Surrogate mother will continue 'forever'

Currently pregnant with her fourth surrogate baby, Rachel Westerly was praised by viewers after appearing on TV to discuss her pregnancies. Photo / ITV, Good Morning

A mother acting as a surrogate for a fourth time has said she will continue to "do it forever" - or as long as her body lets her.

Rachel Westbury, who is 34 weeks pregnant with her fifth surrogate child (she carried twins in her first pregnancy), said she "can't put into words" the happiness she feels when she hands over a baby to its new family.

Speaking on This Morning on Monday, Rachel, who did not disclose her age or where she is from on the show and who has a 13-year-old son of her own, revealed she'd endured an ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage to have her surrogate children, but that she would still do it again if she could.

Viewers praised Rachel - who is the biological mother of all of the children she has carried for other families - who called her "brave" for doing something selfless for childless couples.

Rachel, whose surrogate children are all biologically hers, said that despite the complications in her pregnancies she would happily do it again.

She said: "If my body lets me. It's hard work. I lost quite a lot of weight last year and we went through lots of ups and downs to get to where we are; an ectopic, this was a twin pregnancy but it vanished, it's been ups and down but at the same time it's amazing how a woman's body forgets.

"Even though I've had so many I forget what I went through. If I could I'd do it forever, but I think my friends and family would disown me because of me being moany."

Rachel, who now runs her own surrogacy agency, had always been interested in the prospect of surrogacy but it wasn't until she watched a documentary about it that she decided to get in touch with an agency.

Within a year she was pregnant with twins but six weeks after signing the contract the agency went bust.

"We kind of muddled through together," said Rachel of the process.

'None of us knew what we were doing but we got there,' she said.

She went on to do it two more times and is currently pregnant with her fourth surrogate baby.

When This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby asked if it was hard to hand over her children, Rachel said nothing could compare to the fulfillment she feels when the families get their baby.

She said: "I'm not the most maternal of people, I love my son with all my heart but I'm not maternal really. The journey was not set out for me, the journey wasn't for me to have another baby, it was always going to be their baby so in your head you kind of detach yourself away from it.

"I didn't know how I was going to react at the end but I've got the best friends and family around me and support and once you hand the babies over its nothing like it."

"That's fulfilment enough seeing them all happy, it's amazing you can't put it into words," she added.

Many This Morning viewers took to Twitter to praise Rachel for her story.

One tweeted: "All the respect for this lady Helping other people get there happy ending [sic]."

"I think this women is amazing! I couldn't do what she's doing thoo! [sic]" another posted.

A third wrote: "Amazing woman, offering her body for people who can't have children themselves!"