She has two children of her own, but will soon give birth to the sixteenth. How it’s possible? Carole Horlock gave birth to thirteen children as a surrogate.
A surrogate, also known as a surrogate mother, is a woman who agrees to have another woman’s in vitro fertilized egg placed in her uterus. And after giving birth, he gives the child to his biological mother.
Carole Horlock gave birth to her first child as a surrogate in 1995. She liked it so much that she decided to become a surrogate mother many times. Having children for many years has become her way of life (Carole denies that it is also her way of earning). Anyway, British law forbids earning money by giving birth to others. Surrogates can only count on their costs related to pregnancy. Carole Horlock received up to £ 15 for the birth of each child, which is the equivalent of ten average British salaries.
Among the children that were born there were, among others twins and triplets. When she hears that she is simply obsessed with pregnancy and mental problems, she replies that the bungee jumpers are crazier than her and that she gives birth to children mainly for the satisfaction of helping others. The last time (apart from now) she was pregnant three years ago and it was a pregnancy at risk of ending with caesarean section. Doctors then warned her that another pregnancy could seriously endanger her life. Carole Horlock then announced that she would end childbearing and would “retire”. Yet she became pregnant again to bear another woman’s child.
Surrogatka in Poland
Among infertile women in Poland, for example, women who fought cancer in their early youth, and who deprived them of fertility from chemotherapy and radiotherapy, thought about using the help of a surrogate. Chemotherapy is one of the most commonly used treatments for cancer because it works on rapidly dividing cancer cells. Unfortunately, healthy tissues are also destroyed in the body, where cells divide rapidly. This is why people undergoing chemotherapy lose their hair. Hair follicles that have stopped working, however, continue to generate over time. This is not the case with the gonads. Men who are undergoing chemotherapy and are planning to have children are advised to donate their sperm to a bank. In theory, it is possible to retrieve eggs in women, but it causes many more problems. A healthy woman has one or two mature eggs available every month. In order for there to be more eggs, the patient needs to undergo hormone therapy, which is not always available in the face of cancer.
A 28-year-old Polish woman who was diagnosed with uterine cancer two years ago faced a similar problem. In addition, she was pregnant at the time, so for this reason, there were no mature eggs in her body that could be collected.
Doctors had to wait until the child was old enough to function independently before removing the tumor. The operation was performed in the 32nd week of pregnancy. However, doctors decided to cut out healthy ovaries in addition to the uterus. The organs were frozen in liquid nitrogen in a similar manner to the ova are frozen.
After surgery, the patient was given chemotherapy. The treatment was effective and a year after its commencement, it was decided to implant the previously removed organs. The operation was performed at the Polish Mother’s Memorial Hospital – Research Institute. The laparoscopic procedure was successful.
Due to the earlier location of the tumor – the uterus – a woman will never be able to give birth to a child on her own. Technically, her child could be born by a surrogate (only illegally in Poland). Doctors, however, drew attention to the fact that in her case an additional therapeutic benefit was achieved – the patient would not undergo the troublesome, premature menopause that occurs after the ovarian function ceases. Moreover, the successful operation gave hope for the dissemination of an identical procedure in women who suffer from other types of cancer than uterine cancer and will be able to give birth to a child after ovarian re-implantation. There are already many patients in the world who have had a baby in an analogous situation.
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Based on: www.mirror.co.uk, www.lodz.gazeta.pl, PAP