Grandmother opens up about giving birth to her own son's baby girl

A grandmother has surprised the world by giving birth to her son's baby girl.

61-year-old Cecile Eledge gave birth to her own granddaughter after offering to be a surrogate for her son 32-year-old son, Matthew and his husband Elliot Dougherty, 29, who wanted to start a family after they married in 2015.

After Elliot’s sister Lea Yribe, 26, stepped forward to donate her eggs to the couple, Cecile decided she wanted to be the one to carry the baby.

Cecile – who was deemed by doctors to have the "body of a 40-year-old woman – fell pregnant after the first IVF attempt and claims her pregnancy experience wasn't "that big a deal" and "no different" to when she gave birth to her own two children 30 years earlier.

The family happily welcomed the baby girl, Uma Louise Dougherty-Eledge, on March 25 of this year.

"I loved being pregnant, and I knew I was healthy enough to do it, and [the offer] was something that naturally came out," Cecile revealed to Good Morning Britain.

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Being a photographer is such a special and meaningful career. I feel so lucky that I get invited into people's lives to create something beautiful for them to cherish and look back on over the years. This is a story I feel lucky to be able to capture. This is a story of love.  Real, authentic, genuine love. Documenting @matt_eledge + @ephemeral_elliot’s journey has been very special. From the day they met, they have shared a deep love for each other and have always remained authentic to who they are. This is the power of family, selflessness, love and acceptance. From Matthew: “I would like to take a moment to pause and share my overwhelming feeling of gratitude. As many of you know, my husband Elliot and I have been in the process of building our family. As a gay couple, this process can be confusing, challenging, and expensive. There is no clear path, and regardless of your decision, it's guaranteed you will need to rely on others to make this dream a reality. Thankfully for us, we are surrounded by the most selfless, most loving women in the world. As I announced last year, my husband's beautiful, loving sister generously donated her eggs and gave us the gift of life. I didn't mention, however, that the individual who volunteered to be our gestational carrier was my very own, very special mother. I have always loved my mother on such a deep, meaningful level. Growing up as a weird, gay kid, I honestly couldn't have asked for a better woman to raise me. She loved me unconditionally, she fiercely protected me from the world, and never once did she shame or judge me for who I truly was. Now, as a grown man, she still continues to be my guardian angel, as she has carried and nurtured our child for the first nine months of her life. While an unconventional path, I genuinely couldn't have dreamt up a more special, more meaningful origin story for our child: her aunt gave her the seed of life, and her very own grandmother provided the loving garden for her to bloom.” ♥️

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Matthew recalled: "We're from Nebraska, so for a queer couple, adoption and foster care were a little bit of a path we weren't quite ready to navigate, so we decided we wanted to go for IVF.

"When [Elliot's] sister offered to donate her eggs, we were immediately excited by the option for a number of reasons, so we immediately said yes to that, then we were navigating how we would do the surrogacy; we had a conversation over family dinner and my mum volunteered.

"At the time we thought it was a really kind gesture but we didn't really think it was a realistic one. We laughed it off."

But the surrogacy ended up becoming a reality, thanks to Cecile’s "selfless act".

"She's the type of individual that wanted to help us build a family and it was truly a selfless act," Matthew added.

What a remarkable story!

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