‘I’m having my 16th baby – aged 53!’
Serial surrogate Carole Horlock explains why she is determined to have one more baby…
Taking a deep breath, I smiled at my 25-year-old daughter. ‘How would you feel…’ I said, nervously, ‘If I had one more baby?’
Just as I expected, Megan’s face dropped. ‘Mum, you can’t be serious…’
Who could blame her? I am 53. Most women my age are worrying about the menopause and dreaming of having grandchildren rather than trying to get pregnant. And I have already had 15 babies…
But then my relationship with being pregnant is not like most women’s. I’ve spent the past 25 years as a surrogate being pregnant or trying to get pregnant. You could say it’s a compulsion.
But a 16th baby? Even my usually supportive husband, Paul, looked a bit concerned.
‘ What about your health?’ he asked.
I first became a surrogate in 1995. I already had my own daughters, Steffanie, now 29, and Megan, and when I read an interview with a surrogate on my tea break at the launderette where I then worked, I thought: ‘I could do that.’
Something about helping a couple become a family appealed to me.
So, I registered with a surrogacy agency. They explained it was illegal in this country to be paid to have a baby for someone. Instead, you could claim expenses of between £8,000 to £10,000 (today it’s up to £15,000).
As any mother will tell you, that is not a lot of money for the immense physical and emotional toll each pregnancy takes on you, but surrogates don’t do it for the money.
For my first surrogate baby, I was put in touch with an infertile couple and fell pregnant three months later after inseminating myself with the man’s sperm and using my own eggs.
Just as I thought, I didn’t find it hard to stop myself getting attached to the baby. I told myself he wasn’t mine
– I was just a womb for hire.
When I saw how happy they were, I felt elated. That’s what drove me to do it again.
I had twin girls for the same couple in February 1997. I then had five more babies for four couples in six years.
While some embryos were implanted in me, meaning the baby wasn’t biologically mine, for many I used my own eggs.
It doesn’t worry me that my genetic offspring are being brought up by someone else. Biology is the easy bit.
Motherhood is the nurturing part. These eggs would never have been used to create a baby for me – so these children only exist because of the couples.
The only time things didn’t go according to plan was when I had my ninth baby in 2004.
The couple decided to do a DNA test and I was devastated when it showed that my partner, Paul, was the father. We used contraception but somehow it failed. I was devastated I’d let them down.
There was a lot of soulsearching, but the couple adopted him – they’d cared for the baby for 10 weeks and he’d bonded with them, whereas I’d spent my pregnancy and the aftermath not connecting with him, as I’d never thought for a second he was mine.
It was a difficult time, but I feel I made the right decision.
After that, Paul had a vasectomy. In 2008, I gave birth to triplets – two girls and one boy – using a new couple’s embryos, followed by a 13th baby in April 2013.
Baby 13 was my trickiest, as I had an emergency C-section. I was advised not to get pregnant again as there was a risk I might haemorrhage next time, which could kill me.
But I know my own body, and another doctor told me I had the uterus of a teenager despite all those babies!
And so, I did try again. I was last pregnant just before I turned 50, after IVF in Greece, but sadly the pregnancy failed, not because of my age but because the embryo wasn’t viable.
The idea to do it again now I am 53 came when I read about a woman who had become a surrogate in her fifties.
‘If she can do it, so can I,’
I thought. So, despite Megan and Paul’s concerns, I placed an advert on a surrogate website. ‘I am older,’ I wrote. ‘But if my age does not put you off, I would love to help you achieve your dream.’ I will only carry a donor egg and, as this will be my third caesarean, I won’t agree to multiple births. Triplets and twins take such a toll on your body – my varicose veins vouch for that! But I long to share the experience one more time with a couple,
I can’t wait for the moment I ring them and say I am pregnant and everyone ends up crying happy tears.
There are so many wonderful moments to share – the first scans, the first kicks and a healthy growing bump.
I don’t even mind giving birth. In fact, I love it! I have a high pain threshold.
Even with my caesareans, I had epidurals so I could stay awake. There is so much emotion in a delivery room.
The most wonderful moment of all is seeing a couple meet and hold their baby for the very first time.
There is no experience quite like it and, yes, it is addictive.
When the family go home, there is a period of grieving – but the grieving is for the loss of the intense relationship you have shared with the mother.
For while we will stay in touch, my agreement is always to step away and let them live their lives. I am now in touch with a couple who I’m hoping to be pregnant for very soon.
This will be my final surrogacy, I’ve told myself that.
I just want one more baby…