Surrogate mother McKenna West says she is facing mounting financial strain after choosing not to end a pregnancy, despite the alleged wishes of the child’s biological parents — a dispute her attorney and an urgent online fundraising page say has left her covering costs she never expected.
“McKenna has already sacrificed so much,” states the description on a GiveSendGo fundraiser, which had collected more than $66,000 by Friday. The campaign says the money will help West pay for travel, living expenses and her ongoing effort “to protect this baby’s life.”
West, a 28-year-old nurse from Alaska, reportedly sought financial support while staying in Dallas, where she traveled to deliver the biological son of Los Angeles couple Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed on Wednesday. The birth came after the intended parents allegedly asked her to terminate the pregnancy when the baby was diagnosed at about 20 weeks with a serious but treatable heart condition.
According to the fundraiser, created by a friend identified only as Ellen, West “has lost the payments she was relying on” and now could face legal action seeking reimbursement for money paid to her or on her behalf since the surrogacy arrangement began.
The campaign also says West has been living away from home, missing work and still paying her regular bills in Alaska. It notes that before her original Sept. 2 due date, she was already expected to exhaust the paid time off from her nursing job in Anchorage.
West has said she intends to fight aggressively for custody of the newborn, even though the baby was placed with his biological parents within a day of delivery. Reproductive law attorney Marla Neufeld previously told The Post that West would likely have little to no legal claim to the child under surrogacy law.
Her attorney, Lincoln Wilson, alleged Friday that the intended parents have not provided West with support since asking her to end the pregnancy. The surrogacy contract, he said, included language allowing the couple to seek an abortion if an “anomaly” was detected.
“They said when they demanded an abortion, ‘Hey, can we just pay you half for the next month since you’re gonna be aborting this child?’” Wilson claimed during a phone interview with The Post.
West initially agreed to terminate the pregnancy, Gilkar and Ahmed have claimed in court papers, but she later changed her mind and accused the couple of trying to force her to have an abortion – an allegation they have denied, the Texas Tribune reported.
The parents ultimately decided to see the pregnancy through to delivery, opting to name the boy Rumi and have West deliver in California, where he would receive lifelong treatment for hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), according to court docs reviewed by the Tribune.
Wilson disputed that version of events Friday, alleging that an attorney involved in negotiating the surrogacy agreement warned West she could face a $250,000 fine if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy.
That communication “was to illustrate the level of pressure that the other side went to try to force an abortion here,” Wilson said.
Still, West refused and traveled to Texas, where she would be recognized as the birth mother under state law.
And while Wilson insisted Friday that West “is not in this for the money,” the mother of two previously identified the financial payout as a major reason she entered the surrogacy agreement in the first place.
“I thought [being a surrogate] would be a really awesome way to make extra income for my family, not have to take extra time away from my kids, and get to provide a family the amazing gift of having a child,” West told Live Action News on July 31.
“I felt it would be a rewarding route to take,” she gushed.
But the once-appealing arrangement has since devolved into a legal and financial nightmare, with custody battles and monetary disputes now spanning three states.
“Despite any compensation, [West] has gone through huge personal risk to herself to give birth to this baby and make sure that he gets medical care,” Wilson said.
“But we think it’s outrageous that the other side has sought to enforce the contract where they aren’t even paying money to have it completed – and yet they want all the rights that the contract provides,” he blasted.
Even though a California court has already ruled that Gilkar and Ahmed are, in fact, the baby’s legal parents, Wilson previously told The Post that his team is prepared to take the custody fight all the way to the Supreme Court.
“She is the mother,” he claimed of his client.
Not only is West fighting for custody of the child – she’s also seeking to recover losses from the bitterly disputed custody agreement, which Wilson said amounts to “in excess of tens of thousands of dollars.”
