Ten years ago Sydney mum Miranda, 32 was crushed when told she was told she’d never be a mother, after being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a serious heart condition.
“Sometimes I’d make excuses so I didn’t have to go to baby showers or kids’ birthday parties. It was just too painful,” she says.
Then, in stepped her sister-in-law Megan.
“I’d always told Miranda I’d have a baby for her, and while she may have thought I was joking, I was serious!” says mum-of-two Megan, 35.
“I turned to Miranda and said, ‘Do you want to do this? Do you want me to be your surrogate?’ Then I smiled and waited.”
“I said, ‘Are you serious? Let’s look into it then!’” says Miranda.
Miranda with her little miracle, Harrison.
They planned for an IVF baby using Miranda’s egg and her husband’s sperm. But within weeks they suffered a setback, when tests showed Miranda didn’t have enough healthy eggs.
Determined, she began looking into egg donation and posted her story online.
Sitting in her lounge room 1400km away in Yeppoon, Queensland, total stranger Jemma Bacon read Miranda’s words and felt compelled to help.
“I’ve always volunteered for charities and saw this as an extension of that,” explains the single mum of one.
Before they’d even met, Jemma told Miranda she’d be happy to donate and be as involved with the baby as Miranda wanted.
So Jemma’s eggs and Chris’s sperm were turned into embryos for Megan to carry.
“When we did the pregnancy test, we’d agreed Megan would come out and lie the test flat on the table. Then I’d go up two minutes later and pick it up to read the results,” says Miranda.
“But she came out of the bathroom and just screamed at me, Chris and Matt to look at the test. We were pregnant! I jumped around for ages.”
“I can’t even begin to show the gratitude I have for these two women,” says Miranda. “What an incredible act of kindness.”
Read the incredible story of these three amazing women and their miracle baby only in Woman’s Day, on sale 30th March.
