\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he first time I miscarried, I blamed myself. After getting pregnant early on in our relationship, at\u00a034, I had a flash of doubt that my partner Alex and I weren\u2019t ready to be parents. Then, a few weeks later, the pregnancy was over.<\/p>\n My second early loss, just a few months later, hit me harder. We went to a fertility specialist, and the tests on\u00a0both of us came back clear, but then I couldn\u2019t get pregnant at all.<\/p>\n By the time we married in December 2018, Alex and I had been on a relentless treadmill of fertility interventions for three years. I\u2019d held my breath during my third pregnancy in May 2017, devastated when it ended, only to be followed by a fourth loss a\u00a0year later, at 10-and-a-half weeks.<\/p>\n Infertility affected every part of my\u00a0life. I struggled to hang out with girlfriends going through pregnancy and early parenthood. Hearing their valid complaints and worries, when it\u00a0was all I wanted for myself, was almost physically painful.<\/p>\n It was after my fifth miscarriage, in\u00a0mid-2019, and with one embryo left in the freezer, that my doctor suggested surrogacy. I felt so many conflicting emotions \u2013 hope that it might work, sadness that I was giving up on my body, and relief that the entire responsibility of a pregnancy\u2019s success wouldn\u2019t be on my shoulders.<\/p>\n In Canada, where I live, surrogacy is\u00a0altruistic, although, as in the UK, expenses are paid. We went through an agency, and when I saw Trish\u2019s photo I felt an incredible connection.<\/p>\n The fact that she lived in New Brunswick, an 18-hour drive away from us in Ontario, didn\u2019t faze us. We developed a deep bond after spending five days together for her medical clearance tests.<\/p>\n Then, in August 2021, I\u00a0became inexplicably angry with Alex. Aware that pregnancy and PMS felt the\u00a0same to me, I stomped off to take a\u00a0test.<\/p>\n People assume they\u2019re twins \u2013 I\u00a0explain that, no, they\u2019re \u2018twiblings\u2019<\/p>\n Seeing the second line appear, I\u00a0thought: \u201cOh my God.\u201d Trish was due to start her fertility medication two weeks later. I assumed that this meant I\u2019d be going through a miscarriage at what should be a happy time. There was no joy or hope that my pregnancy would stick, just devastation at the inevitability of it ending.<\/p>\n When we told Trish, her response was immediate and amazing. Of\u00a0course she wanted to go ahead, she\u00a0said, whatever happened with my pregnancy. Watching our embryo being transferred two months later was incredibly emotional. I couldn\u2019t believe what this amazing woman was doing for us. When we heard the pregnancy test was positive, we were all in tears.<\/p>\n We told our thrilled family and friends about Trish when she was seven weeks pregnant, but I couldn\u2019t bring myself to share my news until I\u00a0reached 17 weeks. Even then I was terrified, although seeing their shocked joy was lovely.<\/p>\n Trish was seven weeks away from her due date when I gave birth to Wilkin in April 2022. Holding my beautiful son was both amazing and surreal. I\u00a0felt a wave of relief, like I finally knew everything was going to be OK.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Wilkin\u2019s severe colic made an 18-hour drive impossible, and\u00a0the pandemic made flying tricky, so I\u00a0waited at home while my sister went with Alex to be at Trish\u2019s delivery.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/span><\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Time crawled as I sat there on FaceTime, waiting for my second baby to be brought into the world. Then there he was, and, 48 hours later, Alex walked into our bedroom with Loic in his arms.<\/p>\n The boys, who are now three and best friends, know that Wilkin grew in my tummy and Loic in Auntie Trish\u2019s. To them it\u2019s totally normal. Trish and I\u00a0are still great friends, and I will be grateful to her for ever.<\/p>\n People who meet them assume they\u2019re twins. When I have the time, I explain that, no, they\u2019re \u201ctwiblings\u201d, siblings born incredibly close together. It\u2019s a wild and wonderful story to share.<\/p>\n I still look at my boys, Wilkin \u2013 smart and bubbly \u2013 and Loic \u2013 sweet and reserved \u2013 and can\u2019t believe how lucky I am. I know that not every journey ends with a baby, and I do feel\u00a0conflicted about my story being exactly the kind of miracle I heard so\u00a0much about when I was trying to get\u00a0pregnant. I just want people to know that there are so many of us out there who know the path they\u2019re walking. They are not alone.<\/p>\n As told to Kate Graham<\/p>\n Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@theguardian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first time I miscarried, I blamed myself. After getting pregnant early on in our relationship, at\u00a034, I had a flash of doubt that my partner Alex and I weren\u2019t ready to be parents. Then, a few weeks later, the pregnancy was over. My second early loss, just a few months later, hit me harder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[733,5173,9135,337,891,969],"class_list":{"0":"post-20952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-babies","9":"tag-born","10":"tag-experience","11":"tag-life","12":"tag-style","13":"tag-weeks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}