She's Not Yours, But The Baby Is - Mai Lan

"No, you’re just a vessel."

Mai Lan Johnson, 24 years old, temporary green card holder, and the woman who carries your baby. She's not the mother, she's not your wife. She's the surrogate. How did this come to be? Well a long time ago Mai Lan Đặng was a young girl in Hanoi, living with were mother and father. She loved the smell after the monsoon season rains. Looking through the windows of the bakery's in her neighborhood. Life was simple. When she was 12 her parents were in a motorcycle accident. They passed leaving her to the care of her maternal grandparents. They took her to their home in the countryside where her grandfather raised chickens, and her grandmother made clothes. Long days of intense labor. Mai Lan dreamed of a brighter future, one where her aging grandparents could cease back breaking labor.

She heard from a distant cousin who still lived in the city. Foreign men, lonely, looking for wives to bring to their country were interested in marrying women from Vietnam and other countries. Many of the brides left for happier lives, able to send money back to their family from their new countries. She thought maybe this was a chance, a way to ease her grandparents burden, a chance at a new life. If she met a nice man, one who cared for her, she could fall in love. Maybe get a job in a new land as a nail tech, doing her hand painted nail art she was known for in her village. Earn a living and send some back home.

She listed with a matchmaking agency based in Hanoi. A man named Harry, a non-union factory worker, older than her now 35, came and went on a chaperoned date. Hey brought her flowers, promised her an 'American life' while showering her with praise and affection. She didn't know at the time this was love bombing. The arrangement was made, the matchmaking fee paid to the agency, and 10 days after meeting she was in America on a K-1 Fiancee visa. They had 90 days to married. They did in a courthouse ceremony. He shoved a gold plated cheap ring on her finger. After they got a conditional green card. It would last two years. In that time they’d need to either apply jointly to have the conditions removed, or go through the process of citizenship. Their