I become a surrogate twice, and now my children and I have everything we need to live well.
I have my first daughter, Lily, when I am only eighteen. Giving birth comes so easily that I realise labour isnt terrifying at all. By then surrogacy is already common, so I start to consider it seriously.
My family isnt rich. My parents struggle to support me and my three sisters. I marry at seventeen, and with my husband Jack and our little Lily we barely get by. We have no money and no flat of our own, so we make do as best we can. I think about surrogacy as a way out, but Jack refuses to back the idea, no matter how much I try to persuade him, because it seems the best solution to our financial woes.
A short while later we have a second child, Sophie. The strain grows, and Jack abandons us, unable to bear the pressure any longer. I am left alone with two tiny girls. Fortunately my mother Margaret and my sisters Harriet and Charlotte step in: they look after the girls while I work. Still, the money never stretches far enough. I decide its time to act on the surrogacy plan Ive been mulling over for years.
I travel to Manchester and apply to a surrogacy agency there. Several attempts are made to implant an embryo, but nothing takes hold. The final attempt ends in a miscarriage.
I return home, ready to give up. Six months later I spot an online ad for a clinic offering attractive terms. I call, thinking its worth a tryif it works, great; if not, thats how it goes.
This time everything succeeds. For twelve months my girls and I live in a nice flat in a new block. The future parents of the child I carry are generous: they spoil us with expensive groceries, buy toys for Lily and Sophie, and pay for our trips to the cinema and the zoo. Nine months later I give birth to a beautiful, healthy boy.
We move back to our hometown, and the surrogacy fee is enough to buy a twobedroom house in our neighbourhood. We still have another year ahead, and we intend to enjoy it without holding back.
Two years later I become a surrogate again, this time for a family from China, and I bring another baby into the world.
Now I live in a large house with my daughters, and they have everything they could need. Some people judge me, but I see nothing wrong with giving my family a good life, even if it happens through surrogacy.
