A 56-year-old woman in Utah decided to be a gestational carrier for her son and daughter-in-law. She gave birth to her "perfect" granddaughter Hannah.
"She is here and my heart could explode," Hannah's mom, Cambria Hauck, wrote to friends and family on Instagram Friday.
She shared a video of her mother-in-law, Nancy Hauck, giving birth surrounded by their family. "She is perfect in every way."
As surrogacy continues to rise as a popular option for growing a family, stories of family members stepping up to carry babies have began to surface across the US.
Today Parents spoke to Cambria about the journey that led them to this choice.
She explained that after delivering her second set of twins, she experienced complications from childbirth. She had developed placenta increta and needed an emergency hysterectomy.
After recovering, she and her husband Jeff decided they wouldn't be using their stored embryos from past fertility treatments for another baby, like they has originally planned. “We ended up not wanting to play with my life," she told the outlet.
That's when Jeff's mom Nancy, who had five children of her own and was a grandmother, stepped in.
“I could just feel this calling to offer to carry for them,” she told Today Parents. “I knew I was too old. I knew it wasn’t going to be possible, even though that’s exactly what’s happened. I just felt I needed to tell them I would be willing to do it."
Listening to her gut feeling ended up paying off. After undergoing medical evaluations, doctors concluded that Nancy was "a good candidate" despite her age.
"When Nancy came to us, I know most people would probably be like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s crazy,’ but it didn’t feel like that," Cambria told the outlet.
"There was just so much peace around the whole conversation and around the whole experience," she explained.
After giving birth to little Hannah, Nancy revealed to People that she was in labor for nine hours.
"Everything went perfectly and we are feeling so blessed to have her in our family,” she said.
She also added that she is “facing new emotions of having a baby, but not bringing the baby home with me afterwards.”
This is Nancy's sixth time giving birth, but her first time in 20 years.
Cambria also explained the one detail that made the whole situation even more magical for her.
She told People that Hannah's birthday is "sacred" because she she was born on Día de los Muertos, a holiday celebrated in Mexico as a way to honor and celebrate deceased family members.
"And her ancestors on both sides had a HUGE part in getting her here," Cambria wrote on Instagram. "Not only that, but she was carried and brought into the world by her sweet nana, her ancestor. Nothing is a coincidence, and her birth date is not a coincidence either."
