Carrying someone else's dream

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske © LATimes.com
Surrogacy is a natural fit for military wives, with their solid support networks, premium medical care and strong dispositions. For some it's easy money; for others it's a way to help unlucky couples.

Angel Howard, 32, lay motionless on an examining table in a La Jolla fertility clinic last Mother's Day, her delicate features bathed in the blue-gray glow of an ultrasound screen as she watched a doctor try to impregnate her with someone else's embryos.For the last month, Howard had been injecting herself with daily hormone shots that made her so sore she could barely sleep. The mother of six was tired. She had to handle becoming a surrogate without her husband, Brian, at her side: The Navy Seabee had deployed to Iraq for six months.

If Howard delivered a healthy baby, she would receive between $20,000 and $25,000 from the parents, plus an allowance for food and maternity clothes. If she had twins, she could be paid an extra $5,000.The stay-at-home mother did not like to admit it, but she could use the money. Howard stretched every dollar of Brian's $56,000 yearly income, wearing old clothes, clipping coupons, shopping for sales at Wal-Mart and occasionally tapping the food pantry at the Armed Services YMCA. She had worked part time at a clothing store in the local mall, but quit when her husband was sent back to the Middle East. Surrogacy money would provide a much-needed safety net for her children, Maria, 14, Anthony, 12, Ezekiel, 10, Tacina, 8, Chaeli, 4, and Izaac, 16 months. Howard first seriously considered surrogacy after a chance meeting at a local pet store six years before.
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