Surrogacy: We went from nought to three children in a year

After her hopes of getting pregnant were crushed, Caroline Van Den Heever turned to surrogacy to keep alive her dream of starting a family
My house is full of noise and activity – shouting, laughter and colourful paintings pinned to the noticeboard. Not so long ago, it was deathly quiet and I hated it. That was before my husband Jan and I had our three amazing children, born through surrogacy and egg donation in a journey that took us across the world and to the limits of our emotions.

The number of babies born to surrogates is relatively small, given the thousands of women desperate to become mothers. ‘Each year, there are just 50 to 70 surrogate pregnancies in the UK,’ says Sabreena Mahroof, secretary of Surrogacy UK. ‘Others are undergone by women abroad for couples in the UK: we don’t know how many live births those amount to, but it is thought there are currently about 750 surrogate children in the UK.’ Surrogacy, where another woman carries the baby for the one who will become its mother, is used when a medical condition makes it impossible or dangerous to get pregnant and give birth, such as after repeated IVF failure, or cancer treatment, or because of a heart condition. ‘Surrogacy is the last resort,’ says Sabreena. ‘You have to prove through your GP that you have tried everything else, because we can’t risk a surrogate’s life by putting her through a pregnancy unnecessarily.’

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