North Yorkshire couple Denise Hughes and David Hodges had prepared for the baby's arrival with the same excited anticipation as anyone else. They bought a cot, toys and clothes and counted the days.
Now they have lost the baby. Not through natural causes, but through the altogether more modern nightmare of a failed surrogacy agreement.
Despite the £10,000 they paid to the anonymous surrogate mother, the baby was never officially theirs. And now she has decided against giving the child up to the couple. They are devastated. The biological mother must also be traumatised. And the child is due to arrive into an unprepared, unstable environment.
This sorry story only tells us what we already knew. Surrogate parenting is a moral and emotional minefield from which few emerge unscathed.
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