About A Boy Toni's Instant Love For Lachie

She can’t believe her perfect, dreamy son is finally here!

- Sophie Neville

Toni Street always knew the arrival of her third baby would be emotional, but nothing in the world could have prepared her for the overwhelming experience of welcoming a child via surrogacy.

It’s thanks to the incredible generosity of her best friend Sophie Braggins that Toni and her husband Matt France are now parents to little Lachlan Stephen France, who arrived in a whirlwind of love, tears and gratitude on August 9.

And when Woman’s Day visits the broadcaster at her Auckland home just a week after his birth, tears flow readily as she introduces her newest delight.

“I look at Lachie and get these ‘wow’ moments over how lucky we are,” she tells us as she settles onto the sofa with her tiny boy sleeping soundly in a bassinet next to her. “I just can’t believe we got our son! He really is the son I thought we’d never ever have.”

The Hits radio host – who is also mum to daughters Juliette, five, and Mackenzie, three – was broken-hearted when her autoimmune condition Churg-Strauss syndrome ended her dream of another pregnancy. But she hadn’t bargained on the selfless offer from her childhood friend Sophie to act as a surrogate, having an embryo created from Toni’s egg and Matt’s sperm implanted into her womb, and lovingly carrying it to term.

“I’m still so amazed that someone would do this for me,” Toni admits. “I was turning myself inside out over how I could ever thank her enough, but I’m learning to accept that she’s done this because she loves me and because she wanted to, because she’s an amazing, selfless person.”