Bi understood how far-fetched her allegations sounded. \u201cIf it were not for all the hard evidence, it\u2019s too shocking to believe [Rebecca Smith] did what she did to kill my son,\u201d Bi wrote on Facebook, using Smith\u2019s real name. Perhaps a kind friend could have suggested to Bi that there were other explanations. Instead, Bi had a set of legal adversaries and a supportive echo chamber. On Facebook, GCs and IPs alike expressed sympathy for Bi\u2019s tragic posts: Everyone knew bad surrogates existed, and based on Bi\u2019s claims, it sounded like Smith was one. Aimee Eyvazzadeh, a Bay Area fertility doctor and influencer, called Smith \u201ca criminal\u201d and \u201ca psycho.\u201d Bi\u2019s $1,275-an-hour lawyer, Elizabeth Sperling, wondered whether digging through social media posts might show Smith engaging in \u201cstrenuous activity\u201d that could explain the death.<\/p>\n
Bi\u2019s husband focused on stabilizing the family, a move he credits with saving their marriage. He blamed the hospital, not Smith, but told me that the litigation is \u201cher grieving process.\u201d He tried to stay out of the legal stuff so that Bi couldn\u2019t blame him too.<\/p>\n
Smith had planned to go back to work shortly after giving birth. Instead, she couldn\u2019t stop bleeding. Even though SAI had determined she hadn\u2019t breached the contract, the escrow stopped paying, leaving Smith reliant on disability benefits as she faced an increasing pile of terrifying bills.<\/p>\n
When Smith was finally cleared to return to work, a month after Leon died, Bi emailed Smith\u2019s HR department to ask about her health plan. Bi also reported Smith to a federal agency, claiming that Smith was committing fraud. The stress on Smith was already high: Her supervisor at work had found her crying on and off for a day.<\/p>\n
Smith hadn\u2019t heard from Bi since her terse reply to the condolence email. Then, Bi texted her a screenshot of a Facebook post about another GC who\u2019d had an abruption at almost 32 weeks\u2014but that GC had called 911 and the baby had lived.<\/p>\n
Next, Bi iMessaged a photo of Leon\u2019s corpse to Smith\u2019s 7-year-old son\u2019s iPad.<\/p>\n
In the months after Leon died, Bi:<\/p>\n
Called the FBI 12 times. Reported Smith, SAI, the hospital, and Clarity escrow to more than a dozen state and federal regulators and numerous professional organizations. Launched a new round of her $30 million venture fund, backed by Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, President Trump\u2019s \u201cAI and crypto czar,\u201d on Leon\u2019s due date. Posted Leon\u2019s ChatGPT-written endorsement from heaven, offering his \u201ceternal blessings\u201d for her work. Created TikToks, Instagram Reels, Facebook posts, X threads, LinkedIn Updates, and a website for her advocacy. Posted links disclosing Smith\u2019s full name, photo, address, employer, mortgage license number, and son\u2019s first name to her website. Asked her husband, again and again, how it was possible that Smith had carried her son but felt \u201cnothing\u201d about his death.<\/p>\n
Baby Leon\u2019s empty crib.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Cindy Bi<\/p>\n
Bi has abandonment issues that she traces back to her twenties, when her father divorced her mom for the mistress who\u2019d conceived his long-awaited son. She got on lithium for her bipolar disorder in early 2021 and began looking for surrogates as soon as she stopped feeling \u201csedated.\u201d I spoke to the therapist Bi hired to consult with her and Valdeiglesias. She told me that, of the 792 intended parents she has evaluated for surrogacy or gamete donation in the last decade, she has declined to recommend only about a dozen. \u201cI\u2019m not gatekeeping,\u201d she said. When it comes to serious mental illness, she added, it\u2019s up to them to disclose. One of Bi\u2019s fertility doctors, meanwhile, told me it\u2019s not his place to scrutinize intended parents. He defers to the recommendation of the psychological interviewer.<\/p>\n
If an intended parent gets turned down, they can usually find another therapist, another clinic, another agency. But without anyone questioning her plans, Bi seemed betrayed by the challenges of third-party reproduction. \u201cSurrogacy is supposed to be the safest route,\u201d she wrote on Instagram. It wasn\u2019t just Leon\u2019s death that pushed Bi into her spiral of legal action and social media posts. It was the apparent lack of control of having her child inside another woman\u2019s body\u2014the most basic fact of surrogacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bi understood how far-fetched her allegations sounded. \u201cIf it were not for all the hard evidence, it\u2019s too…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":196802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[245,248,210,16026,11164,109389,99848,15322,67,132,68,1594],"class_list":{"0":"post-196801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-children","9":"tag-fertility","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-longreads","12":"tag-pregnancy","13":"tag-reproduction","14":"tag-reproductive-rights","15":"tag-silicon-valley","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-venture-capital"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115140361229783573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}