A CWMBRAN couple who thought they might never be able to have children are just days away from becoming parents for the first time.
Laura Curtis and Lewis Batterham are expecting to welcome a baby girl into the world any day now, as their surrogate was due last Saturday.
Ms Curtis was born with a condition called MRKH (Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser) syndrome, meaning she was born without a womb or a uterus.
“When I was 16 I didn’t start my monthly cycle,” she said. “They started doing some tests and investigations. They found that I was born with no womb and no uterus.
“Since then, I never thought having a child was in the equation.
“I met my fiancé six years ago. I was really nervous about telling him. I didn’t want to leave it too late, but I didn’t want to mention children too soon either. I knew how much he wanted children – the same as myself.
“I told him that I couldn’t have children. He said it didn’t matter, we could sort it out – and that we’d do it together.”
The couple met their surrogate, Chloe Thomas, after she reached out after seeing a post Ms Curtis made on Facebook.
“I put a status on Facebook about being mindful about infertility and how it affects one in seven people, and sharing my story,” said Ms Curtis. “My fiancé encouraged me to do it to help raise awareness.
“Chloe reached out to me on Facebook in 2020 saying she had donated her eggs before and would love to be our surrogate. She lives in Cwmbran too.
“She’s amazing and her family is amazing.
“We started just talking. We then met up for coffee. I met her husband and children. Then her husband met Lewis. Her husband has been super supportive as well.
“It was like it was just meant to be – we only had one embryo that survived. We were then told it was only around a 33 per cent chance it would work.”
With the couple expecting their first child any day now, Ms Curtis said that she will continue to share her experience to raise awareness of her condition and show that surrogacy is an option for people going through the same experience.
“I have tried to do what I can to raise awareness of my condition and speak about surrogacy,” she said. “I have an Instagram page (@battsbaby) with over 1,000 followers. I see it as these are 1,000 people who might not have known about this before.
“I always felt it made me less of a woman as I couldn’t reproduce. But I have come to terms with it since I was 16.
“Hopefully talking about my story and my condition will help people going through the same thing.”
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