A woman who suffered seven heartbreaking miscarriages is finally about to become a mum – thanks to her best friend of 20 years.
Sophie Smith, 33, and her husband Jack, 36, had given up hope of ever becoming parents to their own children after spending six years and £50,000 on IVF desperately trying to conceive.
The couple, from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, went through five devastating miscarriages and two ectopic pregnancies that required both of her fallopian tubes to be removed – leaving Sophie unable to have children of her own.
But their despair turned to joy when Sophie’s best friend, Emiliana Hall, stepped in and offered to carry a baby for the couple.
The mum-of-two was pregnant with her son Theo, now two, at the time but was determined to give her friends ‘the greatest gift of life’.
And now, the best pals – who stuck up a friendship on their first day in secondary school – are delighted to be shopping for baby-grows together as Emiliana is six-months pregnant with Sophie and Jack’s baby.
Sophie, a fashion buyer, said: “I believe it was fate that I met Em at 12-years-old during our first year of secondary school.
“If someone had told me 20 years ago, that one of my best friends would go on to carry my genetic baby I would have laughed.
“But all that time has been building up this moment, one I now believe was always meant to be.
“We have always had a strong friendship, even after she once ordered four taxis to turn up to my house at 2am on a school night as a joke.
“She has saved us from our immense pain and given us back our hope by offering to be our surrogate.”
