A 45-year-old UK woman believed to be the world’s most prolific surrogate mother is pregnant with her thirteenth baby and plans to have even more.
Carole Horlock has told how she is ready to give the baby away to an Italian couple, and already plans to help another childless couple by carrying their child in seven months’ time.
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She first heard about surrogacy through a newspaper article in 1995 as a divorcee with two daughters working in a laundrette.
Ms Horlock said she had loved carrying her own children, who are now aged 19 and 22, and couldn’t imagine how devastating it would be for women not to be able to have children.
Twelve years later and she has given birth to eight girls and four boys, including one set of twins and a set of triplets.
She receives expenses of between $15,000 and $23,000 from the couples she helps, but insists it’s not about the money, she does it for the people.
“They tell me I give them a precious gift and you can see the joy in their faces when they hold their baby for the first time,” she told UK’s The Sun.
“It’s a highly charged, emotional moment. That’s the reason I do it.”
Ms Horlock has had a four year break since her last surrogacy stint, giving birth to babies number 10, 11 and 12, a healthy set of triplets born by Caeserean section who she gave up to a couple in Athens in 2008.
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The surrogate mum has minimal involvement with any of the children, but does ask that the parents send her a yearly letter and photograph of the kids to keep up with how they are doing, and keeps the photos in a box in the house in France she shares with her partner of 14 years, Paul.
Although her partner is supportive of Ms Horlock carrying other couples’ children, not everyone agrees. Her father, distressed that she will give away his grandchildren, barely speaks to her.
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