ANAND, India -- This is the second time in three years that Meena has rented out her womb. The 35-year-old from India's western state of Gujarat left school at 12 and worked in menial jobs, most recently at a limestone products factory where she says she earned 50 to 60 rupees -- less than a dollar -- per day.
Her husband left her to raise two teenage sons alone. In 2017, she signed up as a surrogate at the Akanksha Hospital & Research Institute, a fertility clinic in Anand, a small town around two hours outside the state capital of Gandhinagar.
