existence. There are a couple more just really troubling stories that I think paints a full picture of some of the problems here. Let me get to that in just a second. Hey, this is Steve Day.

If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first,

principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Here's a story from Daily Mail from last year. She says, or the headline says, but they're quoting or paraphrasing the woman about whom they're speaking. My wound for hired nightmare, surrogate mother discovered the father was single death and living in his parents' basement before he demanded she abort.

One of the triplets she was carrying for him. This is also a trend that I'm seeing just as an aside. Single men wanting to have children via surrogacy. So remember, the egg donor, which is really an egg. seller. They make money from this. And the surrogate are always, they have to be different people. And so they have to be different women. And so they're buying eggs from one woman, renting the womb of another woman to take a child to intentionally create the child to live in a motherless home. Of course, that's true of two men. That's also true of a single man. And of course, when it's two women,

you're purposely creating a child, taking them away from the biological father. You're purposely creating them to be raised without a father. Both, I think, are cruel. It's a violation of children's rights. Children have a right to a mother and father. Ideally, their own mother and father doesn't always work out that way. That's why adoption is a wonderful and redemptive option. But moms and dads and dads bring different things to the table because men and women are not interchangeable. We actually need that for healthy development. And so to purposely create a child with the intention of raising them in a motherless or fatherless home is to, again, put your own desires as an adult above the needs and well-being of the child. As we've talked about many times, this myth of the family diversity

theory that, oh, kids just need love. They need love from any adults, three adults, two adults, whatever. It's not true. It's statistically untrue. Go back and listen to my episode with Brad Wilcox, who has been studying and publishing research on this for the University of Virginia for decades at this point. It's not true. Children need a mother. and a father. And so this whole thing, from the get-go when it comes to rearranging the family and allowing one man to create a child or even one woman or two men or two women to create a child to create a child with the purpose and the express intention of raising them in a motherless or fatherless home. Again, it's cruel. It's cruel. And it raises every single red flag that I have inside me

when a single man, especially a single man, living in his parents' basement, wants to create children to raise on his own. I mean, every possible red flag that I have, like every single instinct that says, there's something bad going on there. Don't like that. Every single flag is raised in a story like this. So this woman Melissa Cook signed a surrogacy agreement with the California, almost all these happen in California. Surprise, surprise. California agency in May 2015. She had been a surrogate one time previously.

She was concerned with the second surrogate experience from the beginning, this one that she agreed to with this man. This agency gave her very little information about the family she thought she'd be helping citing client confidentiality. So you see that these agencies don't really care. Eventually, she discovered the client with a 51-year-old single man who was death and living in his parents' basement, referred to as CM for legal reasons, when all three employees. implanted embryos because they typically implant more than they actually want. That's another

possible issue with IVF. When all three implanted embryos resulted in pregnancy with triplets, and the reason, by the way, you implant more than you actually want is because they're such a high attrition rate. It's so difficult for those embryos to survive in IVF, another issue. But that's why you implant typically more than you want in the hopes that just one will implant for most people. CM texted Melissa asking her to abort one of the triplets because he wasn't sure he could have three kids. Now, this doesn't just happen in surrogacy. A lot of times, moms of multiples will be asked by their doctor, do you want to reduce your pregnancy, which means aborting one of the children? It's just awful.

Court records also show that CM's emails to the agency asking them to limit Melissa's visits to the clinic, despite the high-risk pregnancy, hypotension, and gestational. diabetes. So he was trying to keep his costs down. Apparently, he said that he couldn't afford, he couldn't afford triplets. Also, it was found out that his nephew, who is a heroin addict, allegedly sold drugs out of the house. And then the legal fight started to happen because Melissa didn't want to do this.

CM's lawyer argues that these are his children and would not let Melissa keep the third child to raise. She did deliver the triplets at 30 weeks via C section, the father who stayed at home 2,000 miles away in Georgia would not allow anyone else in the room with Melissa. He denied her offer of breast milk for the babies. She never even saw the babies. The babies spent weeks in the hospital before a medical team of three nurses and a doctor flew the babies to the father in Georgia.

Oh my goodness. CM's sister filed a sworn affidavit in support of Melissa's case, accusing him of being an unfit parent. So even this guy's sister was like, no, he does not need to be a father. So the affidavit says that he has been known to leave the children unintended for hours at a time. So they are actually six years old by the time this article came out. They have allegedly been told to eat food from a dirty floor. So this is another issue.

I mean, this is an issue. Of course, this could be an issue like in any kind of parenting arrangement. I'm not saying that this is exclusive to surrogacy or the surrogacy industry. But look, babies are being sold to people without any kind. kind of background check. Wombs are being hired by people who don't have to show that they are actually a fit parent. All you have to do is say, I have money to buy these eggs and to rent this womb and to create

these babies. And then no one cares after that. And we're all just supposed to celebrate it because it's apparently just pro-life to approve of however someone wants to create a child without even asking. but what problems could be associated with this? Really, really disturbing. We need to start asking a lot more questions than we currently are. I mean, just the existence of one of these kinds of stories like this should say,

okay, you know what? Maybe we should ask ourselves why the surrogacy industry is illegal in many countries across the world and why so many people have to go through the United States in order to do this baby bond. egg buying womb renting process. And then here's another one happening very recently. This was reported by people on July 8th, 2023, just reinforces the point that I just made about that story. YouTubers Shane Dawson and Rylund Adams are expecting twins via surrogate.

Now, I talked about this several months ago. I'd go back and listen to that episode. I went into the history of YouTuber Shane Dawson. He's been around for a long time. He's got a lot of followers, a lot of influence. Very, very strange journey with that person. But part of his background is how he has quote unquote joked about really, really disgusting, disturbing things.

We won't get into all the specific examples right now, but he has made several quote unquote jokes about being a pedophile. He's made several quote unquote jokes about beastiality. And in general, a lot of people, even people who used to be as fans, even people who would, you know, say that they're progressive and support this kind of thing, would say he is unstable and or he seems that way anyway. And this is just a very strange turn of events that's happening. So back in February, when they were talking about this, giving a baby update. And we played this clip at the time. they were joking about how all of the babies that they had fertilized, I guess, with they both used their sperm and again, egg donor, different surrogate.

They laughed about the fact that each of their babies has a barcode. And then they said things like this. Of the four boys, which ones do we choose? I don't like playing God. Shane Dawson replies, then laughs. We have to spend the wheel and we'll put a barcode on each side. So again, this is the issue, not even just with surrogacy yet, but just with I guess. IVF. Eugenics is alive in wild. It's a thriving industry in the United States through reproductive

technology. Not everyone who uses IVF, of course, uses it in this way, but I think it's much more common than we think. In a different video for March 2022, when they started talking about having the baby, they joked about purchasing the mother of their children. They said, we chose an egg donor. It was very strange to click purchase on our child's mother. Purchase. We bought your mommy. So they're joking about this kind of thing. And they obviously think that this is, you know, this is a joke. I'm not saying that they don't kind of maybe take parenting seriously. I just don't know that. But if I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they do. But a person who has made the kind of

comments that he has about babies sexualizing them, and children and animals and has exemplified just the kind of very, very strange and grotesque and disturbing behavior that he has. I'm not sure if we should be celebrating the fact that they are buying children. And yet people are because who are we to judge? Who are we to say anything? It's just not our place. If people want to have kids, we should just be happy about it. I'm not going to, I'm not going to be happy about the buying the eggs, the renting the wombs, the buying the children, the purposely creating them and selecting the sex and selecting them based on their lack of disability and all of these other things. I'm not going to celebrate that, especially when you're creating them to live in a fatherless or a motherless home. And also people who run this fertility industry can make lots and lots of money.

And again, I'm not describing everyone who has used IVF. That's not what I'm trying to do, although I've talked about some of the ethical problems that I think it has. I'm just trying to show you, like, I think that there is a huge, huge, just iceberg of issues that happen in the reproductive industry. And the conversation that we're about to have today is an example of that. Like it's going to break your heart listening to her. But I just wanted to tee this up to show you like she's not the only one. This is not the only story. This is something that's happening probably on a daily basis, at least on a frequent basis in the United States.

And I think our law needs to do something about it. Absolutely. For the protection of children and also even for the protection of women who technically, yes, are consenting. but still are being exploited in a variety of ways through this process. All right, before we get into the interview, oh, one more thing that I wanted to say, because I've already recorded the interview and we kind of just brought, we kind of brush over it. So as I've already told you, she has this very serious cancer diagnosis, and you'll hear we'll talk very briefly about, you know, the dangers of the potential

side effects of IVF and the hormones that are injected, and it's possible link to cancer. Of course, none of us know. She doesn't know, but there are several studies. I just wanted to say there are several studies that show that there is a potential increase in risk for things like breast cancer because of IVF treatments. For example, a 2013 study found that women in Israel, it was of 87. thousand women, women who had four or more cycles of IVF did have a higher risk for ovarian cancer. The risk wasn't that huge, perhaps due to the small number of women in the study with

ovarian cancer, but there was an elevated risk there. And then we also see, this is according to a 2018 British study, that women who had never gone through IVF had a lower chance of developing ovarian cancer than those who did go through IVF. Again, a pretty small difference there, but I would say that's still being explored. I don't know for sure. She doesn't know for sure. But of course, anytime you inject to your body with large doses of artificial hormones, there are going to be potential risks there. So for those of you, I just wanted to say that because for those of you listening who are like, oh, why did you brush over that. There's definitely science about that. I just wanted to confirm that there

are studies that show a possible link between these terrible diagnoses and the use of these kinds of hormones. Brittany, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I imagine that the past couple of weeks since the news coverage came out about your story, your surrogacy journey, your cancer diagnosis. It's probably been a little tough for you. I mean, you're a mom of four kids. You have a lot going on. Yeah, it's been, it's been rough. Yeah. So if you could just, if you could just tell us, start from the beginning, your story, I'll set it up a little bit. You were hired as a surrogate for two men. Yeah. You already have, as I said, four children. You, you know, agreed to be their surrogate. You were carrying their boy. How did how did that all start?

So I did surrogacy two years ago for another gay couple. I did twin. and that journey was absolutely incredible. It was the best set of parents that I ever could have had. Everything went smoothly. So I thought, you know, why not give another family a baby? Because it happened so easily for me. So I set up with the agency that I used before. And we set up with a new family.

Okay. And I don't really know everything. I know a good bib. I don't know everything about how the process goes. Are you a part of an agency? see and then you're matched with a couple looking for a surrogate? Yep. So it's almost kind of like a dating website, I guess.

You both have to choose each other. And so they write a letter. So I have like a profile online. They can see my family, my kids, everything, the different things that I'm willing to do and not willing to do. And then they send me a letter and I read it. And if I feel connected, then we do like FaceTime and we would meet. And that's kind of how you get matched. Okay.

And what is the process like? the physical process for you for implantation. So they already have their embryos. They have someone who has sold their eggs called an egg donor that is not you. And they have their sperm, one of their sperms, presumably, and they have already created the embryos. So what does the implantation process look like for the surrogate? So I had to do a bunch of medical screenings, you know, blood, physical, and emotional screenings for all of that stuff. And then you go in and you, well, you start a bunch of medications, shots, all of that stuff. And then you go in and the actual implantation process is really quick. It's like a 15 minute process where they just insert the egg

actually inside of your, uh, your uterus and it, it just sticks. The embryo. Um, and does this, is there typically, like, do you have to try multiple times or is it just, you just try? Not for me. I know some do, but both times it stuck out of the first time. The first time. And there's no special medication you have to take or anything like that? Yeah. So I was taking estrogen, progesterone, and I think a couple other meds, but like the shots, you know, in my butt basically every day for a month before

and then up until 12 weeks. Okay. And your body handled that fine. I mean, I assumed. I mean, I have cancer now. So, I mean, we can't blame it on that, obviously, and I don't know where any of that came from, but, you know, all the added hormones could have affected it, but there's no way to really know. Yeah. There is, I mean, there is some research on that and some theories, but obviously I'm not an expert, and so I can't give my opinion in that.

But as far as you knew at the time, things were going smoothly. And when you found out that you were pregnant, I'm guessing you have to wait a little while, just like when you naturally can. see you wait a little while to take the pregnancy test and then you find out that it stuck? They do 10 days after implantation, they do a blood test to confirm and then I think two weeks later, then they'll give you an ultrasound around like six weeks. Okay. And what was the reaction of the couple when they found out that you were pregnant? We were all elated, very excited. Yes, yes.

I mean, obviously that was the goal, right? So they were over the moon excited that I was pregnant with their baby. Right. And the contract that you signed, I guess I need to back up a little bit, because you have to sign a contract after you decide to work together. What does that entail? It's about, it was about 45 pages. There's a lot that goes into it. But basically, it's just stating what will happen to the baby, what my requirements are, like the legal part of it. Like I have to sign over the rights after the baby's born, all of the financial part of it. It's a pretty extensive. contract. Right. And so then fast forward a little bit. First ultrasound around six weeks. First trimaster. Everything was going well. And what was... Everything smooth. It would just say it went smooth because my pregnancies are so, you know, easy. So it was, I was a little more sick than usual with all the other pregnancies that I've had, which was kind of weird to me.

But I realized the after fact, like maybe that was another sign that there was something that was wrong. Right. But I didn't think about it at the time. Right. So let's move toward your cancer diagnosis then. Tell us when that happened and how that happened. So I was, I went in for, so I had an OB that I didn't like. I just didn't connect with her.

So I asked my OB's office if I could switch to somebody else. So they were able to get me. you somebody, but it kind of pushed it out a week. And then they actually had to cancel out appointment. So it pushed it on another week. So it was May 14th or 15th. It was that Monday of that week. I went in to see the OB for the first time. And she did all the routine breast exam, everything. And that's when she found a lump. And she was like, oh, this is kind of concerning. I'm going to send you for a biopsy. Although that was Friday. So the biopsy was at next Monday. Okay. And tell us a little bit more about how that went down. So they did, they did the biopsy.

in my breast and my lymph node, and they both came back positive for cancer. So that's when I was officially diagnosed. I think it was like May 17th or 18th is when they officially diagnosed me. And that was this year just to clarify for everyone. Yep. Yeah, just two months ago. Wow. And I think I was 24, 23 weeks.

Okay. And did they know right away what stage of cancer it was, how aggressive it was? Not really. They just knew. I think they gave me stage six. Three, I think, is what they said, which is farther along than you would normally find out that you had cancer. I think they said that when you're pregnant, your body grows everything really fast. So that could have made it grow a lot quicker to where we found it.

Because they could have, you know, not found it for a lot longer if I wasn't pregnant. Okay. And what was just, tell me what that was like, aside from the surrogacy process, just is you, individual as a person, as a mom of four kids, like what was it like hearing that news? The first thing that came into my head was my daughter. I'm like, I have to be here to help her buy her prom dress, which is such a random thing to think about. But that's like the first thing that was coming into my head.

I was like, I have to have her, you know, she's only 12, so she's not going to prom yet. But I was like, I need to be here for that. And then instantly, like with my OB, I was like, I want to continue this pregnancy. I want to do whatever I can do to make sure that baby is okay. and like to save us both basically was my main goal. Yeah.

And what did your OB say? She was the best OB I've ever had in my life. Like she was the most incredible. She was like, you know, my focus is you. You're a mom. You have four kids. Like my focus is making sure that you are still here and healthy and safe. And then we'll focus on, you know, the baby aspect of it.

But at that time, it was when I met with my oncologist, it was totally doable to do. the chemo that they came up with while I stayed pregnant at that time. Yes. Okay. And so tell me about you then telling the news to the two men who had hired you. So my OB actually told them for me because she had a good relationship with them. She spoke to them personally. Just it helped out the whole process so much.

And they were shocked, obviously scared. They freaked out like any parent would, you know, when they could. found out that their baby was inside of her body with cancer. And it was a rough week because they were not very nice. What do you mean by that? They just started threatening, like, lawsuits and like, oh, did you guys know she had cancer or has she had cancer before? You know, they started coming up with all these questions of stuff that were like,

I didn't expect because we had a good relationship before this. And I was giving them grace because I knew they're scared and it was not something anybody wants to hear. but at the same time it was the whole relationship changed and they were completely different people than what they were before. Right. And so there wasn't a whole lot of concern for you in your health. No.

And it wasn't even, it doesn't sound like it was quite as much even concern for the baby's health. It was almost like they felt like they'd gotten jipped or something. Like they'd gotten a bad deal. We tried to explain if I had cancer before I couldn't be a surrogate, right? You go through so much extensive. of medical screenings. If I knew I had cancer, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant because I know that it grows faster.

And well, that sucks. So it's like, there's no, there's no logical reason why, but it's just they were scared and upset. Did they start making threats at this point? Not at me. When they spoke to me, they sounded like they cared and they were like, we're here for you, you know, tell us what you need. How can we help?

But to like my agency and to the doctors, they were a complete opposite. that's where they were throwing out lawsuits and asking all these crazy questions that they would never have ever asked before. And your OB and the agency, they were communicating these things to you? Mm-hmm. Okay. And so at this point, though, you thought that you could go through chemotherapy and then deliver at 34 weeks, which for those who don't know, that is premature, but it's not extremely premature. Well, so it wouldn't even be 34.

Their goal was to get me to, with the four different chemo treatments, would get me to 34 weeks, and then we would take a few weeks to let my body recover, and then we would deliver. So it really would be like 36. Okay. So almost. And they still. They weren't okay with that. They wanted nothing earlier than 39 weeks, no matter what, which you can't even guarantee

that when there's no cancer involved. You know, when there's nothing else, you still can't. guarantee a 39 week delivery anyways. Okay. And it only my seventh baby. Right. And okay. I didn't realize that.

I thought that they, they just didn't want you to deliver as prematurely as you ended up having to because of the, of the treatment. So they didn't, when you told them, hey, like we're probably going to, you know,

this baby might get to 37 weeks, 38 weeks, whatever, but here's the deal. I've got to go through. these treatments and then we'll get your baby delivered as close to term as possible. Tell us, tell us their reaction. So I had a couple different high risk obese that I went to for, they wanted a second opinion and a third opinion and they wanted me to get like a second and a third opinion

on my cancer. And it was just, I had already gone to like 30 appointments at this point. And I was very confident in my oncology team. They're still incredibly amazing. But they just wanted more and more more opinions to make sure that their voice was heard and they were able to make choices. So they wanted to be on every appointment and every phone conversation and every appointment that I had, which I had to tell them that they needed to back off because I'm like, I need to get the news and get the information and see what I need. And then I will let you guys know. So they didn't like that. They said this is their. I used the term rented uter. So basically that's just what I felt like I was just, you know, just being used.

instead of being a part of something that I was the reason why I mainly got into it. So we did all these appointments and I had a couple other high risk OBs. And I found one that they listened to and they agreed and they were okay with around 34, 36 as long as they could promise they wouldn't try to do it. So they said too, they're like, you guys are going to say the treatment's not working and then you're going to have to deliver earlier. So they had all these, everyone's out to get them type thing. we got past that. But then that's when I had the MRI and they found out that it had spread to my liver.

So that's when they came to me and they're like, your only options are deliver now or you know, terminate or you can't really wait much longer to start. And I had to do a whole different chemo regimen too. So I just didn't, at that point, it was, it was my life was in danger and I had to start chemo ASAP. and I didn't really have a choice to wait or fight them any longer to try to push it off as far as I could.

So in this process, just backing up a little bit, when it was supposed that you could carry to 34, 36 weeks, they weren't super happy about that, but they said, okay, as long as you promise that it's not going to happen any sooner, which again, just like in any pregnancy, you can't promise. You cannot promise or guarantee anything. even the best obese can't promise anything. There's so many different variables. Well, they explained to them how one of the side effects of me going through chemo while pregnant could be like a low birth weight or IUGR, which just made the baby kind of stops

growing. Yeah. And they're like, in that case, we would have to deliver. So, you know, when they heard stuff like that, it was just so much back and forth and turmoil. And they just, they fought every step of every single process. And so they took away any feeling that I felt they cared about me because my main goal this whole time was to make sure I still was able to deliver a healthy baby to them. So I felt like the relationship was they cared about the baby and that's it.

And I cared about, you know, the baby and also myself and my family. So it was just the whole relationship went a different way that I did not ever expect it to be. So in their ideal world, like did they just want you to put off treatments all together? and just push it until 39 weeks? I mean, if it was the original diagnosis, I could have waited,

like I said, but just with that they found that it metastasized and there was just no longer than I had to think of my children and my family and I just, I couldn't, I couldn't wait any longer because it was spreading so fast.

Right. Okay. So once you, you found out that, no, you really need to start chemotherapy right now. This is metastasize, as you said, has gone to your liver. Your life is at risk. Did the doctor then say you can't stay pregnant? What was that like?

That was a hard conversation because the way she basically was like your option is terminate or deliver and we knew that the dads were. extremely against delivering early, obviously. So my OB again tried. She went all the way up the chain of the hospital that she works at. The parents threatened the hospital. They threatened all the doctors. If anyone delivered me, you know, they were going to be sued.

They threatened anybody they possibly could with a lawsuit. My OB was trying everything she could to get me to deliver at any of their hospitals, which they were basically refusing because they didn't want that on their hands. and then she was like, well, we can get some families. People lined up who will adopt. We had, I think, three different families lined up that were willing to adopt. We had, I would have taken care of it. Like, I have a sister who would have taken it.

You know, it's, and you don't even know if how long the baby would have survived. But if he did, you know, life-saving measures. A 25-week baby is not like it used to be. You know, that would have been a death sentence 10 years ago or whatever. But now 25-week babies make it. And, you know, by kindergarten, they're completely normal. You know, they'd have a couple, a couple things, but they're still a baby and they still matter and they still, he still could have, you know, brought joy to so many different people. Right.

And so tell me about the, tell me about the reaction and the response then to all of that from these two men. I mean, obviously, I know that they, you know, they refused. but what were so we had to go through the lawyers and instantly they were just like we're going to we want to be terminate that's it that's that's the only conversation they would have they're like terminate that's that's it and my OB tried the attorneys tried we all tried I tried my agency you know it was just they're like absolutely not we don't want that we want the baby terminated which to me was wild because they had spent so much money and time and so many people involved you know, to get them a baby and then for them to be like, oh, just pull the plug.

We're done. Wow. So you had the, I mean, there was the option to deliver this baby. There was plenty of options. And they could have taken care of the baby and just said, you know, this is going to be hard. But parents do this. They're parents of Nikki babies everywhere. Yeah.

Or if they didn't want to, which I still think is insane, but they didn't want to, as you said, someone else could have. And they said, no. Yeah. The only thing that we want is for this baby to be killed. We just want the baby done. Yep. And they wanted no life-saving measures if the baby was born alive. They wanted no, they just wanted the baby just completely gone.

Erased. And since that, which was in May, no, that was in June. Sorry, I don't know the exact date, but they haven't reached out to me once. They haven't asked my agency once how I'm doing nothing. Wow. Completely ghosted. Wow. And was it part of your contract that you have?

to terminate if they, if they told you to or? No. So in the contract, basically what it said was I had full control over my body. So, so basically while he's inside of me, I had 100% control. The minute that he is born, the parents have 100% control. Right. So did you, did you, how did they make you? Like what were they saying? How could they say then you have to do this if the baby was inside. They could say it. They technically couldn't force me, right? You can't hold somebody down

and they can get an abortion. That's why we had to go to a different hospital because the hospital that I was working with and my OB worked with, they refused to deliver me or do anything with me at all because of what the dads were threatening the lawsuits and all that stuff. So my OB was able to find a different hospital

for me to go and do all of this. And it's, I don't want to say, it because it's not funny in any way, but the baby was born on Father's Day morning at 4 a.m. So it's like Father's Day the rest of their life, you know, they're going to have to think about that their baby, that's the day their baby was born. If they even still think of it as a baby, they kept calling it a fetus. Every appointment, they just say the fetus, the fetus. And even every doctor would be like, yeah, the baby, because it's a baby. It's 25 weeks. Like it's a viable child if it, you know, when it's born.

Yeah. And. So, I mean, I don't know. I know that this has got, I mean, it's so fresh. It's so fresh. This just happened. And I know that this is really hard. But so you had to go to another hospital. Did you, did, was the baby delivered alive? Or was it a termination? Was it an abortion? I don't want to go too deep into the details of the actual delivery and labor part. But I did go to a different hospital on Saturday was checked in. I started meds to. induced labor. I had him 4.m. or 415-ish that Sunday Father's Day. I didn't hold him. I looked at him and they gave me pictures on like a box of stuff. My mom held him. So he was, you know, cared for and loved a little bit. I don't know how much that means to him both people, but he was held and wrapped up and swaddled. And he didn't make it. Obviously, he's not alive.

So he was born alive, but not giving. not given the life-saving measures. They, yeah, I just don't want to, I don't want to go too much into detail in the actual part of that. But he was held and cared for and loved for a short amount of time before they took him. But the parents did want to cream at him. That's the other part that was kind of confusing. And what was that like emotionally, I mean, what was that like emotionally for you? Because you had felt this baby.

The week leading up to it. Oh yeah, he was so active. This baby was so wild. I felt him like nonstop. He was, it was really fun to be able to feel and moving all the time. And then the week leading up to the delivery, I cried probably more than I have in my whole life. I haven't really had much emotion since then. I think I'm just kind of numb still because I had him on Sunday and then that Wednesday, I jumped right into chemo. So that was my first cancer chemo treatment. Wow. You've been, But I did like, I hemorrhaged after the birth because, you know, your body wasn't ready to go into labor. So the placenta wasn't coming out.

So I lost a lot of blood. So when I went to do my first chemo treatment, I was extremely sick. Obviously, because my body just had a baby and it didn't know what was going on. But the treatments since that first one have been easier. Wow. That poor baby. And so you, so basically, it's just such a difficult place because, you had to deliver early in order to have these treatments.

But after the baby is outside of you, it's not like you could have said, but now I'm going to adopt this baby or save this baby or whatever. Because as you said, your rights are totally terminated after the baby comes out. And the baby had to come out so that you could have these treatments. And so, I mean, this is why it's just so complicated. so sad. I do wonder if the men even saw their baby boy, their son, or one of their sons, before he was cremated, do you know?

No, because he was cremated here, and they don't live up here where I live. Okay. So they really just wanted to forget that this whole thing ever happened. That's why I was confused why they wanted to cremate him because they didn't see it as a baby. so why did they want his remains and to save all of that, you know, stuff? Right. If it's just a fetus and it didn't matter and he wouldn't have, you know, it was just confusing. And your aunt is who reached out to Jennifer Law, correct? And at the time that she reached out, I think I have, well, sometime this year, I guess a couple months ago,

she was still trying to figure out, like, is there something that we can do? I mean, you guys tried a lot while you were still pregnant. Like, you tried to talk to C.S. We tried everything. Lawyers, just to try to keep this baby alive and see what rights you have over the baby. And unfortunately, in this case, like you said you had a right over your body, you don't have any rights over the baby, really, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I'd never in a million years that I think this would be a situation that I would be in. Like, I did surrogacy to give people a baby. I'd never, ever would I have wanted something like this to be the outcome of, something that I did, you know, because I feel like I failed. Like this was my body and this was my job that I was doing and giving, you know, providing and creating this baby. And I might, in my mind, I'm like, I failed because I wasn't able to complete, you know, the task that I was set out to do. So it, I just feel like I'm still kind of numb on all those emotions just because

I haven't had a time to really sit down and think because I'm just jumped full force right into chemo and I'm just got to save myself from my kids now. That's, it's something that will never not be right at the front of my mind. Of course. Of course. Just to read this for context, California law recognizes the contracting intended parents and surrogacy arrangements as legal parents. They alone can make decisions around the care of the baby or in this case refusing

care. The rights of the mother to direct her own care are undermined, not even allowing her to advocate in some cases for her own needs and the needs of the baby. She is about to deliver. you've also set up, you set up a GoFundMe or your sister has set up a GoFundMe. My sister, yeah. Yeah, and so people can support you in your cancer journey and everything that you're dealing with, right? Yes.

Yes. And is there anything else? Is there anything else you want people to know or that you want to share, either about what happened or how you're feeling or what you wish that you knew going into this? I'm not I'm still pro surrogacy I think it has a time and a place and I think it's still something that is so incredibly helpful I just I would maybe recommend stuff like more screening or you know something to to kind of avoid situations like this obviously you don't expect your surrogate or as a surrogate to get cancer but if the goal is to have a baby it shouldn't be something where they can just like and we're just going to pull the plug because it's you know it's not the perfect baby that we want it. Like nobody is guaranteed a perfect baby. And I just think that I don't mean, I don't know the process around what that would look like, but I just, I just feel like there should be more, I don't know, troubleshooting or something along the lines that stuff like this can't happen because I don't want anyone to ever have to feel how I feel or go through something that I went

through. Yes. And I understand that you did it and have done it now twice from a good place. I have been very public I am against surrogacy for these reasons. That doesn't mean that I, you know, think that people who participate in surrogacy are bad or terrible or that these babies don't matter because, of course, I do. But I also think there's a good reason why it's illegal in most parts of the world because, unfortunately, you mentioned that you feel like, you can't guarantee that stuff. Yeah, you feel like a, you felt like a rented womb. And that's a terrible feeling. That's a terrible feeling to kind of be objectified in that way, especially by people who you thought, you said that you did this to be a part of something, you know, and you felt that little baby move.

Like, you probably felt like you were a part of some kind of miracle. And then to just kind of be treated like trash and discarded and the baby discarded and incinerated. So the first parents, they send me pictures all the time. So, like, we have a relationship and I get to see, you know, the babies that I grew for them. And it's amazing. And so that's the type of relationship that I was wanting with obviously the second set of parents as well. I don't have to be at every birthday party or be told whatever they want to say. But just to be involved and get to see, you know, about the fruits of my labor.

But I don't know what other word to use. But it's just like being a part of it, you know, because it's an awesome thing that they get to have, you know, a family. Do you feel in these past two times, like have you felt, is there an emotional bond? Like, is there a connection that you felt to these little lives growing inside you? there is but it's different than with your own kids yeah uh like when you have your baby and it like goes right onto your body and you connect instantly with surrogacy you don't you don't take the baby right away so the babies go to their parents so there isn't that initial like click bond that you get um but i think going into it the whole time i'm pregnant and i'm bonding with them

but also like i know that they're not my baby it's not it's not my egg um so it's you just go into it from the beginning with a different mindset. So it's not the same bonding processes with your own babies. But I imagine now that the separation has happened, how it has this past experience, that there have been a lot of emotions associated with that. In addition also to everything that you're dealing with and trying to survive and be healthy, and man, I'm going to be praying for you and your family so much because, and I know that everyone here will be too.

Is there a way that people can reach out to someone in your family just for like, kind words or words of encouragement or words of prayer while also protecting your privacy. Yeah, my sister has been handling all of that stuff. She's the one that started the go-fund me to Courtney Pearson. Does she have, and we can get it and put it in the description if you don't have it in front of you. Does she have like an email or something that she prefers? Yeah, the court and Pearson one. Just court N and then Pearson, P-E-A-R-S-O-N at g-mel.com. Okay, court in Pearson at gmail.com. If she's okay with it, then we can have people, you know, share kind messages to that

because I know that everyone is going to be touched by your story and also just want to be supporting you and praying for you because I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that this happened. I'm sorry for you and for your family. I'm sorry for that little baby. And I just hope that there is some kind of just awakening by the dads who discarded and dehumanized to people. this experience. So thank you so much for having the courage to share your story for being willing to.

I really hope that people learn from it because there's definitely something to be learned from this. So thank you so much, Brittany. Of course. Thank you. It was nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening or watching. I just wanted to close out with a little announcement that Blaze Media wanted me to tell you the presidential primaries for 2024, they're already underway. And so we need to know. We need to know where the candidates actually stand on each issue. Sometimes candidates sound good. They sound like they're on our team, but when you really press them on the specifics, it's unsure where they stand. And so they are, Blaise Media is teaming up with the family leader, a pro-family, pro-marriage, pro-life organization

to host something called the Summit. It is the first presidential forum of the election season. It's going to be moderated by Tucker Carlson, which is amazing. So join Blaze Media this Friday in Iowa as Tucker sits down one-on-one, with each of the candidates to ask them the questions Christian voters want to hear answered. And then we'll have different commentators, different hosts from Blaze Media. I unfortunately cannot be there, but Glenn Beck will be there. Steve Days will be there. Lots of other Blaze personalities.

Go to BlazeMedia Summit.com to subscribe. use the code summit for 30% off your subscription. BlazmediaSummit.com. Use code summit for 30% off. Blazmedia.com code summit. All right. Thanks so much, guys. We will be back here tomorrow.

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