KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - OCTOBER 15: A baby is born at the Malalai Maternity hospital on October 15, 2007 in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to a UNICEF survey, one in nine Afghan women die during or shortly after pregnancy in Afghanistan, one of the highest rates in the world. At the hospital there are approximately 60 to 100 babies born each day, with many women making long journeys to receive the free medical care. UNICEF states that many pregnant women are deprived of basic health care and only 11 percent of deliveries take place in a healthcare facility. In many cases the conservative Afghan culture places the health of many women at risk. Forty percent of the women in Afghanistan are married before the age of 18 with one third having children before reaching adulthood. (Photo Paula Bronstein/Getty Images) (2007 Getty Images)
A 51-year-old woman in Brazil has given her daughter the ultimate gift by giving birth to her own grandchildren.
Latina housewife Maria da Gloria acted as a surrogate to her daughter Fernanda Medeiros, who had her uterus removed as a teenager but desperately wanted children of her own.
After two rounds of in vitro fertilization, on Monday da Gloria gave birth to twin girls named Emmanuel and Julia.
Delivered in Goiânia, Brazil through a caesarean birth, the girls arrived four weeks early but were completely healthy.
According to capitalbay.com, although Medeiros married at age 20, she and her husband were not allowed to adopt children.
Surrogacy proved to be their only option at having a family, and with a willing participant in the form of her mother, at age 34 Medeiros’ dream finally became reality.
"I couldn't be happier," Medeiros told Portuguese news website G1.globo.com.
And Medeiros has every reason to be.
Forced to have her uterus removed at the age of 13, Medeiros feared she would never have children.
"At the time, it was so sad because I had always wanted to be a mother," Medeiros told G1.
After Medeiros and her husband were turned down for adoption, it was not until 2005 when she saw a TV program that the Brazilian’s hope of having a family was reignited.
In the show Medeiros saw the story about how a grandmother had given birth to her grandson through the IVF process.
Initially, doctors said the procedure would be too risky for Medeiros’ mother at her age. However, after tests revealed da Gloria was indeed healthy enough to carry a child, the six-year long process began.
Following a failed round of IVF, da Gloria finally became pregnant.
The birth was difficult in more ways than one as Medeiros’ mother, who already had given birth three times before, had to take hormones to start her menstrual cycle again. Her mother also had to lose 7 lbs.
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