'I had a baby at 53 - friends and family won't talk to me but I still want more kids

Gazing into my newborn son’s dark blue eyes, I could barely believe he’s here - and neither can my outraged friends and family.

Little Jude - my miracle baby - is the product of 11 long years of including eight heartbreaking miscarriages, a donor egg and £12,000 worth of IVF.

Having gone through menopause at 53, I knew I was unlikely to ever become a mother again, but my husband Martin and I were desperate to give our 12-year-old son Jaiden a sibling.

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Not everyone shares our joy though. Furious family and friends are refusing to speak to us and have branded Martin and I ‘selfish’. Yes, I will be 71 when our little boy turns 18, but Jude will want for absolutely nothing.

My own sister won’t talk to me now. She’s been funny about the fact we used a donor egg. She’s not been good at all. She compared me to a battery hen, told me, ‘You’re not even pregnant’.

But we don’t care, Martin’s obviously the dad. We’ve got a picture of Jaiden just after he was born and a picture of Jude, and they’re the spit of each other.

It wouldn’t bother me if Jude was pink, blue, whatever colour: I’m just happy he’s here. And it is a miracle, because I have grown him. He’s got all my blood in him. But it’s how people make you feel, isn’t it?

Other friends have frowned at our decision to go to Cyprus to have the one called me a “magpie” for using another woman’s egg. They said, ‘Don't you feel a bit like a magpie stealing eggs?’ And they’re my friends!

Martin, also 53 and a factory worker, shares my thoughts. “For all intents and purposes, he’s our baby,” he says. “That’s the end of it. It’s irrelevant if he’s from a donor or whatever, he’s our baby.”

For Martin it rolls right off him, but I dwell on it. It’s always the woman who gets stick though, isn’t it?”

The was not an easy one. Jude was born on March 18 - three weeks before his due date of April 8. I noticed reduced fetal movement from week 26 of the pregnancy, not helped by my anterior placenta - when the placenta attaches to the front wall of the uterus, cushioning the baby from the mother’s abdomen.

I had to go into hospital every day for monitoring. The nurses were lovely - they joked they were going to give me a uniform because I was there so often.

I developed gestational diabetes and my consultant felt it was safest to deliver Jude at week 36, so I was booked in for a C-section.

I’ve got a needle phobia so walking into theatre awake, knowing I was going to have such a big operation, was terrifying.

It took 45 minutes to place the spinal block and they had to numb my arm to place a cannula in. Scans showed Jude had got himself into the breech position - head pointing up and legs down - and my started falling as I lay on the operating table.

I said to my husband, ‘I don’t feel well.’ I couldn’t breathe very well, someone put an ice pack over my forehead and joked, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve not taken your makeup off!’ That made it easier, but it felt like a brutal birth.

Jude was whisked off to the(SCBU) with breathing difficulties after being born with fluid on the lungs. He also picked up an infection that required two types of antibiotics. While he was there he developed jaundice, but it wasn’t severe enough to need treatment.

After a week in hospital, we were finally discharged and Jude was brought back to our home in Rhyl, Denbighshire.

It’s not the first bump in the road we’ve been through. We met aged 16 when we were set up by pals for a blind date. We married at 19 and started trying for a baby in our late 20s, but struggled to get pregnant.

As time went on, we started to worry about our fertility. At 40, I fell pregnant naturally, but it
ended in a miscarriage. We turned to the for help and were put on a waiting list, but were then turned down for IVF treatment because I had already been able to conceive naturally.

We found ourselves expecting when I was 41, and nine months later Jaiden arrived.

But having lost my mum to cancer when she was just 30, I wanted a sibling for Jaiden in case the worst should happen to me or Martin.

I’m a twin and I think this is why I can’t let Jaiden be an only child. I said it all along, because I know I’m an older parent and I don’t want to leave him without a sibling. This is what all this has been about. I just hope they get on! But when our time comes, Jaiden’s going to have his brother.

Jaiden’s in Year 8 at secondary school and thinks his little brother is both “annoying and good”.

“He does wake up screaming in the night, which is annoying, but he’s also very cute,” he admits. Jaiden’s friends coo over the baby, and he can’t wait until they can play football and go together.

We wanted Jaiden to feel involved so we let him pick out the baby’s middle name. He loves England footballerso he was on board with our first name choice.

And he’s a big fan of the singer George Ezra, so we’ve named him Jude Ezra Beau.

My 86-year-old dad has been popping in every day. He’s been brilliant - and it just goes to show, age is just a number.

A lot of friends have said, what about the school gates, you’re going to look like his grandma. But I see some 20-year-olds who look older than me, so I’m not worried about it. If all else fails, I’ll have Botox!

And I’d love to have more kids. We’ve still got three frozen embryos and we need to decide whether to keep them or not. But the midwives also warned I’ll be super-fertile right now because of all the hormones flying around, so you never know, I could fall naturally.

I told my consultant we’ve got three embryos left in Cyprus and he said, ‘don’t you dare. Please wait until I’ve retired before you have another, you’ve caused me enough stress!’

But we’ve got our hands full right now. Jude is a lovely little boy. I just can't believe he's here, he just took so long to get here. And I can’t thank his donor enough - without her, none of this would have happened.”