Image source, Georgia Barrington
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- author, Jasmine Ruffo
- Author title, BBC News
Georgia Barrington had just become a mother, but she wasn’t the one giving birth to her daughter. That moment belonged to her best friend, Daisy Hope, who carried the baby in her womb after a promise they made to each other when they were teenagers.
These two women have been inseparable their entire lives. They consider themselves “soul sisters” and grew up together, with their parents being best friends.
The proximity to their childhood would later become the basis for the act of generosity that changed their lives.
At the age of fifteen, Georgia was told something no young woman would expect to hear: she was born without a uterus and would never bear a child.
The diagnosis, Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, affects approximately 1 in 5,000 women, and for Georgia, it was as if her future had been rewritten in an instant.
“It was devastating, my whole world collapsed,” he recalls. “I always grew up thinking I would be a mother, but he took him from me and everything I dreamed of was gone.”
Georgia’s family helped her cope with the diagnosis, as did her best childhood friend, Daisy Hope.
Daisy was not particularly a mother at the time and vividly remembers the diagnosis and how unfair it seemed to her that her friend, who had always wanted to have a child, couldn’t.
“I wanted her to feel comforted, and to give her hope that this was not the end of the world, I told her that one day I would bear her a child,” she said in a BBC podcast. Ready to talkcurated by Emma Barnett.
“I don’t think I understood what he was saying then, but I always knew this was something I would do for Georgia.”
Image source, Georgia Barrington
More than a decade later, Daisy made good on her promise, and in 2023 both women began the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process.
Trained as a midwife, Georgia was immersed in a world she feared she would never be a part of.
“I was once asked if this was the right career for me,” he says. “But it actually helped me heal and I knew deep down that I was going to have a baby one way or another.”
Years later, Daisy gave birth to her first child, with Georgia as her midwife, and motherhood strengthened her conviction to keep her promise.
“The love I felt for my daughter was incredible, and I think everyone should feel the same,” she says.
She admits that she was a bit naive at first, as her pregnancy was uncomplicated, and so she “thought everything would go smoothly again.”
“Hope is gone”
She became pregnant with the first fetus and everything seemed to be going smoothly, and both women allowed themselves to believe that the future they had imagined had finally happened. But an ultrasound at week seven revealed an empty uterus.
Georgia remembers the moment the nurse told her she couldn’t see anything on the ultrasound.
“I felt frustrated and all hopes were dashed,” he says.
“I’ve never felt so sad in my life and I thought it was my fault,” admits Daisy, overcome with grief, feeling like she’s let her friend down, while Georgia struggles to understand that even her most promising attempt hasn’t been successful.
They both agree that what was supposed to be one of the happiest days of their lives turned into one of the worst, and a week later it was confirmed that the fetus had not become a baby.
However, they tried again, and the second time, things seemed different, says Daisy: “When I found out I was pregnant again, I thought the world couldn’t be that cruel twice.”
Image source, Georgia Barrington
“Lucky and grateful”
Six weeks later, they both sat in a hospital room holding their breath as a small heartbeat appeared on the monitor, but later that day, Daisy began bleeding profusely.
“I thought it was happening again, and I was terrified,” she says.
She bled for six hours and was convinced she had miscarried, but when doctors examined her, the heartbeat was still there and the pregnancy had ended.
Daisy went into labor a little earlier than expected and gave birth to a baby girl a few months ago.
Georgia was so overwhelmed at the time that she “forgot to check the baby’s gender.”
“As soon as I saw the baby’s head, I felt crazy and we cried.”
She says she still finds it hard to believe she’s actually given birth to a child, and wishes she could “take advantage of this moment and have him when I was 15, sitting in my GP’s office.”
While Georgia talks about how “lucky and grateful” she feels, Daisy says she always knew she would help her best friend in any way she could.
“We have this bond that no one would ever have with their friends because we went through something so personal,” Daisy says, adding how special their friendship is.
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