How aged 52, I gave beginning to my very own grandaughter…

When the second line appeared on the ­pregnancy test, my eyes filled with tears. Anyone who’s been on the ­rollercoaster of IVF will ­understand this very ­particular brand of elation.

After months of drugs and scans, it felt like I’d won the greatest prize on the planet. Unlike most women at this moment, however, I wasn’t pregnant with my own child.

At 52, I was carrying my 28-year-old daughter Heidi’s baby — my longed-for grandchild. Having endured the agonies of watching my daughter struggle through years of infertility, I was going to make her a mum at last.

Some will no doubt baulk at the idea of me carrying my grandchild, my son-in-law’s biological baby.

Or question the risks of a 50-something woman being pregnant. After all, while there is no ­official upper age limit for ­surrogates, most clinics do draw the line between 35 and 39. Pregnancy in your 50s brings an increased risk of developing gestational diabetes and high blood ­pressure, and having a premature birth.

Yet I have always loved being pregnant. I was 22 when I had my son, with

Heidi following two years later; I ­conceived quickly and sailed through the trimesters.

After Heidi was born, I left hospital wearing my tiny size 4 jeans. ‘I know we only wanted two,’ I said to my ­husband Ray when we brought her home, ‘but I could do this again and again.’ Pregnancy felt like what I’d been born to do.

But for financial reasons we decided to stop at two. After all, we’d been lucky enough to have a boy and a girl, so we felt complete.

Heidi was always the happiest little girl. She loved music, Disney and making people smile, and even as a teenager spoke about being a mum herself with absolute certainty.

So I wasn’t surprised when after marrying John, then 26, when she was 22, they decided to start trying soon after. I knew she’d be an incredible mother.

But nothing happened. Month after month, I watched Heidi go from giddy hope to crushing disappointment. As one year turned into two, I hid my own growing worry behind a smile. ‘It will happen soon,’ I told her as we hugged, words to reassure myself as much as her. 

Meanwhile, friends and family were getting pregnant all around us, which made things even harder for Heidi. Even I was overwhelmed by it. We began avoiding the baby ­showers and social media posts; it was just too painful.

Then in 2020, just as Heidi and John were looking into fertility options after three years of trying, she became pregnant naturally.

Doctors discovered Heidi had a rare condition called uterine ­didelphys, which meant she’d been born with two uteruses.

This, ­combined with endometriosis, was what had impacted her ability to conceive. Yet incredibly, the ­ultrasound scans showed she was carrying a baby in each of her wombs. I’d never cried so many happy tears in my life.

Sadly, it didn’t last. At her ten-week scan, Heidi heard the awful news that she’d lost one of the babies. Heartbroken, she stayed strong, but at 24 weeks learned that her remaining little boy was also passing away.

I don’t know how Heidi kept going. Due to lockdown she had to deliver her precious baby alone in hospital.

Seeing Heidi’s anguish, I felt ­helpless. There was nothing I could do to take away her pain and it plunged me into a depression.

Then two months later, Heidi seemed to turn a corner. ‘Mum,’ she said. ‘The doctors think that IVF and surrogacy is the next best step.’ The baby would be conceived using her eggs and John’s sperm, but another woman would carry it.

It felt like a tricky puzzle piece had finally clicked into place. Heidi needed someone to carry her baby… and I wanted to do it for her.

I waited for a couple of days to see if my feelings might change before I said anything. But I only became more certain.

So when she next came over I sat her down and said: ‘Please let me speak to your doctor about being your surrogate.’

I saw both hope and worry in her face. ‘Mum, you’re 52,’ she replied. ‘I love you and I’d never want to put you in danger.’

I hadn’t done any research into the risks, but I had heard of another mother who’d been a surrogate for her daughter, so I hoped it would be possible for me, too. I’ve always been fit, love running and eat healthily. I hadn’t gone through the menopause — I still haven’t — but it wouldn’t have stopped me if I had.

I’d retired from my job as a nursery teacher five years before, which meant I had all the time in the world, too. And Heidi and John would never need worry about me taking care of the baby I was carrying because I’d do everything in my power to have the safest pregnancy.

After speaking to John, Heidi told me they were delighted to accept my offer.

Yet visiting Heidi’s doctor, I was nervous. The cut-off age for ­surrogates was usually 35, which is why I hadn’t yet said anything to my husband Ray. Why mention it if it wasn’t going to be possible?

However the doctor seemed ­positive. ‘I can’t say yes or no now, but once you get a physical check up to see that you’re healthy, I don’t see why not,’ he told us.

After tests on my reproductive system, hormones, heart, lungs and blood pressure, we got the green light. This was happening; I was going to carry my daughter’s baby.

I wasn’t nervous about telling Ray, which I did that evening. When I said: ‘I’ve offered to be Heidi’s ­surrogate’, he replied: ‘Let’s go!’

He’s such a positive, can-do ­person, it made me love him even more.

Heidi and I lived just 30 minutes apart, so when Heidi started her IVF cycle, I went over every day to help with her hormone injections in advance of her eggs being harvested.

Six months later, with her and John’s embryos safely in the clinic freezer, it was Heidi’s turn to hold the needle, to prepare my body for the embryo transfer.

I had progesterone injections twice a day for ten days. They weren’t exactly fun; the needle seemed huge, and the injections were in my bottom, but thankfully I didn’t have a negative reaction to the hormones.

On the day of the transfer, instead of watching the screen, I looked

at Heidi and saw her face light up with happiness.

‘We’re going to get pregnant,’ I thought as I squeezed her hand. ‘I’m going to have your baby in nine months, and you’ll be a mum at last.’

They had transferred one embryo and, as we left, the doctor handed Heidi a sealed envelope with the baby’s sex inside. When she opened it to read ‘Hi Mummy, I’m a little girl’, we both sobbed. Nine days later Heidi and I stood in my bathroom watching the ­pregnancy test with bated breath. She had four more frozen embryos and I was determined we would try again, if need be.

But it was positive! As Heidi called John in floods of happy tears, I phoned Ray.

‘I’m having a baby at 52!’ I laughed. It was an amazing feeling.

It had been 28 years since I’d last been pregnant, but it all came ­flooding back. I loved feeling my body change, and it was so special to relive the joy of pregnancy one last time.

I genuinely didn’t find it harder than in my 20s, maybe because I was fit and healthy. Reassuringly, the doctors commented that I was in better shape than most 30 year olds.

In fact when I did feel tired, or when I had morning sickness in the beginning, it was easier because I was retired and could just sleep. If I didn’t feel like ­cooking, we ordered in food. I didn’t have another child to care for as I had done when I was ­pregnant with Heidi.

The clinic required me to have two sessions with a counsellor. He had cautioned Ray and me that not everyone would think we were doing a beautiful thing. He was right. Some friends from our local church disapproved, believing that by carrying her baby I was somehow taking this experience away from Heidi.

To them I would say: ‘I’m happy that you’ve never faced infertility within your family because you don’t understand how heartbreaking it is.’

Some thought I was having a child with John. ‘I can assure you I had nothing to do with ­conceiving this baby,’ I told them. ‘I’m just a safe place for my ­grandchild to grow.’

A few were worried I was putting my body through something it couldn’t handle. I reassured them otherwise.

Meanwhile Ray, 58, who works in agriculture, loved to gleefully tell strangers: ‘This is my wife, she’s pregnant and it’s not mine.’ Waiting until their faces creased in confusion, he’d explain: ‘She’s carrying our grandbaby!’

But I wanted Heidi to be the focus. Whenever someone congratulated me, I’d immediately reply: ‘This is Heidi’s baby and we’re so excited for her.’

The pregnancy brought us even closer. She was there for every scan and appointment, and we’d call and message constantly.

Then at five months, I took ­Heidi’s hand and put it on my stomach, so she could feel her daughter kick for the first time. It was magical. Even in those moments I didn’t feel like a mum-in-waiting. I loved this growing baby so much, but she never felt like mine.

In the final few days before my planned Caesarean at 38 weeks, Heidi and I both felt nervous and excited. Heidi was able to be in theatre despite the Covid ­restrictions — John and Ray had to wait in another room — and her daughter would go straight into her arms.

I felt a wave of calm descend during the operation. I’d ­wondered if the post-birth ­hormones might make me weepy, whether I’d feel that deep need to hold baby Ekko like I’d had when Heidi and Jacob were born.

Instead, as my beautiful 6lb 4oz granddaughter was given to Heidi, I felt nothing but joy. Ekko was with her mum, exactly where she was supposed to be.

The first week was stressful, though, as Ekko was kept in the neonatal intensive care unit due to an issue with her bowel and a heart murmur.

I was kept in for the standard three days following a C-section, but I worried about how Heidi was coping.

In the meantime, the milk came in and I expressed some for Ekko while I was in hospital, but after one month I let my supply dry up. Back home, I lived off the ­pictures that Heidi and John sent me, and seeing them hold her made all the difference.

It was only when Ekko was ­discharged that I was allowed to hold her for the first time.

Looking down at her tiny, ­beautiful face, I felt like I’d known her my entire life. It was a feeling of completeness; she was finally here and so precious.

I cried happy tears, overwhelmed with the love of a grandmother, not a mother. My love for Ekko was as Heidi’s baby, not my own. I felt like the happiest ­grandmother in the world.

Ekko is now two. We see each other every week and our bond is all the stronger for her unusual birth. I’m just so thankful that, at 52, I was able to bring her into the world. I grew her in my body and now I nurture her as a ‘Gigi’ — the name she calls me.

It’s been the greatest honour of my life to make Heidi the mum that she was born to be.

Heidi, 31:

Holding my daughter Ekko for the first time, I felt like I was coming back to life. All my pain and grief, the years of desperate hope, were finally over. She was so beautiful; I was instantly in love.

As the kindest, strongest woman I know, Mum has been my best friend and champion all my life. But when she offered to do this for me, it still stopped me in my tracks. I could feel hope rising for the first time in so long. Yet I ­worried if it was safe.

John, my husband, thought it was a great idea and I was ­reassured by the doctor’s ­confidence. I’d never loved Mum more. We had so many incredible moments together, from the embryo transfer to the first time we heard the heartbeat.

Mum sailed through it all, but I was constantly anxious. The experience of losing the twins was never far from my mind.

Mum did such an amazing job of making me feel part of the ­process, I never worried about not feeling an immediate bond with my baby, or that Mum and Ekko would bond too much.

But I must admit it was hard not to be the one experiencing the ­pregnancy. I’d have loved to feel everything, even the morning sickness.

With it happening to Mum instead of me, it just increased the feeling that this wasn’t quite real. Not that I mentioned this to Mum; I focused on the positives.

My close friends were understanding about the arrangement. Many are close to their mums, and thought it was a beautiful thing. Others were more surprised, and I don’t know what they said behind our backs… but I refused to let it bother me.

We weren’t doing this for the acceptance of other people.

Seeing Ekko born from the same body that had grown me was mind-blowing. I was overwhelmed with love, both for this tiny girl in my arms and the woman who had made it all possible.

That said, the first week with Ekko in special baby care was awful. I had a trauma response from losing the twins and struggled emotionally and mentally.

Fortunately, Ekko pulled through and placing her in Mum’s arms for the first time felt like the conclusion of a miracle. We were all in tears. As for the future, we don’t know whether we’ll have another baby but, at 55, Mum wouldn’t be allowed to act as surrogate.

We’ve decided that even if we don’t use our remaining four embryos, we will place them for donation. I know the pain of infertility and want to help other couples if I can.

Meanwhile, not a day goes by when I don’t feel thankful for what Mum did for me. One day, when she’s old enough, we’ll explain it all to Ekko.

If I can be half the mother to her that Mum is to me, then I know I’ll be doing a wonderful job.

As told to Kate Graham