Waiting for a baby to arrive is the normal thing.

Making someone wait for a baby which is never going to arrive is something else.

But that’s what a Port Townsend, Wash., couple has been forced to confront.

Audrey Rae Magallon, 31, of Astoria, is in the Clatsop County Jail awaiting the conclusion of a case that has made international headlines.

She was arrested Oct. 17 and has since been charged with posing as a surrogate mother and defrauding two couples who thought they were paying her to have babies. Her case will be back in Clatsop County Circuit Court Nov. 19.

One couple is Pete and Cheniya Beres of Port Townsend; the other couple is from a town near Auckland, New Zealand.

“She never was pregnant,” Pete Beres, 46, said of the surrogate mother to whom they were paying $10,000 for a baby that was supposedly due in January 2011. The Bereses were e-mailed a photo of “positive” pregnancy test strips. Other victims received ultrasound photos that Astoria police contend were forged.

“I went solely into it on my faith,” said his wife, Cheniya Beres, 52. “I truly believed it was God’s miracle for this to happen. I had a dream come true. And it got yanked away.”

How it beganThe case has led to fresh warnings about the dangers of business transactions through the Internet.

“It’s hard to measure the emotional trauma of these victims,” said Alan Oja, assistant chief of police in Astoria. “Regardless of the money they are out, it’s the idea they are victims of a traumatic experience in their lives, because they had hopes and anticipation for something that wasn’t going to happen.”

Magallon has been charged with two counts of first-degree theft, plus identity theft, computer crimes and forgery.

According to court documents, the Port Townsend case began in May and the New Zealand case in June.

The Bereses had not seen ultrasound images of “their” baby via the surrogate, and were even confident enough to schedule a baby shower for Nov. 6.

Cheniya Beres said her Christian faith is shaken, but not broken. She simply believed God was making her a first-time mother in response to steady months of prayer.

“I went into it with 100 percent faith and 100 percent belief she was pregnant and carrying our baby,” Cheniya said.

Internet contactPete and Cheniya Beres, both Port Townsend natives, have been married for eight years. He has a child from a previous marriage, but she has been unable to have a child. The cost of adoption or using a surrogacy agency was out of reach, the couple said.

Starting in January 2010, Cheniya Beres said she prayed every day for three straight months to have God bless them with a “miracle baby.” Cheniya believed that God led her to a surrogacy website, Surrogate Mothers Online, a referral website that includes free classified ads.

Their posting for a Christian woman to become their surrogate drew several responses.

“A couple were obvious scammers,” Pete Beres said.

But Cheniya Beres said she “felt a great connection” with the response from Magallon, based on shared Christian values and beliefs. The Bereses exchanged e-mails with Magallon. On May 3, they said they met Magallon and her husband, Robert D. Lewis Jr., in Portland.

Magallon started with a 24-page contract, which she, Cheniya and Pete Beres all signed; it was not notarized, and no attorneys were involved. Cheniya Beres noted that she read it carefully and created an addendum to clarify a few things, but was happy with its contents.

The Bereses insisted on getting Magallon’s Social Security number. A background check was done using the service Intelius, Cheniya Beres said, and came back clean. The Oregon State Board of Nursing had licensed Magallon as a certified nursing assistant.

“Everything seemed to check out,” Cheniya said. Plus, Magallon allegedly told them her medical insurance would cover all the doctor and hospital costs.

Magallon, who has four children of her own, allegedly told the Bereses she had been a surrogate three times for one couple. They asked if it would be OK to contact that person, but instead said they were e-mailed a photo of two men with three children Magallon said were her surrogate offspring, Cheniya said.

“I would not have chosen anybody who had not been a surrogate before,” Cheniya Beres said.

At that time, the Bereses said, they made a $2,500 downpayment to secure Magallon as their surrogate. Monthly payments were to follow until the baby’s arrival, due date Jan. 24, 2011.

The Bereses provided a biological specimen necessary to seal the deal. On May 24, they received an e-mail they said came from Magallon: a photograph of five pregnancy strips with a message that read, in part, “Congratulations! … Good people deserve good things! God Bless!”

Family traumaIn June, Pete Beres became ill with a heart defect that had been repaired as a child. He was hospitalized at the University of Washington Medical Center and on July 6 had open-heart surgery to replace his aortic valve. Complications kept him in the hospital through July. In August, Pete Beres was diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress disorder, which, he said, doctors apparently told him is common for open-heart patients.

Looking forward to the “miracle baby” due in January kept the family going, Cheniya Beres said.

By September, the couple said they became concerned about a lack of communication from Magallon. Cheniya Beres said Magallon told them an ill relative and was having her own difficulties, but “she assured us it was safe to go ahead with the baby shower and everything was fine.”

The Bereses were even confident enough to schedule a baby shower for Nov. 6.

Looking back, Pete and Cheniya Beres now wonder how the woman, knowing Pete Beres had serious health issues and a stack of new medical bills, did not have the good conscience to end the scam.

Police contactTheir dreams crashed Oct. 15 when Pete Beres found a message on his cell phone from Astoria Police Department officer Nicole Riley.

According to Astoria police, about three weeks prior, a couple who live in New Zealand had contacted them about Magallon, who they said had made a deal to be a surrogate mother. Police reported that the New Zealanders had paid Magallon more than $2,000, and the expensive container used to ship biological materials had not been returned.

Magallon had sent evidence of “positive” pregnancy tests and ultrasounds to New Zealand, the police investigation revealed. These turned out to be from Magallon’s own children and falsified to look new, according to police.

“In most surrogacy cases, (the specimen) has gone through labs, and there are medical people involved, and in this case they were not,” said Oja.

Magallon had been employed at a sleep clinic in Astoria, and that’s where the Bereses were mailing their surrogacy payments. Magallon had lost that job, and someone at the center learned of the investigation, called police and turned over the mail.

Inside a sympathy card the Bereses said they had mailed Magallon – out of compassion for an apparent illness in her family – were two checks for surrogacy services. This discovery prompted police to call Pete Beres in Port Townsend.

The last e-mail contact Magallon had with the Bereses was Oct. 14, when Cheniya Beres said the woman told her she had lost her job and still had morning sickness, but was forging ahead.

Learning the apparent timeline of the supposed pregnancy was insult on top of injury, the couple said. Police had contacted Magallon prior to Oct. 14, they learned.

“Even after she knew that police were investigating her dealings with the New Zealand couple, she continued to lead us on,” Pete Beres said.

Grand juryPete and Cheniya Beres said they testified before a Clatsop County grand jury charged Magallon with two counts of theft in the first degree (from $5,000 to $10,000), one charge of identity theft, two counts of computer crime and four counts of forgery. The forgeries are misdemeanor charges; the other charges are felonies.

Pete and Cheniya Beres said the Astoria police, district attorney’s office and Clatsop County’s victim services personnel have been wonderfully understanding. So have their friends, family and the congregation at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Port Hadlock, Wash.

The Bereses support the criminal charges against Magallon, and hope for restitution and that “justice will be done.” They said they realize, however, that prison time for Magallon is unlikely. The class C felony charges are punishable by up to five years in prison, but Oja noted that Magallon has no significant criminal record.

“It’s not just a financial loss, it’s emotional trauma that they’ve gone through,” Oja noted. “That’s where the law is difficult, because the law can deal with the financial aspect, but it’s not necessarily against the law to hurt someone’s feelings, and that’s what were involved in these kinds of cases.”

Still, for the Bereses, there are tense days and sleepless nights. Pete Beres is doing his best to stay healthy and keep working. Cheniya Beres has a mix of feelings: Christian compassion for Magallon, stupidity for being duped, emotional devastation at having their dream broken this way, and the dream of still becoming a mother.

“Believing and preparing yourself for five months that your dream is finally coming true, and this happens,” she said, “is unbearably hard to come to terms with.

“They say there is a lesson in all that we go through and that there’s a reason for everything,” she continued. “I don’t know yet what that reason is, but what I do know is that I still have a huge heart, my faith is slowly returning, and I do still believe there are good people in this world.”