50-year-old woman says she is 'blessed' to serve as surrogate for daughter-in-law

'I am so amazed at this sweet miracle'

When Kayla Jones, 29, married her husband in 2012, she knew they would need to use a surrogate to carry their future children - but she never expected it to be her own mother-in-law.

Kayla, from Texarkana Arkansas, was unable to carry her own child after she underwent a partial hysterectomy at 17 - but knew she wanted a biological child with her husband.

But after several other surrogacy options didn’t work out, Kayla took her mother-in-law, Patty Resecker, up on her offer - a decision Kayla “couldn’t have been more thrilled” about.

According to Kayla, who shared her story on LoveWhatMatters: “My mother-in-law always joked about being our surrogate. After a couple of our surrogate options did not work out, we started to take my mother-in-law more seriously.”

Despite originally finding the idea crazy, Kayla started researching the concept and found other instances where grandmothers had acted as surrogates.

From there, the couple and Patty began undergoing tests to see if Patty was capable of carrying the child - and it turns out she was.

Using the IVF process, Patty successfully became pregnant in May 2017 - after the second embryo transfer, a day Kayla described as the “second best day of my life.”

The couple ended up surprising Patty with the results in a moving video that marked the beginning of their journey to parenthood.

And seven months later on December 30 2017, Patty, Kayla, and her husband welcomed baby Kross Allen Jones.

Of the uncommon decision to serve as her daughter-in-law’s surrogate, Patty, 50, said she felt “blessed.”

She told LoveWhatMatters: “I’ve recently had the privilege of doing one of the most rewarding things: to carry my own grandchild for my son and daughter-in-law. This is something that has blessed not only me and my family, but also Kayla’s family. A child is a lifetime commitment and I knew there weren’t two more deserving people than them. To see them with Kross and see the parents they’re already becoming thrills my soul.”

While the idea of using a friend or family member as a surrogate is often considered controversial, WebMD states it can be simpler to manage, as surrogacy can often come at a high cost and raise complex legal issues regarding parental rights.

And although the American Society for Reproductive Medicine generally discourages surrogacy if a child would carry the same genes as a child born of incest between close relatives, the closeness of the relatives in the case of Kayla and Patty is fine, as baby Kross was created via IVF.

The Independent has reached out to Patty and Kayla for comment.