My sister gave birth FOR ME

Lauren Hooper, 33, was devastated when she realised a lifelong condition would prevent her having a family

- KARA O'NEILL, TIFFANY WALLIS

Sitting in the doctor’s office, I struggled to comprehend what I was hearing.

‘There is a chance you might not be able to conceive or carry a baby,’ my heart consultant said gently. Gripping the hand of my partner, Michael, it was as though the doctor’s words were echoing through my head. Throughout my entire life, I’d had heart problems – including a hole in the heart and an enlarged aorta – and had been through countless surgeries as a child. But apart from yearly medical checks, I had been lucky to live a normal life, it hadn’t stopped me from doing much at all.

I’d never even considered the fact that my heart might not be strong enough to cope with a pregnancy.

An upended future

I’d always wanted to be a mother, but now, in early 2014, before Michael and I were due to get married in the May, I felt as though all my plans for the future had been upended.

‘I can’t imagine never having a baby of my own,’ I cried to my sister Ebony, then 32, when I saw her days later. We’d always been so close and I loved being an aunty to Ebony’s children, Tegan, then five, and Sonny, two. Throughout Ebony’s pregnancies we’d shopped for baby clothes together, played music to her tummy and decorated the nursery, but now I wasn’t sure I was going to get the chance to have that for myself.

In the months that followed, Michael and I visited cardiologists and fertility doctors. But my heart problems were so complex and rare, they did not know how my body would react.

‘You know I’ll carry your baby for you,’ Ebony said to me one day while we were at our mum’s. ‘Thank you so much, but you don’t need to do that,’ I said firmly.