I'm going to deliver my own baby — carried by my best friend
Georgia Barrington, 28, was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome aged 15, meaning she was born without a uterus and unable to ever carry a baby.
Her childhood best friend, Daisy Hope, 29, joked as a teenager that she would carry her baby. More than a decade later, she has kept her promise.
When Hope welcomed her own daughter, Emilia, three — whom Barrington delivered — she offered again, wanting her best friend to 'experience' being a mother.
Barrington accepted, and doctors implanted embryos — using her extracted eggs fertilised by her partner Lloyd Williams's sperm — and they were all delighted to find out Hope was pregnant on the second try in February this year.
Now 23 weeks along Barrington has been able to share every step of the journey with Hope and will get to deliver her own baby in October.
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Barrington, from Maidstone, Kent, said: 'It was always my dream to be a mum… I knew I couldn't carry my own baby.
'At the time Daisy wasn't super maternal and said, 'I'll carry your baby', but it was kind of a joke. But that promise always stuck.'
Hope, who is a head of a school weekend programme, said: 'Naively as a teen you say, 'I'll carry for you'. I was always meant to do it; at 16 I genuinely did mean it.'
She added: 'If I'm able to do it, Georgia deserves it.'
Barrington had always felt a maternal instinct and was devastated when she was diagnosed with MRKH.
She said: 'It felt like the end of the world at the time. I thought, 'what am I going to do?' That's what I wanted.'
Hope had Emilia, with her partner, Oliver Millson, 30, who has a family business, in April 2022.
Barrington said: 'I delivered her daughter. She told me, 'you have to experience this'.'
The two went for a coffee and Hope reiterated her promise. 'I said it still stands and I want you to know I'll still carry for you,' she recalled.
Barrington started looking into surrogacy and was luckily able to get individual funding via the NHS to cover £5,000 for her egg collection and creation of embryos.
She said: 'It felt a bit more affordable.'
She and her partner, a welder, have still had to spend £15,000 on the IVF and she had her egg collection in October 2023.
After a year of counselling and health checks, the first egg transfer took place in October last year. Hope got a positive pregnancy test two weeks later but suffered a miscarriage at nine weeks.
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She went for her second transfer on January 31 this year and this time both women were able to go to an early scan at six weeks.
Barrington recalled: 'I saw a little heart beat. It felt like, 'OK, this could be happening'.'
She added: 'Being a midwife I know too much — I see more of the unfortunate cases than the normal person.'
Hope also bought the pair 'bond touch' bracelets, so when she feels the baby kick she can tap her bracelet and it will buzz Barrington's so she knows.
Hope said of the day she will give birth to her friend's child: 'It's going to be magic. I can't wait to see Emilia and them be best friends.'
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