Introducing: “The Journey,” from In the Dark

In early 2025, a 26-year-old Texas mother named Kayla Elliott gave birth to a baby girl she had carried as a surrogate for a couple from Arcadia, California. The intended parents, Guo Jun Xuan and Sylvia Jong, had told Kayla they desperately wanted a second child. But after the birth, Kayla discovered she was not the only surrogate working for them. She eventually learned the couple had obtained dozens of children through nearly as many surrogates, raising questions about a potential trafficking scheme and exposing a gaping loophole in America's largely unregulated surrogacy industry.

How Kayla Became a Surrogate

Kayla Elliott had four children of her own and her tubes were tied, but she loved being pregnant. When a family friend mentioned that surrogacy could pay well, she saw a chance to save money for her family and help someone else at the same time. She posted in Facebook surrogacy groups and was quickly contacted by an agency called Mark Surrogacy, based in Los Angeles. The agency matched her with a Chinese couple, Guo Jun and Sylvia Jong, who lived in Arcadia. Their profile said they had one daughter and had gone through ten rounds of IVF without success. Kayla was moved by their story—she herself had been adopted by a woman who struggled with infertility—and agreed to carry their embryo.