Miserable to motherhood, thanks to sister

After each of her six pregnancies during a five-year period ended with a miscarriage, Emily Simpson said she was in a “very dark place” because motherhood seemed out of reach.

“This is never going to happen,” Simpson said when thinking back to that period in her life. “I’m never going to have kids. I’m going to be miserable the rest of my life.”

Then her younger sister stepped up. Sara Moffitt, 36, of Waynesville, served as a surrogate mother and delivered Emily and her husband, Shane, a baby daughter, Sara Annabelle, on Feb. 19, 2013.

Now the Simpsons have three children under the age of 2.

On Sunday, the day after Valentine’s Day, Moffitt gave her sister the best present ever: twin boys, Lucas “Luke” Thomas and Keller Lawrence, who were born at Kettering Medical Center. Both boys are healthy, though Keller remains in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Moffitt, a 1997 Madison High School graduate, said her water broke Sunday morning, followed by “a hard labor,” then the anxious drive from Waynesville to Kettering while her sister timed the contractions.

“It was interesting right off the bat,” Moffitt said Monday night while sitting in her hospital bed, a heating pad on her back. “They were ready to be here.”

Luke was born at 4:34 a.m., followed 14 minutes by his brother. Moffitt said there were two doctors in her hospital room. One doctor delivered Baby A (Luke), while the other one performed an ultrasound to check the position of Baby B (Keller).

“It’s pretty amazing what the body is able to do,” Moffitt said.

Now, she said, after she carried the boys, her nephews, for nine months, she was glad to hand them over to her sister.

“I love watching her become a mommy for the second and third time,” she said.

Simpson, 39, a 1994 Madison High School graduate, never imagined she’d have one child, let alone three. Once the boys are released from the hospital, they will travel back to California with their parents. The boys are only 1 day old, and while Simpson didn’t carry them, didn’t feel them growing inside her, didn’t hear their hearts beat, she can’t imagine life without them.

“I feel an overwhelming amount of love,” she said while sitting next to Luke. “I feel so much love for them already that you can’t describe it.”

She called it “automatic” love.

Simpson feels the same way about her sister. They grew up on a 12-acre Madison Twp. farm, raised by a single mother. They always had each other’s backs. Simpson doesn’t know what to say to her sister.

“Thank you doesn’t sum it up,” she said. “I think she knows that if the situation was reversed, I would have done the same for her.”“

Now the Simpsons, who live in California, have two more reasons to celebrate this month. They were married on Valentine’s Day in 2008 and their daughter’s second birthday will be Thursday.

How about having another baby, say February 2016? What do you think, Sara?

“The oven is closed,” she said.

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