FOUNTAIN VALLEY, California – Inside a pastel three-story mansion in a quiet suburb south of Los Angeles, Aunt Wang is holding a 2-week-old baby girl named Echo.
“The more time you spend with her, the more she will bond with you,” said Aunt Wang, who moved to the US seven years ago from China. “You hold her, play with her, engage with her and look, she meets for you.”
The 58-year-old patted and cooed to the baby in apparent amusement. But for all affection, she’s not the baby’s mother or even a relative. She is a hired nanny who takes care of Echo and other children like herself born through surrogacy – where a woman carries and gives birth to a child for another couple or individual.
Aunt Wang doesn’t want to share her full name because of the sensitivity and legal issues surrounding surrogacy in her hometown.
The agency she works for, called Fat Daddy, specializes in these services for clients in China, which provides surrogacy is prohibited.
The company is part of a Industries concentrated in California also include the The service that brings Chinese mothers to the US to give birth is called “birth tourism”.
But for nearly three years, the entire industry has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic and China’s travel restrictions, which are among the strictest in the world. In 2020, Beijing completely closed the country’s borders to contain COVID-19 and never fully reopened surname.
That means Chinese parents cannot fly to the US to see or in person their surrogate doctor. Instead, clients must send their fertility samples – eggs, sperm or both – via special mail to the US so that the surrogacy can take place.
China’s “zero-COVID” policies and recent passport restrictions It has also made it nearly impossible for many Chinese parents to come to the US to pick up their newborn baby.
So for nannies like Aunt Wang, that means more work. While before the pandemic she cared for babies for up to six weeks, now such care often lasts up to several months while Fat Dad The agency works to arrange flights and the Chinese residency documents are required to transport the babies to China.
They are going to the US, where surrogacy is legal in most states
One family caught up in the bureaucracy is Lucy, 1 year old, born in the US and her parents in China.
“Get a [U.S.] Visa took four months away from Lucy’s mother,” Sunny explained, a Fat Daddy employee, who manages the house where surrogate babies and their carers live. She wanted to use only her name in the story to avoid being identified because surrogacy is illegal in China. “But her flights from China kept getting cancelled.”
In the US, Chinese couples can easily pay more than $100,000 for surrogacy – high costs that include accommodation, meals and transportation.
Cheaper options exist in Thailand, Cambodia, India and Russia. In recent years, Ukraine has become a major hub for this industry, but after Russia invaded the country, at least 19 surrogates were destined for China. The rest are stuck.
Instead of looking abroad, some Chinese people Parents looking surrogacy services from underground providers in China. One research estimate that a decade ago, as many as 500 businesses were operating stealthily.
But users of the service have few legal rights if the provider doesn’t deliver the baby – or if the biological parents decision to divide custody of children.
For financially well-off Chinese parents, a popular choice remains the US, where surrogacy is legal in most states.
“America has it all. America is a good country – as long as you know what you want,” said a Chinese-born travel agent based in California. He did not want to give his name because China forbids providing such services. “Having children in the US will always give an advantage, because America is a country for immigrants.”
It’s difficult to know how many Chinese couples use surrogacy services in California because the state’s health department says it doesn’t track it. But NPR has spoken to several agencies that say there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases in the state each year.
Zheng, co-founder of Fat Daddy, said there are many reasons why customers want to use his company’s services.
He speaks Chinese used to limit couples just a child (now limit is three), the couple is so rich used to have their second or even third child in the United States Another reason is unmarried women and not heterosexual couples often find it difficult to have children or legally adopt children.
Giving birth, even through representation in the US, also subsidize the child aspires to have American citizenship. Perhaps surprisingly, Zheng says that the growing rivalry between the US and China has actually made many American families more attractive.
“In the near future, China and the United States will certainly be the two most powerful countries in the world,” he said. “If the US is not the first, then China will be too and it will definitely be a win-win for your children in the future if they have both citizenships.”
Before the pandemic, Zheng said, Chinese demand for surrogacy services and birth tourism services was so high that he used to lease out entire apartment buildings to Chinese families.
And according to another agent – who only named her Lulu for fear of being punished for speaking candidly about Chinese politics and surrogacy – many of her clients are “high-ranking Communist Party officials and celebrities” with money and power who want their children to have American citizenship. In China, dual citizenship is illegal.
Some will go on a self-made birth trip
These days, only the most determined Chinese prospective parents go to America.
One of them is Lily, a lawyer from Baotou, Inner Mongolia. She does not want to use her full name because the issue of birth tourism is sensitive in China.
Lily is working on what the industry calls a do-it-yourself birth tourism experience; rent her own house and hire a full-time nanny to take care of her toddler Gordon, who was born in the US
When NPR met Lily in May, she was pregnant with her second child. The The family plans to spend another six months in the US after giving birth before returning home.
“Having all the advantages in the United States; freedom of speech, sense of security,” she explained of her decision. “My kids will definitely be better off if they have these options.”
She also half-jokingly said that she came to America because she wanted to give birth without pain. “It’s very difficult to get a total epidural in China!” she speaks.
But many are not as lucky as Lily. Parents using surrogacy services will have to wait a long time before seeing their baby.
Now, many babies have been flown back to China under the supervision of a dedicated nanny provided by the agencies.
For Auntie Wang, seeing the children she took care of for many months is always an extremely emotional moment.
Aunt Wang said: “Oh, we cried when we said goodbye to these children! It was painful to say goodbye to them. They were just like us.” “All nannies are like this. After just a month, you have a bond with them.”
