Kitty Cunningham was aged 16 when she was given the devastating news that she had been born without a womb.
But now, the 32-year-old mom couldn’t contain her emotions after the birth of her son Jasper.
“My husband said when he was 20 he would rather have me with no babies than babies with someone else. Now he’s got both – it’s just the most incredible feeling,” Kitty, an operations director, shared.
Kitty felt crushed when she was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome. The rare disorder is characterized by the failure of the vagina and the uterus to develop properly.
“I was 16 and still hadn’t started my period, so doctors did a bit more investigating and they told me I didn’t have a womb,” she expressed.
“It was a shock and it was confusing and scary. It is probably the worst time to find something out like that, when you are a teenager. You’re dealing with lots of hormones anyway.”
But her dream to become a mother finally came true after they met 34-year-old Jemma Black, one of the kindhearted surrogates who help couples in the UK without asking for any payments.
Black was still pregnant with another couple’s baby when they became good friends.
“A natural friendship blossomed. When Jemma called to say she’d help, for the first time ever I felt hopeful,” Kitty said.
Only months after giving birth, Black offered to help Kitty and her husband and she fell pregnant with their child via IVF.
“I just actually couldn’t believe it. My husband was in absolute shock, I cried my eyes out and he just sat there and said, ‘I think I’m going to faint.’”
The couple supported the Jemma throughout the pregnancy. “Jemma had a massive craving for jalapenos. She couldn’t get enough of them, so I bought her a massive jar,” Kitty shared.
“And she suffered quite badly from morning sickness so we would go down on weekends and take her children out, and go to the park or go for Sunday lunch,” she continued.
“Other than the 20-week scan, we have been to everything. We have seen Jemma and her family every couple of weeks, except during the middle of lockdown.
On October 4, baby Jasper was finally born weighing 9lb and 3z.
“It was all perfect, the most textbook calm birth that’s ever happened – it was amazing. I was in shock for the first 24 hours,” the mother-of-one expressed.
“We knew he was real, we had seen Jemma every two-and-a-half weeks. He was always real but to actually have a little baby is amazing.
“He looks exactly like me too – I wasn’t ready for that. You just can’t prepare for that feeling when you’ve wanted something so long and it’s actually there – he’s a little diamond.”
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