Georgina, 44, and her fiancé, Stephen, have been trying to conceive a baby together for nearly 10 years. However, owing to infertility struggles that included unsuccessful rounds of IVF, the pair ended up exploring surrogacy as the best option to have a baby of their own. Choosing this option also meant that they would need to leave their native Scotland to make it happen: Because Georgina's age disqualified her in her own country, the couple had to head to Prague to collect eggs and create embryos for the surrogacy.
Georgina and Stephen's surrogate had a cesarean section scheduled for May 12, 2020, and everything was going according to plan until the UK entered into lockdown restrictions due to the ongoing health crisis. Georgina and Stephen found that they couldn't find a single place to stay near the hospital where the baby was due to be born, and they ended up contemplating sleeping in their car ahead of the birth.
Luckily, a midwife stepped in and helped the couple make all the arrangements they needed. Now Georgina and Stephen are the happy parents of baby Aleena.
Aleena was born on May 12 at Barnsley Hospital in South Yorkshire in England. This is about six or seven hours from where Georgina and Stephen live in Scotland, so that meant a fair bit of last-minute planning had to be pulled off successfully before the parents could be united with their baby.
Georgina said that, at first, the whole experience felt so surreal she didn't know if they would be able to keep their baby. "At first it was such a surreal feeling. I kept thinking someone would come and say 'give her back, she's going home'. It took a while to sink in, but she's now home."
"To have her and knowing she is ours is just a really surreal feeling, but the best feeling in the world. It's a hard feeling to describe but it's pure love. I'm besotted with her. It's crazy how much love you can have for one person after waiting so long and trying for so long."
Stephen has had to return back to his job, which is out on oil rigs. Georgina says that being alone with the new baby is a challenge. "It's been hard for my partner as he's working away on the rigs. Aleena's thriving. She's the happiest, most content baby I've ever known. For only being six weeks old she's absolutely amazing for sleeping."
Prior to the implementation of lockdown restrictions, Georgina and Stephen were regularly making the trip to accompany their surrogate to her checkups and appointments. However, they had to completely stop once the restrictions were put into place, which added to the heightened emotions of the experience.
The two are also especially grateful for the midwife who helped them find a place to stay so they could be there for Aleena's birth. "It was very hard for us as we weren't allowed to travel down for the scans, or be present at them. The head midwife in Barnsley was amazing. We had a section planned, so we know our baby would be born on the 12th."
"But with lockdown we couldn't get anywhere to stay as there were no hotels or other accommodation available. Otherwise we would have been sleeping in the car. We were allowed to go to Barnsley for the birth and had a letter in case we were stopped by police."
The head midwife who helped them, June Pollard, found a spot for the couple after speaking to her coworkers about their situation.
Georgina and Stephen also had to compromise on the day their daughter was born, as only one of them could be in the room. "It was hard, because with the lockdown only one of us was allowed in for the birth. We agreed Stephen would be at the birth to see our baby being born."
The couple also decided to not find out the biological sex of their baby before they were born. "We never found out before she was born if we were having a boy or a girl. We had been trying for 13 years, seven months and a day when she was born. The following day she had all her tests done and they allowed us to come home. We had to make a lot of stops obviously with a newborn, and it took us six and a half hours to get back up the road."
This is Georgina's fourth child, and her adult children are completely happy for her. And now that they feel their family is complete, the couple is planning to move ahead to the next stage of their lives: getting married next summer. "We have been dying to get married, but we stuck to our pact. And we'll have our little flower girl."
