First Xmas with my miracle baby

First-time mum Laura Folan and her baby George have everything to smile about as they celebrate a true miracle this Christmas.

- LUCY LAING

A rare condition in which she was born without a womb meant Laura, 31, feared she may be childless.

Instead, thanks to a pal's extraordinary kindness in acting as a surrogate, in April her son was born and she is looking forward to her first Christmas with him and his dad Daniel Clarke, 33.

Laura says: "Christmas is going to be incredibly special for us this year. It's our first Christmas as a family, and something we didn't know if we were ever going to have." Laura was told by doctors at 16 that she had no womb and knew her chances of her being a mum relied on either surrogacy or adoption.

She had a condition called MayerRokitanskyKüster-Hauser syndrome, which affects around one in 5,000 women.

Her condition was further complicated as her ovaries weren't attached to anything and were floating around in her abdomen.

MRKH meant she was deaf in her left ear and her kidneys were conjoined in her pelvis, where her womb should be. With no clinical explanation, doctors told her it was just one of those things.

Laura says: "When I met Daniel, a marketing and communications manager, in 2017 through Tinder, it was one of the first things I told him.

"I wasn't going to hide anything. But Daniel didn't mind. He said he would support me whatever path we took." Both keen to have a family if they could, in 2019 the couple started investigating their options.