Amazing 61-Year-Old Grandmother Has Just Given Birth To A Baby For Her Son And His Husband

Miracle’s happen every single day, and the heartwarming story I have for you today folks is absolutely no exception.

Meet Cecile Eledge and her beautiful family. Cecile is herself a mother of three and has been incredibly health conscious her entire life. She’s always been “very conscious” about her diet and had made sure to always stay active as much as possible.

And finally, last Monday, the 25th March, Eledge was able to “reap the awards” of that incredibly healthy lifestyle of hers when she was able to safely give birth to her own granddaughter, who at the time of birth was a very healthy (guess she’s already taking after her grandmother, eh?) 5-pound baby girl named Uma.

“She must have been the reason for doing it,” Eledge happily told “Good Morning America.”

Little Uma is actually the daughter of Eledge’s own son, whose name is Matthew Eledge and is 32 years of age, and his lovely husband, whose name is Elliot Dougherty, who is 29 years of age. Her birth, which was first reported by Buzzfeed, is a true feat of modern medicine… but most importantly it is a true feat of love and an incredible abundance of powerful women, says the family.

(Matthew Eledge, left, and his husband, Elliot Dougherty, pose with their daughter, Uma, and Matthew’s mom, Cecile.)

Dougherty’s sister, Lea Yribe, was actually the one who donated the egg which was then fertilized with Matthew’s own sperm and was then carried by Matthew’s own mother. Talk about a family freakin’ affair! So amazing. Uma has also been drinking breast milk since she was born, which has been donated by one of Matthew’s best friend from childhood. That friend actually pumped and froze her own milk after the birth of her child which happened more than a year ago.

Just when I thought this story couldn’t get any wilder!

“For me this whole creation story is poetry. It’s creativity. It’s beautiful,” said Matthew, who works as a high school teacher in Omaha, Nebraska. “It’s powerful that all of these strong women around her wanted her to be in this world. I think that’s the most empowering thing.”

Matthew Eledge, far right, and Elliot Dougherty pose with Elliot’s sister, Lea, and Matthew’s mom, Cecile, center.

“Women are so healing and so brave and they’re so powerful, so for me to have a daughter now and for her to have so many wonderful role models, I don’t feel fearful at all,” he added. “Look at all these badass women, they’re great.”

Dougherty has described the marvelous birth of Uma by saying, in part, “Beautiful things happen when people can come together.”

Even more wonderfully, the birth of little Uma has been in the making since 2015. The thought of having Cecile be the one to carry Matthew and Dougherty’s precious miracle was actually planted in their minds by the woman of the hour herself way back when the couple first got married (2015), and then first began talking about their various options to start a family. Those options, of course, included having a surrogate to carry their child for them.

“It kind of came naturally that I said, ‘If you’re taking names, throw my name in the hat. I would do it in a heartbeat if I could,'” Cecile recalled. “My initial reaction was, ‘Who better to care for their own grandchild than their grandmother?’ I knew I would be vigilant and would do everything in my power to keep the baby safe.”

“I thought it was a no-brainer,” she added.

Cecile Eledge holds her granddaughter, Uma, alongside her son and son-in-law.

From a medical perspective, understandably, Matthew never actually  took the offer from his mom seriously, and even offered it up almost as a joke while at an appointment with his and Dougherty’s doctor, saying, “Well my mother keeps offering [to be a surrogate] but I know that’s not an option.”

“She’s not going to come into this world with a preconceived idea of what a family has to be.”

However, their doctor, whose name is Carolyn Maud Doherty, and is a reproductive endocrinologist at Methodist Women’s Hospital in Omaha, surprised them all by replying that it was actually a possibility. And that moment on was exactly when Cecile began the heavily detailed process of tests and blood work in order to make sure she was indeed healthy enough to do this.

“What followed was a lengthy and scientific process to determine if she could carry the baby,” Nebraska Medical Center, the hospital where Cecile eventually gave birth, said in a statement. “With her age a consideration, Cecile underwent several tests before doctors determined her high-level of physical health made her a candidate to serve as a gestational surrogate.”

Cecile proudly recalled that her tests came back better than ever!

“Every doctor I saw said there is no reason you cannot carry a baby to full term and deliver naturally,” she said, and she also made sure to add, “We were never careless about this or did this on a whim.”

(Ramzy Nakad, M.D., Matthew Eledge, Elliot Dougherty, Uma, Cecile Eledge, Kirk Eledge, and Robyn Stephen pose at at Nebraska Medical Center.)

Around this time last year was when Cecile began taking those very important hormones and estrogen in order ot regain her menstrual cycle (although having to regain your menstrual cycle after finally being able to get rid of it sounds like absolute HELL to me personally). The in-vitro procedure that then followed made Cecile simply what is known as the “gestational carrier”, meaning she has no direct biological link to the child she is incubating.

She then carried the baby to a near full-term pregnancy, delivering at around a perfectly healthy 37 weeks. Cecile, who is a homemaker herself, said that a big benefit was that she, unlike other women who have very demanding careers and other young children, had absolutely no other responsibility other than to take care of the precious cargo she was carrying.

“We did everything Matthew and Elliot wished,” Cecile said of herself and her husband, Kirk, who is also Matthew’s dad.

That included things like adding certain supplements to her daily routine after Matthew read about their benefits in pregnancy.

For Matthew, as grateful as he was, having his mom carry his child made pregnancy even more high-stakes and stressful than usual, as you can probably imagine.

(Elliot Dougherty, left, watches the birth of Uma with Matthew Eledge, and his father, Kirk Eledge.)

“My mom had this strange confidence throughout and I’m the person who likes to look at the worst case scenario and Google it all night,” he said. “I’m just so proud of her and proud of my dad for being so supportive.”

‘We’ve created a different form of family’

SO SWEET!

Matthew and Dougherty and Cecile said they are all more than willing to share their family’s story if it gives hope to even just one person who wants a family, but just doesn’t see a way to do it.

“My mom carried a baby for myself and my same-sex partner,” Matthew said. “I think that’s really special and unique.”

Yeah, no kidding Matthew!

Cecile added, “I’m a very private person so even throughout this whole pregnancy I was very discreet. I thought, ‘We have to tell our story so people know there are ways.’ We just have to be open to what is coming our way.”

Matthew and Dougherty, who is a hairstylist, made “a lot of worthy sacrifices” in order to financially afford in-vitro fertilization, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

(Elliot Dougherty and Matthew Eledge pose with their daughter, Uma Dougherty-Eledge.)

“We knew going into this, whether it was adoption or IVF that there was going to be the financial hurdle of being able to do this,” Dougherty said. “We really sacrificed a lot, and it was obviously so worth it, but it was obviously something that was not like, ‘Hey let’s try this.’”

Cutting down the financial burden and easing some possible legal complications as a gay couple (which is crazy) were two of the main reasons it was helpful to have Cecile carry the baby and Yribe, Dougherty’s sister, donate the egg, according to Dougherty and Matthew themselves.

Another reason is because of the birth story the couple plan to tell Uma one day… and what a freakin’ day that will be!

“Her aunt Lea gave her the seed of life and her grandmother gave her this garden to grow and bloom in this world,” Matthew said. “She’s not going to come into this world with a preconceived idea of what a family has to be. We’ve created a different form of family.”

Added Dougherty, “As things unfold and Uma realizes that other families look different, mostly I’ll have to explain to her why they look different than her story. I feel like she’ll be really proud.”

Don’t you think this is just simply astounding, folks? I couldn’t put it any better way than they have; “a different form of family”. Would you ever do something like this if it was within your power? Let me know in the comments! And don’t forget to share this miracle with your friends and family too! AAx

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