The Nebraska woman said being a surrogate for her son and his husband was a gift.
A 61-year-old Nebraska mom has become a grandmom after giving birth herself — acting as the surrogate for her adult son and his husband.
Cecile Eledge gave birth on March 25 to her healthy granddaughter, named Uma Louise Dougherty. Cecile's son Matthew Eledge and his husband, Elliot Dougherty, were there for the incredible birth.
“I wanted to do it as a gift from a mother to her son,” Cecile said, according to Reuters.
Matthew and Dougherty married in the fall of 2015, the Omaha World-Herald reported. After seeing their siblings have kids, they wanted to start a family for themselves. However, they worried they would be denied permission to adopt a child in their conservative state. So they decided on in vitro fertilization. Dougherty's sister donated her eggs, which were then fertilized with Matthew's sperm — giving the baby DNA from both sides of the family.
Then, when Cecile offered to be their surrogate, the couple thought she was joking.
But doctors determined Cecile was healthy, she still had her uterus and her body could handle the pregnancy at such a late age. So they implanted an embryo inside Cecile that would later become Uma.
Gestational diabetes and high blood pressure are risk factors for older mothers, so doctors watched Cecile and her high-risk pregnancy carefully. Cecile also took estrogren supplements at the beginning of the pregnancy.
“There are very few 60-year-olds who could do this,” Doherty said, according to the World-Herald. “... It’s a credit to her that she had always kept herself in shape, through diet and exercise. It shows you that if you do those things, you’ll be healthy later in life and be able to withstand a lot of things that could happen to you medically, including pregnancy.”
Once little Uma was born, Cecile was proud to help make her son and his husband fathers.
“It was just natural,” she said. “I was completely comfortable thinking, ‘My job is done.’"
Thought Matthew had first-time parent nerves, he said it "all went away" when he held Uma for the first time.
“I just will provide love to her, and there’s nothing else to it," he said.
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