The world’s most prolific surrogate mother has told how she is pregnant again and planning to give away baby number 13.
British-born Carole Horlock, who moved to a farmhouse near Bordeaux, France, said she will hand over the child to an Italian couple without even giving it a cuddle. The 45-year-old added that she’s delighted to be helping yet another childless couple become parents in seven months’ time.
Horlock told The Sun: “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.”
Horlock, who is originally from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, has also brought up two daughters — now aged 22 and 19 and from different relationships.
Her 10th, 11th and 12th surrogate babies were delivered in one batch – as triplets.
She gave birth to them by planned Caesarean section four years ago in Athens, when she was just over 35 weeks pregnant.
A boy, called Panagiotis, was born first weighing 5lb 12oz. Next came a girl called Paraskevi, who weighed 6lb 2oz followed by another girl, Helen, weighing 5lb 10oz. All were healthy.
Horlock said she first heard about surrogacy through a newspaper article she read in 1995, while working in a launderette.
She said at the time she was divorced with two girls who she had loved carrying and couldn’t imagine how devastating it would be for other women not to be able to have children.
She has since given birth to eight girls and four boys, including one set of twins and another of triplets.
Horlock receives expenses, usually between £10,000 and £15,000, from the couples she helps, as payments are illegal.
She insisted it’s not about the money, that she does it for other people.
After they’re born, Horlock makes no demands on the parents of any of the children, beyond asking for a yearly letter and a photograph to see how they are doing.
Photos of each child she has carried are kept in a box at the farmhouse near Bordeaux, France, that she shares with partner of 14 years, Paul Brown.
But her surrogacy experiences have not all been positive. Her father barely speaks to her, distressed that she is effectively giving away his grandchildren.
In 2004, after delivering a son, she discovered that instead of getting pregnant with the father’s sperm, she had, in fact, conceived naturally with her partner.
Though the couple she was acting for went ahead and took the child, the mistake led to Horlock being thrown out of the organisation Cots (Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy) which puts childless couples in touch with surrogate mothers.
-With dailymail.co.uk input
