As she lay on her hospital bed breastfeeding her newborn baby, Louise Pollard was overcome with love for the scrap of humanity in her arms.
After all, she'd reached the end of a difficult pregnancy which had seen both her own and her unborn child's life hang in the balance as a result of pre-eclampsia. Despite this scene of maternal bliss, however, just three days later Louise handed Danny over to a couple and drove away - a shattering parting which left her crying for three days and yearning only to see her baby again.
'Afterwards, I sat in my mother's conservatory with my sobs literally racking through my body,' she says. 'I could still smell Danny on my jumper and I desperately wanted to be with him. Giving him up was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.' So what on earth was this young mother doing giving her child away? At 23, Louise had become - for the second time - a surrogate for a childless couple. Having had her first surrogate baby at the age of just 21, Louise is thought to be the youngest surrogate mother in the UK. But her candid descriptions of the emotional challenges she faced highlight just how much surrogacy is a role that is rarely straightforward.
Her experience was particularly unusual because both the surrogate children she's had so far were biologically hers. 'At one point, I was close to driving up to London to see Danny and I wondered if I'd done the right thing in giving him up, but the legal situation we would have then ended up in - and the distress I'd have caused the couple in question - doesn't even bear thinking about,' she says. (In theory, as biological mother, Louise would probably have a right to keep Danny had she wanted to.)
Louise continues: 'Mum was wonderful and told me that if I genuinely felt I'd made the wrong decision, then we would have to see what we could do, but that I shouldn't do anything rash. 'Gradually, the fog cleared and I started remembering why I'd agreed to be their surrogate in the first place. I'd already given them one child a year earlier, and now Danny was completing their family. 'As time went on, I was able to rationalise that I only felt so bereft because I'd bonded with Danny, which was something none of us had expected would happen. For instance, I'd planned to only express milk for him as I'd done with his big sister, but because he was unwell the doctors recommended I breastfed to be sure he benefited from my antibodies. 'But even so, at the time, I wasn't sure then I'd ever be a surrogate again.'
Today, a year on, Louise is embarking on the process for another couple. She is going through gruelling IVF treatment, trying for what will be her fourth baby. 'My mum took a photo of me the other day and I couldn't resist turning sideways for the camera just so you could see that, for once, I'm not actually pregnant,' says Louise, a PA from Bristol.
'At my age, most women are about 'me, me, me', getting drunk and having sex, but all I've been doing for the past few years is having babies. While my friends are out drinking and partying, I've been at home by myself watching television with a big bump and heartburn. I haven't even been able to have a drink on either of my past two birthdays because I've been pregnant.'
Louise says that she feels surrogacy is her calling, and she plans to have a baby a year until she is no longer physically able to. She hopes one day she might have more babies than Carol Horlock, who has had 12 babies for other couples and is widely known as the country's most prolific surrogate mother. Louise, who lives with her husband Damian, 24, a soldier, and her son Jaden, three, was just 17 when she first considered surrogacy. 'I remember watching a programme about surrogacy with my mum,' she says. 'The overriding thing I remember is the look on the couple's faces when they were presented with their baby. I thought how wonderful it would be to help couples like that and I said to my mum that one day, I would like to be a surrogate.'
Louise says that she feels surrogacy is her calling, and she plans to have a baby a year until she is no longer physically able to. She hopes one day she might have more babies than Carol Horlock, who has had 12 babies for other couples and is widely known as the country's most prolific surrogate mother. Louise, who lives with her husband Damian, 24, a soldier, and her son Jaden, three, was just 17 when she first considered surrogacy. 'I remember watching a programme about surrogacy with my mum,' she says. 'The overriding thing I remember is the look on the couple's faces when they were presented with their baby. I thought how wonderful it would be to help couples like that and I said to my mum that one day, I would like to be a surrogate.'
Article 20th May 2010 Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk
Read more about surrogacy and egg donation.