Twins at Center of Surrogate Controversy

Peyton and Dani are at the center of surrogate controversy.

YPSILANTI, Mich. (myFOXDetroit.com) - A woman who wanted to be a mother hired another woman to carry twins, but now the surrogate has won custody. How can this happen, and why did the surrogate change her mind?

Two babies are at the center of a surrogate controversy. Two families both want them.

"I feel like it was a legal kidnapping, totally legal, and it was a kidnapping," said Amy Kehoe.

Amy Kehoe and her husband, Scott, have a nursery stuffed with bottles, blankets and bassinets, but the babies they claim as theirs, Ethan and Bridgett, are across the state in a home in Ypsilanti and now called Peyton and Dani.

"For them to just say that I meant to do this, that hurts. That really hurts. (They're) the ones that deceived me," said Laschell Baker.

Baker agreed to be a surrogate for the Kehoes, whose struggle with infertility prompted them to invest $30,000 in an egg donor, a sperm donor and in vitro fertilization. Baker carried the babies, birthed them and turned them over to the Kehoes. But then she changed her mind, only after she learned Amy Kehoe has a mental illness that requires medication and several arrests years ago for drugs and alcohol.

Baker says she feared for the twin's safety.

"I just couldn't do it. I would never have worked with a family that had... these type of issues," Baker said.

"Having them taken away was worse than a death because at least with a death you have closure. We have no closure," said Scott Kehoe.

"It was the best experience of my life, and then, when they were taken away, it was one of the most traumatic experiences I've ever had," Amy Kehoe said.

Amy Kehoe has a home study and a letter from her psychiatrist saying she's fit to parent, but surrogacy contracts are void in Michigan, and neither family has genetic rights to the twins. So, a judge awarded custody to the birth mother -- Laschell Baker.

"I don't ever want anybody in this situation. I never wanted to keep these babies. Everybody knows that in my family," said Baker.

Baker says she's been vilified as a baby stealer and a crook. But Baker, who already has four children of her own and has served as a surrogate before, says she and her husband, Paul, never intended for it to turn out this way.

"Us coming forward is strictly because the laws have to change here to protect these children, protect the surrogates, protect these intended families and, overall, it just needs to be regulated," Baker said.

That's one thing the two families do agree on.

(Edit:Ruby)