Surrogate mum pregnant with 11th baby and would do it again

At the age of 37, an US woman has successfully carried and delivered 10 healthy babies after pledging years of her life to help heartbroken couples who desperately wanted a child.

Emily Westerfield has spent much of the past 13 years being pregnant, carrying 10 babies to full term, three of which were her own biological children, and the rest as a surrogate, called a “gestational carrier” – someone who is not genetically linked to the child – for families who needed help bringing their babies into the world.

The mother of three from Ohio is currently 28 weeks pregnant with baby number 11, saying she is “probably the unicorn in this industry”.

Throughout her surrogacy journeys, Ms Westerfield noticed that there were many more families who required help than those out there who can help, which eventually led her to set up her own “family-building agency” last year.

The surrogacy industry is experiencing a rise in popularity and awareness, and that is expected to continue to soar in the future, due to medical technology advances and changes in social attitudes, according to a report by research group IMARC obtained by Forbes.

The industry has grown from $6bn (€5.6bn) in 2018 to an estimated $17.9bn in 2023, research company Global Markets Insights says, with forecasted figures expected to reach $129bn by 2032.

Some celebrities have been open about their use of surrogates, from couple Chrissy Teigen and John Legend to socialite Paris Hilton and her husband Carter Reum as well as actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson and his husband Justin Mikita.

However, the whole surrogacy process can cost tens of thousands of dollars each depending on legal, agency, surrogate and IVF fees, Today reports.

Ms Westfield’s surrogacy “journey” began when she started to spend more time with her husband’s cousin, who had had trouble sustaining a pregnancy for years.

“She just continuously kept having loss after loss, and it was heartbreaking,” she said.

Ms Westerfield began to feel a sense of guilt every time she shared her own pregnancy news with her.

She offered to be a gestational carrier for the cousin’s embryo, and while surrogacy was not the way they wanted to go, Ms Westerfield said she knew that there would be many people out there who would need that sort of help.

Eventually, she signed up to a forum she likened to a “Craigslist of everybody in the infertility community,” and was quickly overwhelmed with emails and queries from people seeking her help.

Choosing a couple was not easy, as she said that each story was more heartbreaking than the next.

She eventually went with a couple who were trying to have a third child, but were unable to do it by themselves after the mother had to undergo an emergency hysterectomy after her second birth.

Ms Westerfield was able to deliver their third child, a girl, in 2015 after carrying to full term the embryo the couple had created.

She has delivered healthy babies in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022, including carrying twins twice, and is currently expecting to give birth again in July.

Ms Westerfield says that she would carry baby number 12 “in a heartbeat” and would continue to help others for “as long as my body and family allow me to”. (© The Independent)