When Cecile Eledge offered to carry a baby for her adult son and his husband, they thought she was kidding — and that her doctors in the family's Nebraska hometown would balk at a 61-year-old woman serving as a surrogate for a gay couple.
But two weeks ago the entire family — along with proud doctors — beamed as Uma Louise Dougherty came into the world at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Grandmother and baby are both healthy — and Uma was delivered the old-fashioned way.
The circumstances of Uma's birth are a testament to changing social mores as well as the dramatic advances in senior health made by modern medicine and healthy lifestyles.