TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Medicine: A Surrogate's Story

Valerie is a New Jersey mother of two boys, age two and three, whom she describes as "little monsters full of mischief." Her husband works as a truck driver, and money is tight. The family of four is living with her mother while they save for an apartment of their own. One day last March, Valerie, 23, who prefers to remain anonymous, saw the following advertisement in a local New Jersey paper: Surrogate mother wanted. Couple unable to have child willing to pay $10,000 fee and expenses to woman to carry husband's child. Conception by artificial insemination. All replies strictly confidential.

The...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.