My online surrogate is now my best friend
ONLINE pals Elouise King and Jenny Robinson were nervous about their first face-fo-face meeting – yet it would seal the mother of all friendships.
The pair had exchanged messages on a surrogacy forum but didn’t know if they would click in person.
That first meeting was in a pub. Fitting really, for just 18 months later they would be wetting the baby’s head not once, but twice, after Jen gave birth to Elouise and hubby Paul’s
For Elouise it was the dream end to years of heartache – a miscarriage, an operation that damaged her womb and seven failed IVF bids.
Mum-of-three Jen – who knew the torment of struggling to conceive – hailed the experience as “incredible and wonderful”.
And now the two strangers who bonded over their longing for babies have become best friends.
They made contact online in the autumn of 2015. They met in December that year and gorgeous babies Jude and Joshua arrived on June 27 last year.
A heartwarming picture shows the women holding hands in hospital after Jen, 36, had her planned Caesarean.
Elouise, 37, who works in human resources, said: “You do feel naturally removed from the pregnancy as they’re not growing inside you but to see them being born was amazing. I was stroking Jen’s head through it all.
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“Jen is just an amazing person. She was so strong, so together and so determined and positive throughout the whole thing.”
Elouise had miscarried in 2013 – confirmed by a 10-week scan.
So her joy was unconfined when she joined Jen for her 12-week scan and learned twins were on the way.
Elouise added: “It was wonderful. My miscarriage scan didn’t show any heartbeat, so to see two was incredible.
“Not many people would give up nine months of their life to give someone else the chance to start a family. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay Jenny.”
School assistant Jen revealed she had no hesitation in becoming Elouise’s surrogate – after the initial hurdle of that pub meeting, that is.
She told how they got together at a bar half way between her home in Barry, South Wales, and Elouise’s in Solihull, West Mids.
Jen said: “It was like a first date. It’s a strange, unusual and nerveracking scenario, thinking ‘would they like us, would we like them’? We didn’t talk about anything surrogacy related, just got to know each other.
“Previously we’d chatted about normal friendship stuff, messaging back and forth. After meeting we exchanged numbers and started talking regularly.”
From that point, Jen’s mission was to give Elouise the children she and Paul, who works in advertising, had longed for. After her miscarriage, Elouise had a D&C procedure to remove all traces of the pregnancy.
But she was left with the rare Asherman Syndrome, a scarring of the cervix and uterus.
Treatment to fix that problem was unsuccessful so she turned to IVF. But seven failed attempts in an “emotionally and physically draining” 18 months pushed her to the brink. That’s when Elouise found the Surrogacy UK website.
Enter Jen, who had endured her own battles to have a baby. She had two children from her first marriage and was told her chances of a child with her second husband were a million to one because she has polycystic ovaries and her partner’s sperm count was low.
Miraculously, they did conceive and had son Max, now nine.
Jen said: “It gave me an insight into what other mums go through. If I was devastated not being able to have three kids, how would a woman feel if she couldn’t have one at all?”
As IVF loomed, Elouise met Jen’s entire family – Max, her daughters Cassie, 17, and Amy, 14, from her first marriage, her current husband Dan Broome, 35, and his sons Tom,
It was strange meeting up for the first time... would we like them – would they like us? JENNY ROBINSON ON FIRST FACE-TO-FACE WITH ELOUISE