The biological mother of a surrogate-born baby at the center of a custody fight spanning multiple states broke down in tears on the witness stand Tuesday, accusing the surrogate of attempting to take the child from his parents.
“She’s making us run from doctor to doctor, state to state. With our baby — she’s trying to take him,” Nausheen Gilkar testified during a Dallas hearing over whether to enforce a temporary restraining order that would bar the surrogate from visiting the infant or making decisions on his behalf.
McKenna West, a 28-year-old nurse from Alaska, delivered the baby on Aug. 12. Gilkar and her husband refer to the child as “Rumi.”
During a 20-week prenatal scan, doctors diagnosed the baby in utero with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, known as HLHS.
HLHS is a rare congenital heart defect in which the left side of the heart fails to develop properly.
Gilkar became so overwhelmed during her testimony that the court paused proceedings for a recess.
Gilkar and her husband, Omar Ahmed of Los Angeles, are also suing West for more than $100,000, alleging she kept the baby instead of terminating the pregnancy after they requested an abortion.
West, who calls the infant “Gabriel,” traveled to Texas to give birth and seek life-saving medical treatment for the baby after the serious heart condition was discovered.
West is fighting to ensure the baby stays in the Lone Star State, where Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered that the baby boy must receive the necessary surgery.
Here is the latest news on the McKenna West surrogacy battle:
Gilkar, however, claimed she and her husband had already arranged medical care in California and that West withheld his medical records in Alaska.
“We didn’t even know if he was still alive for two months,” she said from the stand, claiming West.
They had agreed to pay West $60,000 to carry their child — with an abortion clause that allowed them to terminate the pregnancy if there were issues with the fetus, who was later diagnosed with HLHS.
A medical team in Texas was able to keep the baby alive in the days after birth, and he remains in intensive care in a Dallas hospital as West and the genetic parents wage a legal battle involving three states.
But the baby’s condition took a turn for the worse shortly day before the hearing, leaving him in critical condition, Gilkar and Ahmed claimed in a legal filing asking the court to postpone the hearing.
Over the last 24 hours, “Serious medical developments have arisen that impact the health and safety of the child.
The child is in critical condition and being closelymonitored at the hospital,” Gilkar and Ahmed said, according to court documents.
