In June 2009 my husband, Bill, and I were five and a half years into an arduous fertility journey that had involved five rounds of IVF, the late-term loss of twin boys (stillborn), and a subsequent miscarriage. Tired and depleted, we took a break from the fertility treatments and discussions that had consumed much of the past half decade and tried to listen for some way we would still be able to have children. Seven hundred miles away, my 59-year-old mother, who had watched and supported us in our angst, experienced a flash of an idea. 
 
 My mother, who, to her own or my knowledge, had never done anything that would be considered the least unconventional, offered to be the surrogate for my and Bill’s biological child. 
 
 She wrote her offer in a letter: three small pieces of creamy white paper containing an invitation that would change our lives. I read the letter on the floor of my bedroom, feeling none of the things my mother had feared I might feel (rejection, alienation, overstepping of bounds). I clutched the paper to my chest. I felt only awe, incredulity, gratitude and- for the first time in many months, hope. 
 
 We knew the idea was wild and far-fetched. We called our fertility clinic to set up an appointment anyway. To ease our insecurity we cracked jokes about the idea’s sensationalist nature, laughing over the mock holiday card we could send if the idea worked: “WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO OWN GRANDSON”. 
 
 I laughed but was aware of a deeper sensation humming within me. Despite the protesting of my logical mind, I felt this surrogacy idea like a song—a song that called to me like wind in the trees. 
 
 I also knew something that possibly no one else aside from my father knew at that time—that this act of colossal generosity on the part of my mother was also the answer to another prayer: my mother’s desire to discover a calling. Two years earlier, newly retired from a career that had been successful but never a passion, my mother began calling me for advice. I happily offered the techniques I used in my life coaching practice: meditation, journaling, and exploratory questions. “I keep coming up with the same thing,” she’d lament after journaling. “The time I was the happiest in my life was when I was pregnant with you three girls. What am I supposed to do with that?” 
 
 Out of sheer persistence, she attended a coaching workshop and created a vision board for her ideal life. In the center was a young ostrich; its beak stretched wide open in a great yawping grin. “This is the way I want to feel about what I am doing in my life,” my mother said. She’d also pasted onto the board a page from a magazine that read: Women after menopause have a choice. 
 
 “I meant the page to say retirement,” she said. “I’ll change it when I get home”. 
 
 Instead, she hung the vision board up in her room at home as it was and promptly forgot about it—until three months later when a friend mentioned that she’d heard about a post-menopausal woman who’d become pregnant. 
 
 My mother went home and stared at the board. The skin on her body pricked and she felt as if a current moved through her. The idea took shape in her mind. In that moment our two visions, mine to have a family and hers to find a calling, became one. 
 
 On Feb. 9, 2011, my son, Finnean Lee, came into the world and at 61 my mother became the oldest woman in Illinois to give birth. One of my mother’s favorite quotes is from a rabbi who said if we are open along the way of realizing our own visions and dreams, we will also become the puzzle pieces for the visions and dreams of others. 
 
 Years before, my mother displayed the quote in her kitchen and sent a copy to me. She called recently to say she couldn’t find the paper and would I send her the passage again? That evening I took out a thick piece of cardstock and sat down to handwrite the words. As I reached for an envelope in which to enclose it, I wondered if she needed it anymore. In carrying Finn my mother had embodied the essence of that quote, lodging it deep within the heart of our family. ||||| Unprecedented: A British woman is staging a legal bid to become pregnant with her own grandchild – using her dead daughter’s eggs (file image) 
 
 A British woman is staging a desperate legal bid to become pregnant with her own grandchild – using her dead daughter’s eggs. 
 
 In the first case of its kind in the world, the woman, 59, and her husband will claim it was their daughter’s dying wish that her eggs be fertilised by donor sperm and implanted into her own mother’s womb. It would be the couple’s only chance to become grandparents after their daughter, an only child, died of bowel cancer four years ago while still in her 20s. 
 
 She chose to freeze her eggs in the hope that she could have children in the future, but tragically lost her battle with the disease. No UK-based clinic has agreed to treat the mother, who is now hoping to export the eggs to New York, where a clinic is lined up to provide fertility treatment at an estimated cost of up to £60,000. 
 
 At her age, the woman’s chances of becoming pregnant using the eggs are small. 
 
 There are potentially large risks to her health, and the health of the unborn child, if fertility treatment succeeds. 
 
 However, the woman and her 58-year-old husband say they are determined to honour their daughter’s wishes and the case is now set to be decided by a judge. 
 
 If successful, the woman would be the first in the world to give birth to a baby using eggs from her dead daughter, experts believe. Dr Mohammed Taranissi, who runs the ARGC fertility clinic in London, said: ‘I have never heard of a surrogacy case involving a mother and her dead daughter’s eggs. It’s fair to say that this may be a world first.’ 
 
 The Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has already refused the couple’s application to export their daughter’s frozen eggs to America, on the grounds that she did not give clear written consent. 
 
 But her parents are now preparing to challenge the ruling in the High Court. They claim their daughter told them shortly before her death that this was what she wanted. 
 
 However, politicians and campaigners criticised plans to bring a baby into the world long after their biological mother has died. 
 
 David Davies, Conservative MP for Monmouth, said: ‘I can’t understand why anyone would want to do that. I would have grave concerns about any permission being granted by the HFEA or the courts. It’s potentially rather disturbing.’ 
 
 Josephine Quintavalle, from campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, acknowledged there would be sympathy for the mother’s loss, but said it would be ‘impossible not to feel very uncomfortable’ if the procedure was allowed to go ahead. She said of the potential grandmother: ‘Her daughter is irreplaceable and should be mourned as such.’ 
 
 But Annie Casserley, 62, who acted as a surrogate for her own daughter, said: ‘If that was her daughter’s wish and she wants to honour that wish then it’s absolutely her choice.’ 
 
 Treatment: The woman and her husband will claim it was their daughter’s dying wish that her eggs be fertilised by donor sperm and implanted into her mother’s womb. Above, file image of artificial insemination 
 
 Women who have gone through the menopause are still able to bear children using donor eggs and sperm. However, obstetricians say the risks associated with pregnancy, such as miscarriage, are greater. 
 
 The full details of the controversial case are revealed in minutes of the HFEA’s Statutory Approvals Committee, which has so far rejected three attempts by the couple to secure permission to use the eggs. 
 
 The Mail on Sunday is aware of the family’s identity, but will respect their wish to remain anonymous. Last night lawyers for the family declined to comment, saying they considered the case to be private. 
 
 The documents reveal the couple’s daughter was diagnosed with bowel cancer at 23 and chose to freeze and store three of her eggs at IVF Hammersmith in West London in 2008. 
 
 SURROGACY: THE FACTS, THE LAWS AND THE ETHICS Cases of surrogacy, where a woman carries a child on behalf of its genetic parents, have more than trebled in just six years. But in only a handful of cases worldwide has a woman become a surrogate for her own daughter’s child. 
 
 The first surrogate grandmother, 56-year-old Pat Anthony, from South Africa, gave birth to triplets for her daughter in 1987. Since then the UK has seen at least four cases. 
 
 Any woman can legally become a surrogate in the UK as long as they are not paid more than ‘reasonable expenses’. 
 
 To become a surrogate, women have standard IVF treatment using embryos created from the genetic mother’s eggs. 
 
 In 2013, 167 babies were officially born to a surrogate parent in the UK, up from 47 in 2007. However, there may be hundreds more. 
 
 The woman who gives birth is always the legal mother; genetic parents must apply for a court order to get full legal rights over the child. 
 
 Surrogacy is not the same as ‘three-parent babies’ because the child’s genes come only from the biological parents. No DNA is passed from the surrogate. 
 
 She completed a form which gave consent for the eggs to be stored for use after her death, but crucially, failed to fill in a separate form which indicated how she wished the eggs to be used. This technically meant her consent became invalid. 
 
 She died in 2011 without leaving further instructions. She was single. The minutes reveal the ‘strongest and only evidence’ of her wishes was a reported conversation with her mother while she was in hospital in 2010. The young woman is said to have asked an unnamed doctor whether someone with a stoma such as herself could carry a child. The doctor confirmed it was possible. 
 
 But, the mother says, it was then agreed that if her daughter could not carry a child ‘I would do it for her’. The minutes say the young woman wanted her mother to ‘carry her babies… in the context of her not expecting to leave hospital alive.’ 
 
 The couple approached fertility clinics after their daughter died. They hoped to create embryos using standard IVF treatment from their daughter’s eggs and sperm from an anonymous donor. However, no UK clinics were prepared to carry it out. 
 
 Generally, fertility clinics will not treat women over 50 because of the limited chances of success and the extra risks involved. 
 
 Despite this, the HFEA committee was not required to consider the mother’s age in this case because the issues solely surrounded whether her daughter consented to her eggs being used in such a way. The couple have now been approved for treatment by a US clinic, New York Fertility Services. The minutes say: ‘Although it is stated that the chances of [the woman’s mother] becoming pregnant are “very small” and that “any complications could be life threatening”, the couple say that they are determined to “honour their daughter’s wishes”.’ 
 
 The application for permission to export the sperm was made to the HFEA by IVF Hammersmith, which is storing the eggs. It treats both NHS and private patients and is based within Hammersmith Hospital in West London. 
 
 Applications in November 2013, March 2014 and August 2014 were rejected. Minutes from the HFEA committee say they are ‘sympathetic’ to the parents’ views, but that they did not provide enough evidence for the export to be agreed. 
 
 The HFEA confirmed the case will now proceed to judicial review. It will be heard in the Administrative Court, a division of the High Court, at a date to be set. 
 
 Risks: At her age, the woman’s chances of becoming pregnant using the eggs are small. There are potentially large risks to her health, and the health of the unborn child, if fertility treatment succeeds (file image) 
 
 If this final legal bid fails, the eggs will be destroyed in February 2018, ten years after they were stored. 
 
 Professor Simon Fishel, managing director of Care Fertility clinics, said the only similar case involved a British mother who attempted to use her dead daughter’s already fertilised embryo – but that bid failed. 
 
 However he believed the latest case was ‘little different’ in ethical terms to that of Diane Blood, who in 1997 won a legal fight to use her dead husband’s sperm to try to conceive a child. 
 
 He said: ‘One argument is this: if the family feels it’s right for them, whose right is it to interfere?’ 
 
 But he said other factors should be taken into consideration. 
 
 The HFEA said it did not know of any other cases where a woman had given birth to a child using her deceased daughter’s eggs. However, it added that it would not automatically be informed if adequate consent had been provided and if an export licence was not needed. 
 
 A spokesman declined to comment further on ‘an on-going case’. Imperial NHS Trust, which runs IVF Hammersmith, also had no comment. 
 
 I GAVE BIRTH TO MY OWN GRANDCHILD... SHE SHOULD, TOO Legacy Annie Casserly acted as a surrogate for daughter Emma ten years ago. Her granddaughter Annie (pictured as a newborn) is now nine A British woman who was one of the first surrogate mothers to give birth to her own grandchild has backed the couple’s bid to continue their daughter’s legacy. Annie Casserley acted as a surrogate for her daughter Emma ten years ago after she was diagnosed with a rare lung condition which meant pregnancy could be fatal. Emma is still alive – although on the transplant list. Mrs Casserley’s granddaughter, also named Annie, is now nine. Mrs Casserley, from the West Midlands, said of the new case: ‘It’s a way of keeping their daughter alive, isn’t it? That’s what they must be thinking. It’s like creating an extension of their child. They’ve lost their daughter. It’s heartbreaking. ‘It depends on the woman’s health but if that was her daughter’s wish and she wants to honour that wish then it’s absolutely her choice. ‘If you can keep a part of your child alive, anyone would do it, wouldn’t they? My heart goes out to them.’ Mrs Casserley, now 62, said she had ‘no regrets – not one’ about carrying her daughter’s child, and that she treated her ‘no differently’ to her other three grandchildren. ‘Even if I’d died in the process I wouldn’t have regretted it. It was an absolute privilege. The only stipulation was I didn’t want to give birth so I had a caesarean under general anaesthetic. ‘When I came round, my daughter was sitting beside me, smiling, with Annie in her arms. I was at home, straight back to normal, two days later. ‘I just grew her. I’d do anything for my daughter, and this was just one of those things you do for your children.’ 
 
 Unmasked: Sperm donor cowboy who's 'fathered 40 children... with 15 on the way' as doctors warn of health timebomb of 'siblings' born in 50-mile radius 
 
 By Ben Ellery and Jacinta Taylor for the Mail on Sunday 
 
 Criminal past: Spemr donor Declan Rooney as he emerged smirking from court in 1993 
 
 The Mail on Sunday can today unmask an anonymous sperm donor who boasts that an astonishing 32 women are expecting his babies and another 15 are about to take pregnancy tests after asking him for donations. 
 
 Declan Rooney, 42, claims he is ‘Britain’s most successful sperm donor’ and says he has donated sperm to two more women who have already given birth. He also has six children born naturally with three different mothers – meaning he has the potential to be the father of 55 children. 
 
 The former web designer runs his website under the alias Upton North and advertises himself on Facebook to single women, lesbians and couples desperate for a baby. 
 
 Last night experts called for an investigation into the unregulated and potentially dangerous service he provides to women he meets online, with one sociologist saying that Mr Rooney was ‘determinedly engineering a one-man eugenics movement’. 
 
 Medical experts fear he could create a ‘ticking timebomb’ by flouting official guidelines for sperm donation, which limit the number of families that legitimate sperm donors can help create to a maximum of ten. As well as growing up without knowing their father, his children will potentially live close to each other, meaning that half-brothers and sisters may meet and unwittingly have children of their own. 
 
 The murky world of unregulated sperm donation has come under increasing scrutiny from watchdogs as the internet offers men and women easy opportunities to meet up anonymously and create families – without needing to qualify or pay for expensive private fertility treatment, overseen by doctors. A cycle of artificial insemination costs £850 privately and is only offered to selected patients on the NHS. 
 
 Rooney set up his anonymous site last March, offering to visit women in their homes or hotel within a 50-mile radius of his Middlesbrough home and give them a sample of his sperm in a specimen pot for them to inseminate themselves. 
 
 His website, which was taken down last night after he was contacted by The Mail on Sunday, stated: ‘I am willing to help either through artificial insemination or naturally with no strings attached.’ Despite that wording, he told this newspaper that he does not have sex with the women. 
 
 Sperm donations are not illegal unless a man charges for the service, but the risks of private donations include reports of women being abused, pressured into sex or forced to hand over money when they meet a donor. 
 
 His cynical advert: Declan Rooney boasted of 'natural' insemination, but insisted he did not offer sex 
 
 Rooney, who insists he acts within the law, says he only charges ‘expenses’ and that his motives are purely ‘altruistic’. He said: ‘I like helping people’. And he added: ‘Have you changed anyone’s lives for the better?’ 
 
 Since becoming a sperm donor, Rooney says two lesbian women in the North East have given birth to his children. He said: ‘When I was told, I was really happy for the mothers. I like meeting new people, I like hearing their stories, I like problem-solving. I’m quite an altruistic person. I haven’t done anything illegal. 
 
 ‘I set myself up as a private donor and have been inundated – I have 5,000 emails. If they are too far out of the area I say no to them. If you say you’re a sperm donor, people say it’s really smutty, but if someone said they were an egg donor it’s like “Wow that’s amazing”. There were a few days when I had a success each day. It’s a good feeling.’ 
 
 Donor: Rooney pictured with his partner, who he says understands his reasoning for donating 
 
 On Rooney’s webpage he backed up his claims by posting photos of ultrasounds scans, positive reviews from female recipients and an image of a specimen pot. 
 
 A HUMAN Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) spokesman said: ‘Unfortunately, women finding a sperm donor online, rather than through a licensed clinic, run a number of risks. Apart from the personal safety risks to the woman, the donor won’t have been screened for infectious diseases like HIV, or for inherited illnesses, and he will probably also be the legal parent of any child that is born. ’ 
 
 Dr Suvir Venkataraman of London’s Harley Street Fertility Clinic, added: ‘A registered clinic will inform a child of a donor who else has been born using their sperm so they don’t have a sexual relationship with someone sharing the same genes. This man cannot expect to keep tabs on everyone and that is a big risk.’ 
 
 Mr Rooney, who says his partner ‘understands my reasons for donating’, claims that his family have had no medical issues in five generations. ‘I wouldn’t donate if I had something genetically wrong. And there is no risk that my offspring will unknowingly have sex with each other because evolution makes sure that we are not attracted to people with the same genes,’ he claimed. 
 
 He also boasted that he is ‘immune’ from the Child Support Agency. ‘The CSA has to find your taxable income and assets. They would have difficulty. I’m not scared of them,’ he said. 
 
 Mr Rooney was photographed on the front page of the Daily Mail in 1993 leaving court smirking after he was found guilty of causing £60,000 of graffiti damage. He was given a suspended sentence and served seven months in a young offenders’ institution while waiting to stand trial. As he stepped out of the dock he said: ‘My barrister’s a genius. I’m laughing. It’s a soft touch.’ 
 
 Questioned on his criminal past last night, he said: ‘I don’t mention it to recipients, but if the subject comes up then I will talk about it.’ ||||| A mother's love takes many forms. For Kristine Casey, 61, it meant giving the gift of motherhood to her infertile daughter by carrying and giving birth to her own grandson. 
 
 With the help of hormone supplementation, Casey, who had gone through menopause 10 years earlier, became pregnant during her second round of in vitro fertilization, the Chicago Tribune reported. 
 
 She carried full term and gave birth via Cesarean section to Finnean, her first grandchild, last week at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago. Although Casey's daughter, Sara Connell, 35, had been unable to carry a pregnancy to term, her egg and her husband Bill's sperm were used in the procedure, making the couple Finnean's biological parents. 
 
 "The idea of having a family member being open to doing this for us was so extraordinary for us," Sara Connell told the Tribune. 
 
 Casey, who is retired, told the Tribune that giving birth to her own three daughters were three of the happiest days in her life and she believed that serving as a surrogate to her daughter was a spiritual calling. She had kidney complications after the birth that were quickly resolved. 
 
 Casey's husband, William, who spoke on behalf of the family, said there'd be no further comment to the media after their interview with the Tribune. 
 
 Mothering in the 60s 
 
 In the world of surrogate parenting, the Connell's scenario is not as uncommon as you might think. The first case of such an arrangement dates back to 1987 when a South African woman gave birth to her triplet grandchildren. More recently, ABC News' "Good Morning America" spoke with 56-year-old Jaci Dalenberg of Wooster, Ohio, who gave birth to triplet girls that she carried for daughter Kim Coseno in 2008. 
 
 The Uterus Goes on Forever 
 
 While age is a limiting factor for the safety of such late-in-life surrogacy, hormonal supplementation and the use of donor eggs make pregnancy possible even in women who have gone through menopause. 
 
 "It works despite the woman being post-menopausal because the uterus continues to respond to hormones forever," says Dr. David Cohen, an obstetrician and ethicist at the University of Chicago. "After menopause, you have to supply the hormones in the form of pills, shots or vaginal creams." 
 
 The age of the eggs and the ovaries, which would normally provide those hormones, is more of a concern for getting pregnant later in life, he adds, but in the case of surrogacy, the egg is provided by the biological mother. Those synthetic hormones, given before in vitro fertilization would most likely be continued into the first trimester, Cohen says, when the placental hormones would take over. 
 
 What does become more of a concern in the case of Casey and late-in-life pregnancies such as hers is the health of the gestational mother. 
 
 "The data suggests that the risk to the mom has been much higher in people who are older," Cohen says. 
 
 Although each case must be evaluated individually, the risk of high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and risk of miscarrying tend to be higher. 
 
 "The biggest issue is that the vascular volume -- the amount of fluid floating around the blood vessels -- increases dramatically in pregnancy and the demand on the heart to push that volume around is greater" he says. 
 
 "An older heart doesn't have the same strength to accommodate that volume as a young heart does. The older blood vessels also don't have the same elasticity so the risk of getting high blood pressure is clearly higher." 
 
 But age isn't always the best indicator of maternal suitability, Cohen notes, and "someone at 61 might seem healthier than another person at 49. Thankfully, in this case, everything worked out fine." 
 
 Ethical, Emotional Concerns of Grandma Surrogacy 
 
 At first mention, the idea of a grandmother giving birth to her own grandson sounds like a genetic nightmare, but because the Connells contributed the egg and sperm, the risk of genetic abnormality was actually quite low. From an emotional or even ethical standpoint, however, this arrangement might still raise concerns. 
 
 Is it ethical to put an elderly mother at increased risk of complications by allowing her to be a surrogate? Would carrying a grandchild that is then handed over to the biological parents create psychological turmoil in the grandmother? 
 
 Surrogacy in any case can be ripe with emotional complications as gestational mothers become attached to the child during pregnancy and may be less willing than expected to part with the child, even though it is not biologically theirs. 
 
 Even if the surrogate is no stranger but a family member, such as a sister, there might be similar attachment issues. In this case however, grandmother surrogacy might actually be one of the least complicated scenarios for surrogacy, notes Dorothy Greenfeld, a clinical psychologist who counsels patients at the Yale Fertility Center. 
 
 "I don't see it as particularly emotionally complicated," she says. "She's probably so overjoyed to be able to do this for her daughter." 
 
 Given that Casey was already going to play a somewhat maternal role in the child's life as his grandmother and that she is no longer at mothering age (and less likely to want to raise the child as her own), the situation is less complicated than others, she adds. 
 
 Indeed, Casey told the Tribune, "From the very beginning, the moment I've wanted is the moment the baby is in their arms. I've been clear since after my third child that I didn't need to have any more children, and as much as I will be delighted to be a grandmother, I don't want to take a baby home."
– 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 the 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. The main complications are gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and miscarriage. But it can be done: A woman recounted in the New York Times the story of her 61-year-old mother giving birth to her son in 2011. Still, the unidentified woman in this most recent story 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.")