Ryan Knudson

The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.

Additional reporting in this episode by Laura Seligman.

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It was 2023, and inside an LA family court, clerks were working through some documents.

They're what's known as parentage petitions.

If you've enlisted a surrogate to carry your baby, then you need a judge to approve your parentage petition in order to actually take the baby home.

It's basically the court saying, yes, this kid is legally yours.

That's investigative reporter Katherine Long.

And are these usually contentious petitions?

But this time, the clerks noticed something.

one name kept showing up over and over again.

The same guy, Shu Bo, was applying for parental rights to at least four babies being carried by surrogates.

That's 12 kids total.

12 kids, all born via surrogacy, all with the same father.

This sounds crazy.

When Catherine and her colleagues started digging into the surrogacy industry, they got curious about one particular corner of that business.

The corner that serves wealthy Chinese parents.

Think 10 children, 20 children, even, I kid you not, 100 children.

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