() A pregnant Pennsylvania woman who served as a surrogate for a California couple — who are now accused of running a massive surrogacy scam — says she feels abandoned and uncertain about the baby’s future.

Alexa Fasold, who is due in October, said she and her husband believed they were helping a family struggling with infertility have their first child. Instead, they discovered the couple allegedly operated a surrogacy agency that facilitated the births of 21 children, all of whom were removed from the home last month.

“We were under the impression that we were working with a family who was struggling with infertility for their first child,” Fasold said Friday on ’s “CUOMO.” “We thought we were answering a prayer here that again seems to have turned around.”

21 kids removed from home in alleged surrogacy scam operation

The couple, 38-year-old Silvia Zhang and her 65-year-old husband Guojun Xuan, allegedly scammed multiple surrogates through their agency, Mark Surrogacy. 

Authorities say 17 of the 21 children removed from their California home are younger than 3, and most were born using gestational surrogates who had no genetic connection to the embryos they carried.

The investigation began in May when police suspected a 2-month-old had been abused. Surveillance footage showed a nanny, Chunmei Li, shaking the baby; that nanny remains on the run. The couple was arrested on neglect charges but released as investigators continued building their case.

Fasold said all communication went through the agency because she and her husband wanted an anonymous arrangement with minimal contact with the intended parents. Now that the agency has been terminated, she has no direct contact with anyone involved.

“Since the agency was our primary and only contact, and now that that ownership is going through all this and then Mark Surrogacy completely terminated the business, it kind of left us in the blank,” Fasold said.

Attorney alerted FBI two years ago about suspicious activity

Attorney Rijon Charne, who represented three other surrogates hired by the couple, alerted the FBI about suspicious activity more than two years ago. She said people who were not the intended parents showed up to a hospital with a power of attorney requesting to take a child.

“This doesn’t happen in the surrogacy industry,” Charne told . “I’ve been in this industry a really long time. And it was horrifying.”

It remains unclear whether all the children share the same genetic material.

Charne said she knows an egg donor and the intended father’s sperm were used in the cases she handled, but couldn’t confirm if the same egg donor was used for all pregnancies.

Surrogate wants to ensure baby’s safety after October birth

Fasold, who has never been a surrogate before, said she doesn’t necessarily want to keep the baby but wants to ensure the child’s safety.

“We have never looked at ourselves as being in a place to wanting to necessarily hold on to the baby,” she said. “But we do want to make sure he’s safe, whether that happens to be with us or another family, whether that’s in foster care and going through a system.”

The couple claimed they simply wanted a large family and denied any wrongdoing. The children, ranging from 2 months to 13 years old, are now in foster care.

local affiliate KTLA contributed to this report.