Couple welcome baby girl after Facebook group pays for IVF

'We didn't ever think we had the chance to have another little one and the fact she's here is so surreal,' says Marisha Chaplin

The couple already have a daughter through IVF but were not able to afford a second round of treatment (Getty Images)

A couple who had IVF treatment which was paid for by friends from a Facebook group have given birth to a girl.

Marisha Chaplin, 26, and Jon Hibbs, 29, already have a daughter through IVF but were not able to afford a second round of treatment.

Mothers from a Facebook group secretly managed to raise £2,000 for the couple despite the fact they have never actually met them.

They then made the couple, who met while undergoing cancer treatment, a video to surprise them with the news.

They played it to them via Facebook Live which made Ms Chaplin cry.

Ms Chaplin, from Cotgrave, Nottinghamshire, gave birth to Isla on Saturday via Caesarean section and said she told members of the Facebook group as soon as she was able to.

“I messaged them on the Saturday morning when I was still pretty much out of it from all the drugs I had from the operation,” she told the BBC.

“It’s amazing, it really is. It’s better than we ever imagined and we didn’t think we would ever get to this point.”

“We didn’t ever think we had the chance to have another little one and the fact she’s here is so surreal. Even when she came out we were like ‘Is that our baby? Is this real?’”

She said the couple were very grateful to everyone who had donated, saying Evie, who is now two and a half, was “absolutely in love with her little sister”.

The couple met while both having cancer treatment as teenagers and tried to conceive naturally for a few years before they used IVF donor eggs.

Ms Chaplin was aware she would have fertility problems because of her cancer treatment so they started trying for a baby when she was 16. They started IVF using donor eggs when she was 23 and had Evie in May 2016.

Ms Chaplin then joined the Facebook group, called May Babies 2016, to speak to other new mums.

The couple used frozen embryos left over from their previous IVF treatment for the second round of IVF – meaning Evie and Isla are full genetic sisters.