‘Carmelita,’ a young-looking 31, is delighted to be pregnant once more.
This is her third go, and she tells us that “whatever pops out of me this time, boy or girl, I get to keep it.” This was not so for her two previous pregnancies. The first was brought on by a sexual assault when she was in college -- as a consequence she quit. The second came about when a well-to-do gentleman, claiming to be a distant cousin of Lita's father, offered her $60,000 US for “the use of her womb” to give him “a unique male heir” to his fortune, a fraction of which Carmelita enjoyed in the last four months before the inevitable trip to the maternity ward. “I gave him a girl,” she says, “so I didn't get all the money. He was sweet about it, though, and he did give me six grand for the effort and paid my doctor and hospital bills.”