Though my family life is my own business, I supposed I made it public business on this website when I expressed my grief over the sad events that befell our surrogate mother, whose husband divorced her over her choice to be a surrogate. Even before that, Arletta's family had contacted the national magazine show "Inside Edition," in hope of rousing public sympathy for her cause when a judge gave her ex-husband sole custody of their two children.

A comment posted on this site asked me what I had done for Arletta. I assume this meant, had I paid for her legal defense or tried to use my supposed influence on lawmakers and politicans to overturn the judge's verdict? I wrote that a financial contribution to Arletta's legal fund would only leave her open to more charges of "baby selling," which was the point continuously made by opposing lawyers.

The anger that this apparently prompted astounds me. Called a "Hollywood type" with a "Boston mansion," because I confessed how terribly guilty and helpless I felt when all these events unfolded, I also learned that this site was intended to "sing my praises." I've been told that our gestational surrogate is "twice the mother I am" and that the hope is that I'll one day have the courage to tell my son what another woman gave up to give him life.

Though my heart was stinging, I tried to post a few silly blogs to divert the stream of critical remarks, but then I ended up approving all of them.

This site isn't intended to "sing my praises" as a human being. It's intended to draw attention to and discuss my work as a writer, whether or not readers praise that work.

I'm not a Hollywood type. We lived in Massachusetts during the period our son was born because the laws in that state made it possible for us to get an order letting our names be on our son's original birth certificate. We rented a modest house on a modest street. We thought about staying; but after all this happened, we turned and ran back to the Midwest, where we've lived all our lives.

We live in a nice house on an old farm. It's far from a mansion. It's large enough to accommodate our family. There is no guest room. My husband designed it and built it with help from contractors he knew. We once had a small vacation home. Various legal costs from a previous birth as well as educational expenses forced us to give that up.

Why would anyone think that I took advantage of a woman with the same level of education as I, the same ethical beliefs as I, with whom I have become a close and confiding friend? How could anyone think that anyone, unless she had a demonstrably cruel nature, and to my knowledge I don't, would be so callous? Why would anyone so selfish and self-centered want to devote her life to raising a large family? Does that make sense? Wouldn't such a cynical person want to spend her life on lavish trips and fancy clothes instead of devoting herself to spelling lists and spit-up?

My child's question about Arletta was natural. Children see things in terms of black and white. If there had been no surrogacy, would Arletta have lived happily ever after? Even she doesn't think so. She thinks her choice exposed cracks in a marriage that she overlooked for years.

I've always known that people could be terribly unkind, make assumptions about situations of which they know only the apparent facts, not the truth. I've always known that people love to feel that anyone who has achieved any recognition in life must be greedy, conniving and heartless. It's as if there cannot be a good and ordinary person who also earned some measure of recognition. Being successful at anything must mean surrenduring your integrity and even your dignity.

I'm not that successful; and I don't know how true "Hollywood types" or dwellers in mansions behave. But I imagine that there are as many of them who are loving and good as there are who are vain and disdainful -- just as there are in the suburbs, the city, and in trailer parks. I imagine that that even the beautiful suffer and even the rich feel longing for what they cannot

I've always been honest about my life, and given access in the belief that my experiences had some universal relevance. I'll close that door now. No one has any right to ask me what I've "done for" anyone, anymore than I have the right to ask anyone who reads this post what he or she has done lately for a sibling or a friend or an aged parent. Or a child.

I know what I've done today for each of my children. Do you?

Jackie Mitchard