Julia Navarro, 58-Year-Old Utah Woman, Acting As Surrogate To Give Birth To Own Granddaughter

Within the next few weeks a Utah woman will give birth to her first grandchild. Julia Navarro is acting as a surrogate mother for her daughter and son-in-law. The couple has been trying for three years to have a child and their fertility problems have led to 10 miscarriages. Navarro’s daughter, 32-year-old Lorena McKinnon had only one pregnancy that lasted until 10 weeks before miscarrying. Still wanting to have a child the couple began to look for a surrogate to carry their child.

The pair was in need of a woman to serve as a gestational surrogate. That is a woman who is implanted with a fertilized egg from another couple. McKinnon told the Associated Press that her friend and a sister offered to carry the child but the couple decided to go in a different direction. After that McKinnon’s mother offered to be the one to carry the baby, her grandchild. “As family, we have to help each other,” Navarro told The Salt Lake City Tribune.

While the couple was happy to accept Navarro’s help doctor’s warned that because Navarro is 58-years-old there was only a 45-percent chance the embryo would be successfully implanted. Before the implant Navarro spent three months getting hormone shots in order to prepare for the embryo implant. Despite the doctors concerns Navarro had a smooth pregnancy and will be giving birth to her granddaughter in a few weeks. The family had to undergo counseling as is typical with all surrogacy arraingments.

“The psychologists wanted to make sure we knew what we were getting into - that we were mentally prepared," McKinnon said to the Associated Press. "Mostly, surrogacy contracts are with people you don't know. It was weird to have a contract with my mom." While there are no statistics on how often a woman will give birth to her own grandchild this is not the first case. In 2012 a woman in Iowa gave birth to twin granddaughters. In 2011 a woman from Maine gave birth to her grandson.