By Arthur Martin
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Britain's most prolific surrogate mother, Jill Hawkins, has just given birth to her 9th and 10th babies
She has given birth to ten children â€" all for other couples.
At the age of 47 â€" and after almost dying during her last pregnancy â€" Britain’s most prolific surrogate mother is retiring from the baby business.
Jill Hawkins insists premature twins Jacob and William will be the last children she carries over her 20-year ‘career’.
Her decision has been prompted by the serious complications she suffered during her pregnancy.
After losing four pints of blood, the twins were delivered via an emergency Caesarean eight weeks early.
Jacob, who weighed 4lb 5oz at birth, and William, 3lb 11oz, are now in incubators in intensive care.
Last night Miss Hawkins, who is single, said she is calling time on her career as a surrogate mother.
However, she admits her friends doubt whether she will stick to her decision. She has said she will give up having babies before â€" only to change her mind s everal months later.
At the flat in Brighton she shares with her cat she said: ‘No one believes me when I tell them that I am having no more children. When I met the hospital consultant at the start of my pregnancy she told me in no uncertain terms that I was to have no more babies. She told me I was becoming a drain on NHS resources.
‘It’s now time other women took over the baton. I just can’t risk a baby’s life as well as my own. It’s bad enough that I’ve had two premature babies. I could have died. I could have bled to death.’
The twins she gave birth to last week were from frozen embryos produced by a 42-year-old teacher and his 40-year-old wife from the home counties.
L-R: Baby number one was Lucy, born in 1992 and baby number two was Bertie, born in 1994
L-R: Baby number three was Jamie, born in 1998 and baby number four was David, born in 2001
L-R: Baby number five was Sam, born in 2002, baby number six was Alexandra, born in in 2004
They have a ten-year-old daughter who was born naturally, but have been unable to have any more children.
Miss Hawkins was in good health during the early stages of her pregnancy.
But during the 20-week scan doctors discovered that she was suffering from the most severe type of placenta previa, a complication which causes bleeding.
Five weeks later she started to lose blood and was taken to hospital.
During the night she slipped and broke her collarbone. She was released from hospital but suffered another more serious bleed three weeks later.
‘It happened at 4am and all I could think was, “Oh my God, oh my God the twinsâ€,’ she said. ‘I was pretty scared because I was bleeding so much. I called 999 and was taken straight to hospital where I was given a blood transfusion. When I got home I was scared and every night I kept thinking the same thing was going to happen again.’
Miss Hawkins suffered another major bleed three weeks later. Medics decided they had to deliver the babies by emergency Caesarean.
L-R: baby number seven was Isabella, born in 2006, baby number eight was Oliver, born in 2010
Premature baby brothers, Jacob, left, and William were born two months early last week via emergency Caesarean and are now in incubators in intensive care
When she had her first baby for a couple, she lied to her bosses about the pregnancy. She invented a boyfriend and then claimed the baby had died, causing her colleagues to send her sympathy cards.
And a year after she became a surrogate mother for the third time, she was diagnosed with depression.
At one point in 2004, she felt so miserable that she attempted suicide by taking an overdose.
Miss Hawkins, who is paid around £12,000 in ‘expenses’ for each pregnancy, says she has never been in love.
However, she insists being a surrogate mother is fulfilling and urges other women to consider it.
‘Unfortunately there are not enough women who are able or willing to be surrogates,’ she said. ‘I was blessed with fertility. I never wanted the babies for myself.
‘I want to show that it has been a very happy and good experience. This pregnancy has been more painful, but in general I’ve felt happ ier about how things have turned out.’
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This women is a breeding machine, how much did she earn? £10,000 a pop thats £100,000 how low can you stoop, this is sickening, what happened to adoption? she obviously did it for the money. - mike and jo, carmarthen, wales, 30/6/2012 8:51 your maths are out. she got £12,000 a go for each singleton and about £18,000 for the twin one plus the many thousands for all the many her press stories and media interviews she has done for years and years. the woman must have made an absolute fortune from it. enough to buy a good property rather than this one bed flat shes reported to have lived in most of her life. i pity her employers and all the leave shes had as well as the huge cost to taxpayers for her addictive pregnancies that she has profited from and which has been her whole life because by her own words she hasnt had a life away from doing surrogacy it is her life. i think she needs help.
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All these lovely babies would be half brothers and sisters...I am wondering if this fact is kept secret,or whether they are told at a later stage,so that they can keep in touch.
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No, she's not an angel, this is her job. She's PAID to do this and it isn't out of the kindness of her heart! - Grace, Iowa, USA, 30/6/2012 5:11 _____________________________________________________________ you really believe that? If it was only for the money, then i think there are far easier jobs than this that she could ! Would you carry all those children just for a job?
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I think she's absolutely amazing to be doing this. Most women wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. She's giving couples the gift of a lifetime when they are unable to do it themselves.
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This lady deserves a OBE
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What a wonderfully generous thing to do. I would have been offended at the nurse who said she was a 'drain on resources.' If they'd been her own ten children paid for by the taxpayer, then perhaps. But they've been born to different families, presumably long term taxpayers. It makes me sad that our local adoption process has become so convoluted and unfair that people don't have much of a choice.
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Well done for the service to the unfortunate womanity, who couldn't conceive as easilty as you. Now you can retire
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As menopause is just around the corner her fertile years are almost over anyway. - jenni, edgware, 30/6/2012 11:36 shes already going through the menopause. she had fertility treatment to have the last 3 or 4. besides over 40 women are pre menopausal and not that fertile. fertility drops dramatically after 35. shes made her choices and done it now but i dont envy her life after it all and the memories of those children she has given away, most of them were her own bio kids. unless she can begin to learn how to be happy for herself and not just pleasing other people in order to enjoy their joy with her.
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hope shes made enough from it to buy herself a nice property somewhere. no doubt shes wrecked herself physically and emotionally as its not normal what shes done. even doing it once would be hard enough for most people.
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I just cannot get my head around women wanting to give birth like this, the child has no real mother. Have we really become no more than biological specimens, we have enough biological dads wandering around. Humanity has lost its soul.
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