Baby M/Comments - Aftermath

Aftermath

After reaching the age of majority in March 2004, the daughter known as "Baby M" (now named Melissa) legally terminated Mary Beth's parental rights and formalized Betsy's maternity through adoption proceedings. When the controversy died down, Whitehead divorced her husband, re-married and had another child with her new husband.

Melissa attended Dwight-Englewood School and later The George Washington University and majored in religious studies. She said it was strange to study the Baby M case in her bioethics class at the university.

"I love my family very much and am very happy to be with them," Melissa told a reporter for the New Jersey Monthly, referring to the Sterns. "I'm very happy I ended up with them. I love them, they're my best friends in the whole world, and that's all I have to say about it."

Studying at King's College London, Melissa completed a dissertation, "Reviving Solomon: Modern Day Questions Regarding the Long-term Implications for the Children of Surrogacy Arrangements." Ms. Whitehead also wrote a book about her experience in 1989.

In January 2011, a British court ruled a woman who bore a daughter under an informal surrogate agreement with a childless couple should keep the baby.

In October 2011, the original judge in the Baby M case, Judge Sorkow, presided over the wedding of Melissa and her husband, a neuroscientist from New Jersey. The couple currently reside in London.