The biological mother of the surrogate baby at the center of a multi-state legal battle sobbed in court Tuesday — as she claimed the surrogate mother was trying to steal their child.
Nausheen Gilkar was testifying in a hearing on whether a temporary restraining order preventing the surrogate, McKenna West, from seeing or making decisions about the baby would be enforced.
“She’s making us run from doctor to doctor, state to state. With our baby — she’s trying to take him,” Gilkar tearfully told the Dallas courtroom.
West, a 28-year-old nurse from Alaska, gave birth to the baby boy, whom the biological parents call “Rumi,” on Aug. 12.
He was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a rare congenital condition in which the heart doesn’t develop correctly.
The life-threatening but treatable diagnosis was made during a 20-week scan, with Gilkar and her husband, Omar Ahmed, deciding they wanted to end the pregnancy as a result, after consultations with doctors.
West, however, decided she couldn’t go through with the termination and fled to Texas, where abortion is illegal.
West, who calls the baby “Gabriel,” said that she agreed to give up any claim to the baby if the couple agreed to commit to the surgery and his continued treatment.
She wants to ensure the baby stays in the Lone Star State for treatment, where she argues that she is the presumed mother of the child under the law – and can make decisions about his medical care.
“I’m not fighting to try to take someone else’s baby. I’m fighting because this baby boy needs someone willing to advocate for and fight alongside him as he gets the ongoing treatment his fragile heart requires,” West wrote in a recent opinion piece for The Post.
“I have asked for only one thing from the very beginning: A commitment that this baby will be provided the life-saving treatment he needs. That is all it would take to end this.”
Gilkar, however, testified that she and her husband had already arranged medical care in California, where they live, and that West withheld the baby’s medical records in Alaska.
“We didn’t even know if he was still alive for two months,” she said on the stand Tuesday.
Gilkar and her husband, from Los Angeles, are also currently suing West for more than $100,000 for keeping the baby rather than aborting it at their request.
They had agreed to pay West $60,000 to carry their child — with an abortion clause that allowed them to terminate the pregnancy if there were issues with the fetus.
A medical team in Texas was able to keep the baby alive in the days after birth, and he remains in intensive care in a Dallas hospital as West and the genetic parents wage a legal battle involving three states.
But the baby’s condition took a turn for the worse a day before the hearing, leaving him in critical condition, Gilkar and Ahmed claimed in a legal filing asking the court to postpone the court appearance.
Over the last 24 hours, “Serious medical developments have arisen that impact the health and safety of the child,” the filing stated.
“The child is in critical condition and being closely monitored at the hospital.”