Woman to deliver her own baby best friend giving birth to
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.
Ms Barrington, who is from Kent, England, said despite this knowledge it had always been a dream of hers to become a mother.
'It felt like the end of the world at the time,' she said when she discovered her diagnosis.
'I thought, 'What am I going to do?' That's all I wanted.'
Her childhood best friend, Daisy Hope, 29, joked as a teenager that she would carry her baby and the offer always stuck.
Ms Hope told SWNS: '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.'
Ms Hope welcomed her own daughter Emilia, now three, and her best friend Ms Barrington delivered the child. It was then she realised how 'incredible' it was to be a mum — and vowed to keep the promise she made when she was 16.
Ms Barrington said: 'I delivered her daughter. She told me 'you have to experience this'.'
Medics implanted embryos — with Ms Barrington's extracted eggs fertilised by her partner, Lloyd Williams' sperm — in Ms Hope and they were all delighted to find out she was pregnant on the second try in February 2025.
Now 23 weeks along, Ms Barrington has been able to share every step of the journey with Ms Hope and will incredibly get to deliver her own baby in October 2025.
Ms Barrington initially started looking into surrogacy and researching how to get the ball rolling – and was luckily able to get individual funding via the NHS to cover £5,000 (AU $10,500) for her egg collection and creation of embryos.
She said: 'It felt a bit more affordable.'
Ms Barrington and Mr Williams, a welder, have still had to spend £15,000 (AU $31,496) on the IVF and Ms Barrington's egg collection in October 2023.
They then had to spend the next year going through counselling and health checks before the first egg transfer in October 2024.
Ms Barrington had always wanted the moment of revealing to her partner and family she was pregnant so the best friends went to the appointment in secret.
After 14 days, Ms Hope discovered she was pregnant and Ms Barrington told her family.
But at their seven-week scan they were told the baby wasn't progressing normally and at nine weeks Ms Hope had a miscarriage. She went for her second transfer on January 31, 2025.
Ms Barrington said: 'We were on FaceTime on day five and Emilia pulled out a box of pregnancy tests. We got carried away and she did one and we saw a faint positive line.
'Each day the lines got darker.'
The women were able to have an early scan at six weeks, and Ms Barrington saw a faint heartbeat. She finally felt like her dream may be close to coming true.
Ms Hope's first trimester hasn't been smooth sailing and she has had episodes of bleeding – which has been worrying for them all.
Ms Barrington said: 'Being a midwife I know too much – I see more of the unfortunate cases than the normal person.
'I've been extremely anxious.'
But now at 23 weeks along the pals are feeling excited and more relaxed, with Ms Hope messaging her friend with every single symptom. She even bought bond touch bracelets so Ms Barrington could know as well.
The baby is due in October, and Ms Barrington described the opportunity to deliver her own child as 'surreal'.
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