My best friend promised she’d have my baby and now I’m a mum

Georgia Barrington has recently become a new mother but has not given birth to her daughter. Instead, the moment belonged to her best friend, Daisy Hope, who kept the baby after a promise they made when they were teenagers.

Women have been inseparable throughout their lives. They call themselves “soul sisters” and have grown up together as their fathers are best friends.

Their childhood closeness later became the foundation for life-changing acts of generosity.

At the age of 15, Georgia was told something no young girl expected to hear – she was born without a womb and would never bear children.

The diagnosis, Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, affects approximately one in 5,000 women and for Georgia, it felt as if her future was rewritten in an instant.

She recalls, “It was devastating, my whole world fell apart.” “I grew up always thinking I was going to be a mom and that was all taken out from under me and everything I ever dreamed of was gone.”

At the time, Daisy was not particularly a mother and she remembers this diagnosis well and how “unfair” it felt that her friend who had always wanted to have a child couldn’t do so.

“I wanted her to feel OK and give her some hope that it’s not the end of the world, so I said I would have a baby for her one day,” she tells Ready to Talk with Emma Barnett.

“I don’t think I understood what I was saying then but I always knew it was something I was going to do for Georgia.”

More than a decade later, Daisy kept that promise and in 2023, the two women began the IVF process.

Georgia had trained as a midwife, immersing herself in a world she feared she could never be a part of.

“I was once asked if this was the right career for me,” she says. “But really, it helped me heal and I knew deep down I was going to have a baby, one way or another.”

Years later, Daisy had her first child – Georgia was her midwife – and becoming a mother herself strengthened her conviction to keep her promise.

“The love I felt for my child was amazing and I thought everyone should have that feeling,” she says.

She admits that initially she was “a bit naive” as her pregnancy with her daughter was straightforward and so “assumed everything would go smoothly again”.

She became pregnant with the first embryo and everything was progressing normally and both women allowed themselves to believe that the future they had imagined was finally happening. But a scan at seven weeks revealed an empty uterus.

Georgia remembers the moment the nurse said she couldn’t see anything on the scan.

“I felt like I was drowning and all hope was gone,” she says.

A week later it was confirmed that the fetus had not become a child.

“I thought it was all my fault,” Daisy admits, feeling heartbroken that she had let her friend down, while Georgia struggled with the realization that even her most promising effort had not succeeded.

Still, they tried again and the second time, something felt different as Daisy says: “When I found out I was pregnant again, I thought the world couldn’t be so cruel twice.”

Six weeks later, the pair sat in a hospital room holding their breath as a tiny heartbeat appeared on the screen, but later that day, Daisy began bleeding heavily.

“I felt like it was happening again and I was scared,” she says.

She continued bleeding for six hours and was convinced she had miscarried, but when doctors checked, the heartbeat was still there and the pregnancy continued to full term.

Daisy went into labor a little earlier than expected and gave birth to a baby girl a few months early.

Georgia was so overwhelmed at that moment that she “forgot to check the sex of the baby”.

“As soon as I saw the baby’s head, I lost it and we were all crying.”

She says she still has difficulty believing she actually has a child and wishes she could “take this moment and hand it to my 15-year-old self sitting in that GP surgery”.

As Georgia explains how “lucky and grateful” she feels, Daisy says she always knew she would help her best friend in any way she could.

“We have a bond that no one ever has with their friends because we’ve been through some very personal things.”

All episodes of Ready to Talk with Emma Barnett are available on BBC Sounds, with new episodes arriving every Friday.