Report: Woman wants to birth dead daughter's baby

Elizabeth Armstrong Moore

Newser staff

A woman in the U.K. says it was her daughter's dying wish for the woman to be a surrogate for the daughter's baby.

(NEWSER) – It's not unheard of for a woman to act as a surrogate mother for her own grandchild, but a 59-year-old British woman is reportedly hoping for what may be a world first: becoming a surrogate for her dead daughter, who succumbed to bowel cancer four years ago while still in her 20s, reports the Daily Mail. She's not having any luck in the UK, though, where apparently no clinic is willing to fertilize the woman with her daughter's eggs (she froze three in 2008). The anonymous woman reportedly says it was her daughter's dying wish to have her become a surrogate, but it's not in writing. The mother is now trying to export the eggs to a clinic in New York that has apparently agreed to attempt in vitro fertilization for roughly $90,000, but her request to actually export the eggs out of country has been denied three times, so the case is going to be heard in the UK's High Court.

While it's technically possible for a post-menopausal woman to become pregnant thanks to hormonal supplementation, reports ABC News, the chances of becoming pregnant are lower and the risks to the older woman's health are greater. But it's certainly possible: A woman recounted in the New York Times the story of her 61-year-old mother giving birth to her son in 2011. The main complications are gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and miscarriage. Still, this unidentified woman says she wants to honor her daughter's wish; if this final legal bid to export the eggs fails, they will be destroyed in 2018, a decade after being frozen. (A 49-year-old woman who gave birth to her own grandson in 2012 said it was like "babysitting for a few months.")

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