Carolyn and her husband weren’t able to have children for 10 years. Therefore, they decided to try IVF treatment. The treatment was successful and their beautiful son was born!
However, they never expected that one simple picture of Carolyn and her newborn baby could change their lives forever.
Shortly after the birth, a cute picture of them together was posted online. They woke up one morning, four days later, to find the picture had been shared more than 6000 times.
They couldn’t understand why, but once they read the comments, everything suddenly became clear!
The young mother and her newborn son had only been home from the hospital for four days when she suddenly got the surprise of her life!
After a long delivery, exhausted Carolyn eventually had her little boy, Logan, in her arms. Sean, her husband, then decided to share a beautiful picture of them on social media.
However four days later they were shocked to find out that their Facebook post had gone viral and was shared by people all over the world.
What was so special about this simple mother-son moment?!
In 1993, Carolyn and Sean Savage got married and began trying for their first baby. However Carolyn had trouble getting pregnant.
For over 10 years, every attempt ended with no good news. She had been pregnant a couple of times, but ended up miscarrying each time.
It was debilitating for the ageing mother. They clearly weren’t going to conceive the natural way. Something else had to be done because this just wasn’t working out…
In February 2009, Carolyn had embryos implanted for the fourth time, in a last attempt to have a baby.
They didn’t hold on to much hope because they were both convinced that her body would reject the embryos again.
However this operation turned out to be a great success. Carolyn was already 12 weeks pregnant.
What they didn’t realise at that time is that they would get some shocking news, days after the delivery.
That morning there were over 40 unread messages when they woke up. Their Facebook page that was flooded with reactions, their picture had been shared over 6000 times. The couple wondered what was going on?
As they read the comments, tears started rolling down Carolyn’s cheeks. Their doctor had shared the photo and placed a comment underneath it, which nobody saw coming.
“I’m very sorry, but we discovered that at conception, your embryos were swapped with someone else’s.“
The message from the doctor immediately went viral and the reactions were appalling!
She called their doctor immediately, hoping it was just a joke. But there was nothing to laugh about. The embryos were actually swapped by mistake. Now they would be faced with an impossible choice…
Carolyn was overjoyed to be a mother – but the baby wasn’t hers, she had another woman’s fertilized embryo implanted in her uterus.
This forced her to make the toughest decision of her life. Would she have to keep someone else’s baby.
They decided, with pain in their hearts, to give the baby back to his biological parents, even though the doctor said it was her last chance to become pregnant.
“We were completely in shock at first, but we talked about it and this just had to happen.”
“It was difficult, but we feel we’ve made the right decision,” Carolyn explains.
Sean and Carolyn decided to contact the biological parents, Shannon and Paul Morrell, who lived in Detroit. The official biological parents of this newborn child didn’t know what was happening to them!
They were in the same boat as Sean and Carolyn. Having a child seemed impossible for them, so they tried the same IVF treatment, but unfortunately, the treatment didn’t work for them.
They were just discussing their options when the call came from Carolyn.
“We tried so hard to get pregnant, but we never expected our success to come from another family.”
Carolyn was allowed to hold on to little Logan for 6 days before his biological parents, Shannon and Paul, came to pick him up.
“He’s their son. But he’ll always be my baby,” Carolyn says.
Sean had the difficult task of handing Logan over to his biological parents. They were nervously waiting in a room next to Logan’s bedroom.
After this overwhelming experience, Carolyn thought she’d experienced everything. However, in 2011, Carolyn and Sean announced that they were expecting twins through a surrogate mother…
The “miracle twins”, Isabella and Reagen, brought so much joy to the family.
“The twins made up for some of Carolyn’s grief. For even though we had consciously given Logan up, we miss him enormously!”
“They are certainly not replacement babies, but because of our circumstances, they are extra special,” Carolyn explains.
However another miracle was about to occur for this family….
The most surprising unexpected news arrived in spring of 2014.
Carolyn looked at the pregnancy test and couldn’t believe the result. Her hands were shaking when she grabbed the test. She had been feeling unwell for a while, but dismissed things.
“While my confused brain was looking at the test, I thought it was wrong. I’m infertile. I’ve had countless fertility treatments over the last twenty years and, with the exception of a few IVFs, I’ve only seen two positive pregnancy tests. And now I’m pregnant all of a sudden!?”
Their son, Nicholas Winton Savage, was born in the autumn of 2014 and suddenly, Carolyn and Sean Savage’s family started branching out – despite struggling with infertility for two decades…
Baby Nicholas was born without the use of fertility drugs when his mother, Carolyn, was 45 years old.
He now has two twin sisters, and a stepbrother in Logan, who comes to visit once a month, although he usually ends up staying for the entire weekend.
From infertility to a beautiful family.
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