Spain is a little louder thanks to Laurie Thompson, of McHenry.
In September, Thompson, 35, gave birth to two healthy, full-term baby girls, the twin daughters of a same-sex couple from Spain and an anonymous egg donor.
The smaller twin, Gabriela, born at 6 pounds 11 ounces at Centegra Hospital in McHenry, is a quiet baby, but Maria, born at 7 pounds, 6 ounces, has a gift for self-expression.
“She doesn’t like to stay on schedule; she’s up a lot and she cries a lot,” said Thompson, who has been in frequent email contact with the happy fathers since they returned to Madrid with their babies.
Thompson, who was profiled in the Tribune in April, is one of a growing number of Illinois women who are carrying the biological babies of couples from Europe and Latin America, where paid surrogacy is often illegal or unavailable. She first considered surrogacy when a friend had trouble conceiving. But she didn’t move ahead with her plans until she and her husband, Damion, 39, a U.S. Army Reserve unit administrator, had had their third child. She didn’t want a bigger family, but the urge to carry a baby for a someone who couldn’t was still there.
Thompson, a collections representative, had a baby for a Serbian couple in May 2010, and despite contracting gestational diabetes during that pregnancy, she loved the experience so much she signed on again. Money wasn’t a consideration, she said, and she declined to say how much she was paid.
This time the pregnancy went smoothly. The diabetes didn’t return, and the fathers were able to hold their babies just moments after they were born.
“It was the most magical moment of our lives. We both started to cry of happiness and relief because everything went great,” the fathers, Salvador Santos, 43, and Alfonso Vazquez, 33, said in an email.
Thompson was thrilled with the outcome as well, so much so that she hasn’t ruled out a third surrogate pregnancy.
“I’m thinking about it,” she said.
