Archie's Birth Story

In February 1994 I was heavily pregnant with my second child. I sat down to watch a program called Heart of the matter. I love real programs so was looking forward to watching this. It was a program all about surrogacy. I really knew very little about surrogacy – in fact to be honest I knew nothing until I watched this program.

I was intrigued by the whole program and I really did not know what affect this program was going to have on the rest of my life.

I started to research but back then there was no internet and information was hard to come by.
I spent hours talking to Dermott my husband about it, at first he thought I was mad, then he thought it was a faze, but slowly he realised I was serious and said that he would support me.

Eventually I found one organisation that seemed to deal with surrogacy. It was simple really fill in a form with your details of name address age etc send it back and then get a A4 size piece of paper with 10 names on it.

It had their first name, year they were born, which county they lived in, why they could not have children, if they smoked, and if they had children already.

It was basically one line of info each couple. I found this really hard. How could I choose some from this?? Who was the most deserving? Who would I get on best with? What did they look like? None of these questions were ever really answered.

The first couple I choose lived in Warwickshire. A long way from me in Edinburgh! They came up to see us. We had no idea what we should shouldn’t do so choose to met them in a hotel. I had my girls looked after by a friend, as we didn’t know what to do for the best.

It was a disaster! They were really different from us. They were a very tall couple which they seemed to have an issue with. They wanted us to be a secret and send us a video of their house, rather than us ever going there. I came away confused. This is not what I wanted. How could I have got it so wrong. So we decided this was not the couple for us.

I asked if there were any couples that lived closer to us, and was told there was one in Aberdeen. So we decided to try again. This time we got them to come to our house. We did it very differently second time round.

We this time got on great with this couple. She had suffered from cancer so had needed to have her womb removed at the very young age of 28.
They said they wanted to be open and honest and no secrets!!! This is what I wanted so we decided to go ahead.
I got pregnant on the 3rd attempt even though I was unwell that weekend kicked in and I had a very weepy day initially. We still stay in touch, and I visit them now and again.
Being only 23 years old at the time and the couple being about 15 years older I was treated (not that I noticed it at the time) as a little girl.

Through out the whole pregnancy I never spoke to another surrogate or anyone with any advice or expertise. I had to take charge and be strong.

I did enjoy watching this couple get excited and look forward to their baby coming. But now that I can look back on it I know that it could have been easier and there were many mistakes made.

I gave birth to their daughter in January 1996. It was a strange time as I did not know what to expect. The birth was amazing and it will stay with me forever the joy on those 2 peoples faces as they held their daughter for the first time.

After the birth I was dropped of at my house alone at 6am in the morning and I have never felt so alone and confused in my whole life. Dermott was in bed, the girls were at a friends house. The house was so quiet and lonely. I had no idea how to get through this. However this state did not last too long and before I knew it I was back to my old self.

Then I got to thinking how I had helped someone. How I would like to do that again.

Again I was sent the 10 names on a piece of paper. But there were a couple that were from Dundee, so we arranged to meet them.

We had a wonderful journey. I had learnt a lot from my first surrogacy and they followed my lead as I was the “expert”.

I gave birth to a son for them in June 1997. I had many letters from people who where her friends that I had never met before. Seeing Pam with her son and the love she has for him makes it all worth while.
They were a lovely couple and the intended mother Pam has became one of my closest friends even today.

In between my 2nd surrogate baby and 3rd I also had a son of my own.
Many people have asked if I had him because I missed the surrogate babies.

The truth is it was a medical accident. The Dr took my coil out at the wrong time of the month!
He is a gorgeous little boy and brings us a lot of joy, and now we would never be without him.

My 3rd surrogacy was for a wonderful couple that I had known for about a year and had been following their story. Pip had been born without a womb so never had the chance of even trying for a baby. I was their 3rd surrogate; the 1st tried for about 2 years but did not fall pregnant unfortunately. The 2nd fell pregnant but miscarried at around 10 weeks; due to the hospital not acting quickly enough this damaged her tubes making straight surrogacy impossible. My heart went out to them so I offered to be their surrogate.

Our 1st try at inseminations was unsuccessful. The 2nd time was strange. They were staying about 40 miles away from me on business so I travelled to their hotel on the Wednesday morning. Kevin popped up to their room to produce a specimen when he came down I went up armed with a pot of sperm and an instead cup and placed it in. We did 2 sets of inseminations per month, so the 2nd lot was the unusual one.
They were going to travel to me by train and as they had a function on in the late afternoon would not be stopping long.

I went to train station and waited and waited but there was no sign of their train and I knew time was running out.
Then I got a phone call the train was delayed as there was another train broken down on the line. They had to go back wards to the last train station where there would be taxis waiting.
Well to cut a long story short there was only about 20mins before they had to go back again.
So like the mad people we are we sent Kevin off to the public toilets to produce a sample. When he came out with his little pot I took this to the ladies. I managed to get the instead cup in place, then we said goodbye and off they went.

Well we must have done something right as it worked!!! I phoned them up as giddy as a school child to tell them I was PREGNANT.

Even though they lived 400 miles from me they were with me all the time throughout the pregnancy - either on the phone or popping up for visits. They managed to borrow a friend's house and moved up at the end of my pregnancy. This was huge help as my kids were on school holidays and I didn't have the energy to run around with them.

On the 13th of August I had strong irregular contractions. So I thought I would try to get some sleep. After this they died away. Pip and Kevin were staying at a friends house in town so that they could be close at hand so that they wouldn’t miss anything.

14th of Aug a massive plug came away. Then the majority of the day I had irregular contractions. They were quite mild so it wasn't too bad. But I felt like my waters were trickling so we popped up to the hospital to get it checked out. They thought it might be my hind waters as my membranes were still intact. They said either I could go up to pre-labour ward or home. I went home. I thought I should try to get some sleep as I knew baby would be coming in the next day or so.

15th of Aug
2am: I started to feel the contractions get stronger. I tried to ignore them as much as possible but they were getting closer and closer. By 4am they were every 4 min's so Dermott, my husband, phoned Pip and Kevin to let them know we were going in. They jumped in the car and managed to get over to us in 7 min's (this journey normally takes about 20 min's). Pip's mum stayed at my house to look after my kids and the 4 of us went to the hospital. I sat in the front and every time a contraction came I could feel Kevin's foot get heavy on the accelerator. I think I made him very nervous, I don't think he fancied the idea of me having the baby in the car.

We got to the hospital about 5:30am were they took us through to be assessed. The midwife said I was totally thinned out and was 4cm's dilated.

6am: They then took us up to the labour suite. By this time the contractions were getting closer and closer. I sat on a rocking chair trying to get some comfort and they gave me some gas and air for pain relief. Pip and Kevin at first looked a little lost not knowing what to do for the best. But the midwife was great with them explaining every thing and chatting away (we had all met her before which was nice).

At around 7am I got up on the bed as the contractions were really painful and I was starting to feel I might want to push soon. My waters still had not broken and they were really bulging. At around 7:35, my waters exploded or at least that is how it felt. Baby's head was now crowning. I could hear Pip and the midwife discussing the fact that they could see the baby's head.

At 7:55am Baby Kitty was born straight into Pip's hands. She weighed 7lb 14oz and was gorgeous.
Kevin tried to cut the cord but said he couldn't see it for the tears of joy in his eyes (nearly cut the midwife's finger's instead LOL), but he managed in the end.
After a while Pip, Kevin and their daughter Kitty were taken to a room next door to spend some precious time alone. I rested then got showered and rested some more.
It is lovely seeing them all together and seeing how happy they are.

9am: Dermott went home so that Pip's mum could come up and see her grand daughter.
Later on that afternoon the Dr said that because Kitty was breathing a little too fast they wanted to keep her in over night.

Pip and Kevin stayed with her in the hospital, who where absolutely great and all the staff were lovely.
A week after Kitty was born they all went home. We had gone the night before to say good bye. This was a very sad but happy moment. I was going to miss them but knew this was just the beginning for them.

I expressed my milk for a month for Kitty and this gave me a tremendous feeling as I had never done that before. If only the man at the post office had known what I was posting hehehe.

We stay in touch and because of this and my knowledge of how they wanted a sibling I offered to carry a second child for them.

This was a harder pregnancy as I was very stressed through out it all. I had moved house by now and didn’t live very far from Pip and Kevin. I thought this would be a good thing as they could experience the pregnancy more. However it didn’t work out quiet like that and I saw less of them than I had done in the first pregnancy due to their work commitments.

Archie was 14 days late and born on Easter Monday 2005. His labour by far was the hardest. I had had a lot of pelvic pain in the pregnancy so I thought a water birth would be a good idea. It wasn’t!! The labour was longer and when I was trying to push him out the midwife pulled my leg to the side which trapped a nerve and I lost all power in that leg. It was frightening I really thought I might never walk again.

The doctors all came to see me and no one seemed to know what had gone wrong. So I was kept in hospital but everyone else got to go home. This was a scary time alone and wondering what had happened to my leg.
But by the next day I was able to stand on my foot and even managed to drag it to the toilet and back.
On being taken home the next day we went straight to Pip and Kevin’s where everyone was to spend the day as a huge extended family.

As they live not to far away we do see them fairly regularly and they are gorgeous kids growing up very close to one another.

I thought after this surrogacy that would be it for me but 2 years latter I have offered to help my very close friends Andria and Bambos. I have known them for about 4 years and they already have one surrogate child, but would love a sibling.
So we are about to start the journey again and I can’t wait to see the look on their face once I can tell them I am pregnant.

I would like to thank my husband Dermott and my 3 children as without their help and support I could never have accomplished what I have.