How THREE sisters and oodles of love 連合させるd to make a very modern baby?

• Katy Slade has a rare genetic disorder meaning she can never have children
• Sister Lucy 寄付するd her eggs while sister-in-法律 Jaime 行為／法令／行動するd as a surrogate
• Katy and her husband David are now the proud parents of baby Beatrix
  

By Kathryn Knight for MailOnline

Published: 00:44 BST, 2 March 2013 | Updated: 00:44 BST, 2 March 2013

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it took a family to make Beatrix Slade.

Her mother, Katy, has a genetic disorder that meant she couldn’t have children.

Her sister Lucy 寄付するd eggs, which were fertilised by Katy’s husband David’s sperm and implanted in his sister Jaime.

Here, they tell their astonishing story, starting with Katy, 31.

Surrogate sisters: Katy, pictured 権利 持つ／拘留するing her daughter Beatrix, was helped to become a mother by her sister-in-法律 Jaime Allen, pictured left, and her sister Lucy 示すs, pictured 最高の，を越す centre, who 寄付するd her eggs

THE MOTHER

From the moment she 設立する out Jaime was 妊娠している, Katy said she 社債d to the baby inside her sister-in-法律. ‘There was my baby, and the fact it wasn’t biologically 地雷 could not have 事柄d いっそう少なく.

‘Any worry I might have had about whether I would feel anything for this tiny little bean 消えるd the moment I saw the heartbeat on the ざっと目を通す.’

A rare genetic 条件 meant that Katy, who is a 最初の／主要な school teacher, was born with 未開発の reproductive 組織／臓器s.

She grew up knowing she would never be able to have a child of her own ― something she 最初 受託するd. Only when she reached her teenage years did it 夜明け on her what that meant.

Over the years, she 株d her feelings with her younger sister, Lucy.?

Girl 力／強力にする: Katy Slade (centre) on her wedding day with her sister Lucy 示すs (left) and sister-in-法律 Jamie Allan

‘We were always so の近くに. I just knew she understood. And over time, the 可能性 that she would help me have a baby became something that was there, always in the background.’

Dating, 一方／合間, became an emotional minefield.?

‘If I thought the 関係 might be serious, I became fixated on having to tell them about my 条件 早期に, as if I would be tricking them into a 関係 さもなければ,’ she says.

‘But with David it was different. We’d been friends since we were 十代の少年少女s, so when we got together when I was 24, it was already out there.’

In 2010, when the couple had been together four years, David, who is an artist, 提案するd. The couple ― who live with Katy’s parents Jane, 57, and （頭が）ひょいと動く, 66, in a £400,000 home in Romford, Essex ― started to look into 採択 and surrogacy.

By then Lucy had made it （疑いを）晴らす she was willing to 寄付する an egg, while David’s sister Jaime stepped in and 申し込む／申し出d to carry the baby.

即座の 社債: Katy said she 社債d with her daughter while she was still 存在 carried by her sister-in-法律 Jaime

‘最初, David I and were 気が進まない,’ says Katy. ‘Carrying someone’s baby is a lot to ask. I thought it might help if the surrogate was someone we didn’t know.’

After その上の 研究, though, Katy worried about placing her 約束 in a stranger. ‘There were lots of lovely stories, but also several scary ones where the surrogate had changed her mind at the last minute.’

Katy 設立する the 過程 stressful.

‘I worried endlessly that I was asking too much of them. IVF is very invasive.

‘On the day Lucy’s eggs were 収穫d, she fainted in the clinic in?前線 of me. I remember thinking: “Oh my God, what am I putting her?through?”?’

She felt 類似して 保護の over Jaime, who was too squeamish to 成し遂げる the daily hormone 注射s she needed. ‘I would 運動 over every day and do it for her ― I felt it was the least I could do.’ ?

When, after Lucy’s eggs had been implanted, Jaime rang Katy to tell her she felt horribly sick, Katy’s feelings of helplessness grew.

‘I thought: “This is all because of me.” I felt so 有罪の, 特に on Christmas Eve, when she said she felt she needed to get checked out as she was feeling so ill.

‘That was when the nurse told us she was 妊娠している. I rang David, laughing and crying with joy.’ ?
< font style="font-size: 1.2em;">Every day of the pregnancy was fraught for Katy. ‘I veered between 恐れる and excitement.

‘It was hard いつかs. Though Jaime did everything she could to 株 what was happening inside her 団体／死体, I had no 支配（する）／統制する.

‘…に出席するing the ざっと目を通すs was magical: seeing this little 存在 and knowing she was ours was like no other feeling on Earth.

‘It didn’t stop me worrying endlessly. I knew that would only end when the baby was finally placed in my 武器.’

Katy says she never 疑問d that her sister and sister-in-法律 would see themselves as anything other than loving aunts to their little girl, whom they 指名するd Beatrix.

‘There was a natural 信用 between us all,’ she says. ‘There’s no jealousy.

‘It’s just lovely to see them cuddling my daughter knowing what a special 役割 they played bringing her into the world.’ It’s something she is looking 今後 to 株ing with Beatrix in 予定 course. ‘I know that once she understands, she will be as proud of her aunties as I am.’

THE SISTER

Lucy 示すs, 27, 作品 as a charity 行政官／管理者 and 株 her parents’ home in Essex, along with Katy, David and baby Beatrix.

審理，公聴会 the 静かな sobs from behind Katy’s bedroom door, Lucy felt for her sister.

‘We’d just been to visit a new baby in the family and I knew what she was thinking,’ she says.

‘My heart went out to her. I went in and told her that if she ever needed me to help her have a baby of her own, I would if I could.’

約束: Katy's sister Lucy （機の）カム to her 援助（する） by keeping a childhood 約束 to 寄付する her eggs which were fertilised by David

That was 11 years ago, when Lucy was just 16, and while she について言及するd it again over the years, it was not until 2010 that she felt the need to 再び述べる her 申し込む／申し出 本気で.

By then Katy was in a serious 関係 with David.

‘I knew they were looking into surrogacy and 採択, so I told her I had meant what I said all those years ago,’ says Lucy.

For most of us, it seems an 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の gesture, even の中で the closest of siblings. Yet Lucy 主張するs it felt 完全に natural.

Two aunties: Katy's sister Lucy and her sister-in-法律 Jaime both 手配中の，お尋ね者 to help their siblings become parents

‘Our grandmother tells a story about how, as a very little girl, I said it didn’t?事柄 that Katy couldn’t have?a baby because she could have one of 地雷.’

As her sister got older, Lucy 収容する／認めるs that some of her feelings were a consequence of 犯罪.
‘It seemed so 不公平な that I could have children and she couldn’t,’ she says. ‘Katy was born to be a mother ― she is a natural with children.’

But because she had not had her own children, Lucy felt it would be too emotionally コンビナート／複合体 to carry Katy and David’s baby. Instead, she 申し込む／申し出d her eggs. ?

‘I felt strangely pragmatic about it,’ she says. ‘The way I saw it, one disappeared every month in my menstrual cycle. I wasn’t worried about the 生物学の link.’

What she wasn’t 用意が出来ている for, though, was the physical （死傷者）数 of the IVF 治療, which started in September 2011.

‘My ovaries swelled to the size of grapefruits and I experienced a lot of 不快. It wasn’t 平易な,’ she says.

‘But I never had any 疑問 I was doing the 権利 thing. I told Katy I would do whatever it took.’
When Beatrix was born, Lucy was one of the first to 持つ／拘留する her.

‘I couldn’t believe how perfect she was ― but I didn’t feel any 生物学の tie to her, other than as the daughter of the sister I loved.’

That feeling has 固執するd. ‘She has never felt like 地雷,’ she says. ‘Instead, I feel as if I gave Katy and David the beginnings of something.

‘They have turned that into their child, their family.’

THE SISTER-IN-LAW

Jaime Allan, 35, runs an after-school club and lives with her husband Wayne, a printer, and their three children, Brad, 16, Billy, 13, and four-year-old Brooke.

With three children of her own, Jaime knew instinctively that she was, as she puts it, ‘done’ on the family 前線 and was happy to carry her brother’s baby. ‘It seemed Wayne and I only had to look at each other for me to get 妊娠している, yet David and Katy 手配中の，お尋ね者 so 不正に to be a family and were 妨害するd by 運命／宿命,’ she says. ‘It seemed so 不公平な.’

It was that feeling that drove her 申し込む／申し出 to be the ‘incubator’.

‘I checked with my family first. If they weren’t comfortable then I wouldn’t be able to do it.’

Wayne was worried about the （死傷者）数 another pregnancy would have on his wife. ?

Sibling support: David and Katy Slade (支援する) with their surrogate baby Beatrix born from Katy's sister in 法律 Jamie Allan (前線 権利) from eggs 寄付するd by her sister Lucy 示すs (前線 left)

‘But I’d had three good pregnancies and there was no 推論する／理由 to believe that this one would be different,’ she says.

‘We agreed the 危険 was 価値（がある） the chance to help David and Katy experience the joy of 存在 parents.’

After three months of hormone 注射s, two fertilised eggs were?implanted in Jaime’s womb in 早期に December 2011 ― いっそう少なく than two weeks later, she learned she was 妊娠している.

‘I’d been so sick that I was worried I wasn’t 吸収するing the 麻薬s I’d been taking, so I went to the 地元の 早期に pregnancy 部隊 with Katie.

‘They told me almost すぐに. I remember turning to Katy in?涙／ほころびs?説: “You’re going to be a mummy.”?’

She tried to 伴う／関わる Katy and David in the 過程 as much as possible. ‘Once the baby started moving they would come over and sit with their 手渡すs on my belly for hours.’

There were moments of 苦悩 too, she 自白するs.

‘I was carrying precious 貨物 and I was terrified of it going wrong.? That was always my worry, not that there would be any attachment to t he baby.

‘At the ざっと目を通すs, I didn’t even look at the 審査する, just at Katy and David’s 直面するs.’

Katy held her 手渡す throughout 労働. And, astonishingly, she says there was no yearning on her part for the baby she had carried for nine months.

‘From the moment she was conceived, Beatrix was, and is, Katy and David’s baby,’ she says.

‘Seeing the joy she has brought to them has been wonderful.’

... AND THE DAD

David Slade, 33, is an artist.

Like most men, David grew up assuming he would have a family of ?his own one day ― even if it did?not come in the most 伝統的な of 判型s. ‘My mum was 伴う／関わるd in fostering, so from an 早期に age I knew there was more to 存在 a parent than giving birth,’ he says.

The knowledge that Katy, the woman he had fallen in love with at the age of 26, could not have children did not, he 主張するs, 原因（となる） him angst.?

Proud: David and Katy are the proud parents of a baby girl called Beatrix who was created with the help of their amazing sisters

‘It was just a part of her,’ he says. ‘But I never saw it as just her problem ― this was something for us to 演説（する）／住所. I also knew it 原因（となる）d her a lot of 苦痛.’

He 収容する／認めるs he was, as he puts it, ‘blown away’ when his sister and sister-in-法律 agreed to join 軍隊s.
‘They had 申し込む／申し出d in the past, but?my main worry was that it was?something they felt they had?to do rather than 手配中の，お尋ね者 to do,’ he?says.

He was 現在の during the 労働. ‘For obvious 推論する／理由s, I kept my distance ― she was my sister, after all ― but I wouldn’t have 行方不明になるd it for the world.

‘Jaime was incredibly 勇敢に立ち向かう, but I felt 有罪の seeing her in so much 苦痛.’ The moment Beatrix was placed in his 武器 he says he was 減ずるd to a blubbering 難破させる.

‘There have been some 堅い moments since then ― sleepless nights and exhaustion so 深遠な that it is hard to put one foot in 前線 of the other,’ he says.

‘But it has all been more than 価値（がある） it.

‘Beatrix has brought so much happiness to all of us.

‘And it will be amazing for her to?know that all these people （機の）カム together to bring her into the world.’