Mum, 61, gives birth to granddaughter to fulfil gay son’s dream of being a dad
13 August 2019, 09:11 | Updated: 13 August 2019, 09:17
The four-month old baby has DNA from both the fathers.
A gay couple have welcomed their baby daughter into the world after one of the men’s MUM gave birth to her.
Matthew Eledge and Elliot Dougherty appeared on today’s Good Morning Britain and spoke to Richard Madely and Kate Garraway about their unique family set-up.
READ MORE: Grandmother who was surrogate to daughter says she would do it again
The couple, from Omaha, Nebraska in the US already had a surrogate in mind in late 2018 when Matthew’s mum, Cecile Eledge, 61, offered up her help.
Cecile explained that: “We were speaking about it, and they already had a surrogate, but I joked “if it doesn’t work out I’ll do it””.
Elliott’s sister had previously donated her egg, which was set to be donated by Matthew’s sperm, so the situation was already pretty complicated, and Matthew told GMB: “We didn’t think this was realistic, so we laughed it off when my mum offered.
“I suggested it as a joke, but she didn’t laugh and said it was actually a possibility.”
Cecile added: “I love being pregnant and I knew I was healthy enough to do it”.
She joked: “Once I said it, I couldn’t take it back, the deal was on the table”.
Richard questioned the trio’s decision to go ahead with it, and asked Cecile if she “felt weird” sometimes about the fact she was baby Uma’s mother as well as her grandmother.
Cecile said it wasn’t at all, as she was “at the stage where I no longer wanted children, and I never had an issue with handing over the child, it was always my granddaughter.”
She continued to explain that one day when she was heavily pregnant she was holding one of her other grandchildren and she thought to herself, “not too many grandparents can say I’m holding one grandchild here on earth, and the other grandchild in my womb”.
61-year-old Cecile called it a “wonderful memory”.
Their story is rather so unique, and not everyone is as open minded as they are so it’s not surprising that they’ve all sadly been subject to some online abuse.
Matthew explained: “Sure, there’s always going to be people's opinions.”
When they all first decided to go ahead with Cecile as the surrogate, “we were very private.“It wasn’t because we were embarrassed or ashamed, it was because we were going outside the medical books and didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Elliot then added: “Once we had Uma, we weren’t expecting this publicity, so when we were getting the reporters and the interviews, yes we got some hate over emails and so on.”
Richard ended the interview by calling it “one of my best interviews ever”.
