Atticus Stuart Brent, named for a just man in a book I once read, was born on the Feast of All Saints at 1 p.m., a healthy little boy with blond hair and the puzzled dark blue eyes all newborns have.

He is no more special to me than any of my other children, except in knowing that he is the last and thus specially dear.

What is extraordinary are the circumstances that surrounded his birth -- circumstances that quickly spread from our family circle to a small circle of friends to the doctors and nurses at the hospital to the world at large through the news -- because of the special challenges and gallantry of the woman who gave birth to our "Boo."

A gestational surrogate is not a "rent-a-womb" nor, usually, a profiteer. She's a woman who often has given birth easily and wants to do that for people who cannot produce their own children. Often, gestational surrogates are caring, kind, thoughtful people. Often, they are professional, kind and friendly. They usually make upwards of $20,000 because what they do is natural, but can be dangerous and difficult.

Then there is Arletta Adkins Bendschneider, who, two years ago, offered to try to help us create a baby from a frozen embryo, for little more than the expenses that she would incur, because she felt she was meant to do this.

She had a protective, kind, handsome, seemingly supportive husband and two lovely children when she came to Milwaukee nine months ago to wait in a small sterile room for three "thawed" embryos, about 100 cells each, to be placed in her body.

Two weeks later, she called me, wild with joy and pride. With probably less than a 15 percent chance of success, we were expecting. I was so aghast that she thought I wasn't even happy. But I was overjoyed.

A quiet peace stole over me as the weeks passed. That came from Arty. She never put a foot wrong. She never wavered from her path. When I panicked, she reassured me. When we could see no "fetal pole" at five weeks, she asked me to wait on the arm of the Lord.

Two weeks later, she and I watched the flutter of a pulse that would become a heartbeat that would become our little boy.

Every day, I wrote her an e-mail that began, "Good morning, morning," and every day, she wrote back, telling me every change in Boo's development, every change in her body, how she explained to her little girl that she was "growing" this baby for a very special family of friends, how excited her little girl was, how supportive and kind her husband was being and how grateful she was for this.

Then, one morning, I got no answer.

I called Arty at home. She was clearly crying, but said that her "allergies" were bothering her. She was trying so hard not to believe what had befallen her. Her husband, Jack, had decided that she was an adulterer, that she had done something that violated HIS conscience -- although it had not when he spoke with a counselor, or when he signed a contract or when cheered her through painful injections so that she could so what she'd promised. He sued for divorce.

A judge believed Arty's husband when he said she was unstable, a con artist, a person not to be trusted. A judge said it was his own opinion that surrogacy wasn't such a terrific thing and might psychologically damage Arty's children. And so he gave temporary sole custody to her husband, who basically gave that custody to his parents. Because of what they said in open court, it's clear that they openly despise their daughter-in-law. They greet the shattering of this family with glee it seems hard to conceal.

For the past two weeks, Arty has lived in my house, as she waited for the baby to come, and recovered from his birth. I could not have exhibited such grace as she did, alone except for her aunt, in a strange place, with people she didn't know. She never met a stranger. People were won over to her gentle courage before they ever knew her story. And on the morning of our baby's birth, she was overjoyed for us, despite the fact that she could not reach her own children by telephone, on that day and another day, and didn't know for sure where they were.

She didn't waver when her husband, though he had no biological tie to our baby and no interest in our baby, refused to sign the pre-birth order that would have allowed our names to be placed on our own baby's birth certificate. The judge agreed that her husband didn't have to do that, either.

She didn't break down even when she wept, after Atticus's birth, because she no longer had him to cradle inside her, and because her arms might well be empty when she returned home. She didn't think her husband would make an exception to the twice-monthly visiting schedule. She assured us she was only being silly, and she would be fine..

She was only being one of the braver women I've ever known.

Yes, other people have faced much worse things. The loss of a child. A terrible illness. But losing the life you thought was your own, for no reason except choosing to perform an act of kindness, is right up there with things that crush the spirit.

Arty's spirit is not crushed.

She is one of a kind.

Atticus and I, and my husband and my other children will say goodbye to her today. I don't relish this. I wish I could protect her from what she must face -- months of legal wrangling just for the hope of what should have been a given: sharing custody of her own children with their father. She has never, not even in private, said a truly unkind word against him, at least to me. He has said many, many unkind words about her, even on videotape.

People have said there's another "side" to this story, a darker side I don't know, that Arty deserved what she got, that she was proud and willful. But I don't think quiet pride and determination are bad characteristics in a woman. She was never defiant or disrespectful, not even when most other people would have been. People have said the other shoe will drop now that our baby is born.

I hope it does drop. I hope it drops hard.

But not on this good and kind spirit, one of the gentlest people I've ever known.

If Arty's husband's family has their wishes come true, there will be no revision of the judge's opinion -- which was supposedly based on the fact that Arty couldn't be an effective mother while she was pregnant or giving birth. If that happens, I will have a hard time believing in the axiom that justice is blind except to the facts.

I have a hard time believing it now.

But one thing I know is true.

The proof of Arty's goodness lies here in my lap, six pounds and thirteen ounces of unblemished innocence, regarding me with unblinking eyes. I named him for an honorable man; and I hope that honorable men and women will decide the fate of Arty's future with her children.

Because if what she did for us is wrong, then nothing is right.

Jackie Mitchard