‘Desperate pair’ asked me to be surrogate… after I gave birth the lies unravelled as baby SOLD for £75k to lone Brit man

MINUTES after an emergency Caesarean, surrogate mum Christian Klotz saw staff arguing with the man she believed was the father of the baby boy. To her horror, he was trying to put an unknown person’s name on the birth certificate. Later, she discovered the baby had been sold to a man in the UK for £75,000. Christian Klotz signed a contract with a well known surrogacy agency, agreeing to a pregnancy using an egg donor Credit: Supplied Already a mum-of-three, Christian suffered severe complications during her surrogate pregnancy Credit: Supplied Here, The Sun exposes the “harmful legal loophole” of the surrogacy market and how single British men are going abroad to become parents. And the dangerous lack of regulation is also fuelling ‘baby farms’ – where desperate women are conned into surrogacy and kept in cramped conditions during pregnancy. Christian’s traumatic experience in 2019 was followed by a string of shocking discoveries that has led her to believe surrogacy is an “inhumane market”. When a surrogacy agency sent Christian, from Pennsylvania in the US, a profile of a couple who were desperate for a second baby she thought their story was “beautiful”. The husband and wife had moved to the US from China where there is a one child policy, she was told. But by the time they emigrated the woman had passed her fertility window. Christian told The Sun: “My first thought of the couple was they were lovely, their family was beautiful and so was their ‘faux’ story.” She signed a contract with a well known surrogacy agency, agreeing to a pregnancy using an egg donor. Christian first realised something was wrong when the couple told her about a ‘sister surrogate’ Credit: AFP Founder of Stop Surrogacy Now UK, Lexi Ellingsworth, left, has supported Christian, centre, since the birth Credit: Supplied Already a mum-of-three, Christian, had easy pregnancies and was inspired to become a surrogate after watching her friend struggle with infertility in 2014. But surrogate pregnancies are three times more dangerous for both the mother and baby due to the body’s altered immune response to a genetically unrelated embryo. Surrogates face higher risks of complications including severe bleeding after childbirth (postpartum haemorrhage), high blood pressure and signs of organ failure (pre-eclampsia). By autumn 2018 she was ready for the embryo transfer, and promised $40,000 (£29,500) by the agency which came through in a series of instalments. But things soon took a sinister turn. A series of meetings with the surrogate parents ended only in the husband turning up, with an assistant. She said: “I first suspected something was wrong when I was told I would have a ‘surrogate sister’ – which was described as another woman who was carrying an embryo for the same couple. “The agency informed me it was due to a percentage of embryo failures.“ To make matters worse, the pregnancy was filled with complications that Christian had never experienced before. What began as severe morning sickness turned into bleeding and pre-eclampsia. Christian said: “I had to undergo blood transfusions at the end of my pregnancy and sign a document with my doctor that he was allowed to administer a blood transfusion if I were unconscious or not able to answer for myself.” Although the couple promised to turn up to Christian’s appointments, they never showed. A week before she gave birth, she was told that the sister surrogate’s pregnancy had failed. Christian later discovered via email that her baby had been taken to the UK Credit: Getty Surrogate pregnancies are three times more dangerous for both the mother and baby Credit: Nick Obank – The Sun At almost 37 weeks Christian went into a 24-hour labour that ended in an emergency C-section. She said: “We were both suffering.” When she woke up the nurse was saying that the ‘dad’ was trying to use a last name for the baby “that wasn’t his or his wife’s”. But because of the morphine and trauma, Christian said she was “confused” and “not in a great state of mind”. Eight months later she discovered via email that her baby had been taken to the UK to be with its “real father” – a single man. Christian said: “The ‘intended parents’ were employees of the ‘sperm donor’. “After the pregnancy I suffered from postpartum depression. I missed the baby that I carried and it was extremely hard being home without him.” Christian said she has been “forced to live with the pain and complications” her surrogacy experience left behind. She said: “Surrogacy is a market, you get to grade your embryos, design your baby, and even after decide if you want to have the baby terminated at any time. “It’s inhumane to both baby and (surrogate) mothers.” It comes as a growing number of single, British men are turning abroad to pursue surrogacy. Data shows 130 single men in the UK applied to become legal parents of surrogate babies born abroad between 2019 and 2025. But there were only 23 applications from the same group to use surrogate mothers in the UK over that period. Campaigners say the new figures reveal a “harmful legal loophole” in the surrogacy industry. Lexi Ellingsworth, Founder, Stop Surrogacy Now UK, told The Sun: “More and more British citizens, including single men, are engaging in commercial contracts abroad which do not operate with strong safeguarding structures and would not be considered to be legal here.” Commercial surrogacy – when a woman is paid to carry and deliver a baby beyond the reimbursement of expenses – is illegal in the UK. But it is currently legal for Brits to have babies through international surrogacy arrangements with a parental order. The global market – already worth almost $18billion (£14billion) – is projected to rise to $129billion by 2032, according to the research firm Global Market Insights. Lexi said: “Countries which claim to regulate surrogacy ‘safely’, like the US, see women and children put at risk and we continue to see human trafficking scandals reported internationally.” Different countries have different surrogacy laws which has caused grey areas to emerge across the booming industry. In places like Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Kenya – it is either unregulated or very lightly regulated. The lack of international regulation can have sinister consequences. Just weeks ago, 15 women were rescued from an alleged illegal surrogacy agency in Porac, Pampanga. A surrogate mother told police the agency recruited financially-disadvantaged women to carry children for intended parents under deceptive agreements. According to the complaint, women were paid to carry pregnancies and surrender custody of the baby at birth. Suspects reportedly falsified children’s details on their birth certificates. Operatives also discovered a second ‘baby farm’ facility in the same town – packed with several pregnant women. Lexi said: “Women are subjected to procedures and processes they do not freely consent to and are often forced to travel to give birth or live away from their families for extended periods. “Christian entered a fraudulent agreement through no fault of her own, as she trusted the agency who did not conduct suitable background checks on the commissioning parents. “The couple never even planned to raise the child Christian gave birth to and the full extent of one man’s plan was only uncovered when the child was trafficked to the UK.”