Sherri Shepherd paid over $100,000 to have a baby. Her husband paid $5,000. When the marriage fell apart, a court made her the legal mother anyway. The bill: $4,100 a month. The baby is not biologically hers. He was made from her ex-husband Lamar Sally's sperm and a donor egg, carried by a surrogate in Pennsylvania. The record: August 2011: Sherri and Lamar marry. November 8, 2012: they sign with a surrogacy agency as "Intended Parents." September 12, 2013: they sign the gestational carrier contract. November 7, 2013: the embryo is transferred. The pregnancy is confirmed 11 days later. April 2014: the marriage is breaking down. Sherri refuses to sign the birth certificate paperwork. August 5, 2014: the baby is born. The surrogate is listed as the mother. No father is listed. April 21, 2015: a Montgomery County judge declares Sherri and Lamar the legal parents and rules she breached the contract. November 23, 2015: the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirms. Lamar's lawyer says she must keep paying $4,100 a month. How it works: the contract let them back out only before the surrogate got pregnant. After that, Sherri was locked in. The trial court wrote that it could not force her to be a mother, but it could give her "the financial responsibilities that entails." The case for Sherri: she never wanted a second baby, she did not pick the donor or the surrogate, and the marriage was over before the child was born. She says she offered support and he wanted far more. The case for Lamar: she signed every contract, paid for every step, and went to the 20-week ultrasound. The baby exists because of her signature. "She doesn't want to be part of his life. It's all good," he told AP. "I'm going to be parent enough for the both of us." At $4,100 a month, 18 years comes to $885,600. On her own show in 2023, she said the second divorce cost her "over a million dollars." The money lesson: any contract you sign as a couple, a lease, a loan, a business, a baby, outlives the relationship. Before you sign, find the exit clause and ask one question: what happens to me if we split? If the answer is "nothing can be undone," you are signing for life. In the video below, Sherri tells it herself: "I didn't pick the surrogate. I didn't pick the donor who had the egg. I was not involved." She says she offered $2,500 a month and he asked for $10,000. "The baby doesn't know me." She signed the contract but walked away before he was born. Should she pay for him, or should the father who wanted him pay alone?