Simon and Graeme Berney-Edwards wanted to start a family, but as a gay couple, they knew they’d need in vitro fertilization (IVF) to have a biological child.
After searching surrogacy websites, the couple came across Meg, a 32-year-old mother from Canada, who was willing to be a surrogate. “I saw Simon and Graeme’s profile on a surrogacy website, and I thought they had lovely smiles,” she told MSN.
“I had recently split with my partner and I wasn’t ready for another baby, so I wanted to help someone.”
After being paired with Meg, Simon and Graeme flew to a fertility clinic in Los Angeles to fertilize the embryos.
Once they got there, however, they couldn’t decide who should be the biological dad. “Graeme said it should be me, but I said that he had just as much right as I did,” Simon recalled.
“When we spoke to the doctor at the clinic he stunned us with his reply. He told us that it could be both of us.”
“They said that we could have half the embryos fertilized with my sperm and then half with Graeme’s sperm.”
After the fertilization, the couple got married and flew to Canada for their honeymoon, where they met Meg for the first time. They said the experience was like being reunited with a long lost sister. Simon recalled:
“We didn’t know how to thank her. We told her we were so grateful to her— she was changing not only our lives but our families too.”
Six months later, one embryo fertilized by Simon and another fertilized by Graeme were implanted into Meg’s womb. What followed was an excruciating, tw0-week wait to see if the process would work.
Simon and Graeme knew it was a possibility only one of the embryos would develop.
In this case, whatever man was not the biological father would try another round of IVF on his own in the future. After two weeks, they were overjoyed to hear Meg was pregnant.
“Now, we just had to wait and see if she was pregnant with both of our babies— or just one.”
Against all odds, the treatment had worked— Meg was pregnant with both babies.
She and the couple kept in touch regularly over the course of her pregnancy. As a Christmas present, she even arranged a photo shoot to be done with all of them together. At 31 weeks, Meg thought she was going into labor, prompting the men to immediately board a flight to Canada. In the end, it was a false alarm, but they stayed until she gave birth five weeks later.
Simon describes the babies’ birth as ‘the most amazing experience of our lives.’
First, Alexandra, Simon’s daughter, was born followed by Calder, Graeme’s son. “When we both held them for the first time, we couldn’t believe we were both daddies,” said Simon. “It was a long way to go and do this, but it was worth it to both be able to have fathered one of the twins each.”
Because the babies don’t share paternity, they’re technically half-siblings. However, the couple notes: “They are still classed as twins even though they have different biological fathers.”
Since the birth, Meg and the new family have continued to keep in touch. She told MSN: “Simon and Graeme are like brothers to me now. They call me the twins’ ‘Tummy Mummy’ which I love.”
“It was amazing being pregnant with embryos they had both fathered— science is an amazing thing.”
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