A pregnant surrogate for a defunct California company doesn’t know what will happen to the baby she’s carrying

Alexa Fasold thought she was a surrogate for a couple having fertility issues and was all set to give birth to a baby boy this fall, after carrying a transferred embryo since January. Then she learned that the agency she was working with was under investigation.

A couple behind the Arcadia, California, agency has been accused by surrogates of running a potential scam in which multiple women across the country were unknowingly carrying embryos for the same couple at the same time. Fasold first realized that something was amiss when the agency, Mark Surrogacy Investment LLC, suddenly stopped responding to legal questions in May.

The couple, Silvia Zhang, 38, and her husband, Guojun Xuan, 65, residents of the Arcadia home and owners of Mark Surrogacy, were arrested that month on suspicion of felony child endangerment and neglect, police said. They have not been charged and were released on bond pending the investigation, police said.

According to police, they discovered 21 children, mostly born to surrogates, connected to the couple. Fifteen of those children, whose ages ranged from 2 months to 13 years, were found in the Arcadia home. The agency, which dissolved in June according to public records, was registered to that same address.

An additional six children tied to the couple were found in the care of family and friends. All the children were retrieved by authorities following a local hospital call to police to report that a 2-month-old baby had arrived with head injuries. The children are now in protective custody.

Fasold, 26, said she’s devastated and unsure of what will happen to the baby she’s carrying. She might try to foster for a period, she said, and has been working with a lawyer she retained in the early stages of the surrogacy process.

“We’re heartbroken for the baby and his future,” said Fasold, a motor coach bus driver based in Pennsylvania. “We were supposed to be completing a family or helping a family start. And it turned into this horror movie.”

Fasold, who is married with children, is one of several surrogates who have recently come forward to say they also have worked with the agency. Fasold said she can’t share the identity of the parents of the child she is carrying because her contract with Mark Surrogacy lists a confidentiality clause.

Kayla Elliot, a 27-year-old surrogate for Zhang and Xuan who delivered a baby in March, told NBC News that Mark Surrogacy told her that the couple had one teenage child and had given up on attempting to have a second after 10 rounds of failed fertility treatments. Elliot said she learned that the baby she birthed was among those who are currently in foster care.

Even as details of the agency have surfaced, Fasold said she received an email from them as recently as over a week ago. The email, seen by NBC News, asked her for details about the hospital where she plans on delivering the baby. Fasold hasn’t responded to the email.

“I understand there’s an investigation but our main focus now is who’s going to take the baby? Where is the baby going to be?” Fasold said. “We’re still honestly not sure of where, but it’s a race against time to figure out what that might look like.”

Attempts to reach Zhang and Xuan were unsuccessful. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Zhang and Xuan had retained a lawyer who could speak on their behalf.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office also did not immediately respond.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services said in a statement that it cannot share details about the “lives of children and families who come to our attention.”

Video evidence recovered from the Arcadia home shows that some of the younger children were “subjected to physical and emotional abuse,” a spokesperson for the Arcadia Police Department told NBC News last week. Authorities say that they believe that Zhang and Xuan were aware of the abuse and “let it happen.”

Police are expected to resubmit the case after a review of evidence to the district attorney in the next two to three weeks, Lt. Kollin Cieadlo told NBC News. An arrest warrant has been issued in connection with the case for a 56-year-old nanny, who authorities say was seen on camera violently shaking and striking a 2-month-old baby. The baby lost consciousness and was hospitalized, police said, and was the subject of the call that triggered the investigation back in May.

Fasold said that for the last few weeks, she’s been in contact with the FBI and Child Protective Services. Her contract with Mark Surrogacy states that she wouldn’t fight for parental rights. But Fasold said the new circumstances mean there’s a likelihood that the baby will go into foster care, and she’s looking into the requirements to become a foster parent.

Fasold’s surrogacy process began over a year ago, when she was looking to help some acquaintances with their fertility journey, she said. Things ultimately did not work out with the acquaintances’ surrogacy agency, which told her she was medically disqualified from carrying, she said. Fasold suspects that her pregnancy with her youngest child, which involved a gallbladder surgery, ultimately ruled her out as a surrogate with that particular agency, but she still hoped to find another way to participate in the process, she said.

That’s when Fasold began seeking advice on Facebook and posting in surrogacy groups, she said. Fasold and her husband initially had their hearts set on another agency, but Mark Surrogacy found them through their social media posts and reached out, she said.

“They asked us what it was we were looking for, if we would be up to allowing them to compete with the agency that we found, if they could compete with compensation, or if there’s anything more that we would ask for in a company,” Fasold recalled.

Fasold said that, in retrospect, it was suspicious that the company agreed to all of the conditions she and her husband wanted. Among other things, they required to stay anonymous in the process, with limited contact with the baby’s intended parents and no direct line of communication with them, she said. They also didn’t want the parents to have complete control over the pregnancy.

“Everything that we were looking for in a parent is basically what we got, anything that we said kind of went,” Fasold said. “Looking back now, that should have been a red flag, because that very, very rarely happens. There is usually compromise.”

After months of discussions, Fasold and her husband signed a contract with Mark Surrogacy in May 2024. The surrogacy process generally costs couples between $125,000 to $175,000, Stephanie Levich, founder and president of Family Match Consulting told TODAY. Surrogate fees, including medical testing and carrying and delivering the baby run between $30,000 and $60,000. Fasold did not disclose her compensation.

“We did jump the gun a little bit,” she said. “We just kind of chose them because of the flexibility, the communication being pretty on point and that they never left a question unanswered for us.”

Fasold said that most of her communication with the company was done between Facebook Messenger and email, with weekly check-ins before the first embryo transfer. The only face-to-face interaction she had with the company was after the embryo transfer in September 2024, she said. While she had expected the intended parents to show up to the procedure, Fasold said she was told the couple was dealing with health issues that kept them from attending. But two representatives from Mark Surrogacy greeted them instead, she said.

“They brought us a gift basket at our first transfer,” Fasold said. “They were excited. They were happy.”

That first embryo transfer didn’t pan out, Fasold said, and she suffered a miscarriage. But the second transfer, which occurred in January, was successful. Red flags began to crop up around mid-May, when Fasold said her attorney attempted to contact the company. Though they had generally been quite responsive over email, they weren’t responding to the attorney’s communications, Fasold said.

“When she tried calling the agency directly, it was actually bringing her up to ‘Future Spring Surrogacy,’” Fasold said.

It was around that time, Fasold said, that the attorney found out about the investigation related to Mark Surrogacy. And a few weeks later, the agency’s business license was terminated.

The news has been a lot to take in, Fasold said. But she added that despite all that’s transpired she still believes that surrogacy is a “beautiful thing” and that her experience is not representative of the norm.

“There are good agencies, and there are good people out there,” Fasold said. “Once this baby’s born, and after a time of healing … My husband and I plan on going through another surrogacy journey again.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com