Her 53-year-old mom became her surrogate, then she got pregnant, too

Kelsi and Kyle Pierce are new parents, having welcomed two baby girls in late 2020.

But their daughters aren’t twins—they are biological sisters born at different times and birthed by different women.

Kelsi and Kyle struggled with infertility for years, spending a ton of money and time on IVF only to have their hearts broken time and time again. Eventually, the doctors told the couple they would be better off finding a gestational surrogate to carry their child or pursuing adoption.

“We had already poured more than our savings and gone into debt incredibly just for what we had done before, so it wasn’t an option,” Kelsi told Good Morning America “It was a very depressing time.”

That’s why Kelsi’s mom, 53-year-old Lisa Rutherford, stepped in to be the couple’s gestational carrier. So in February, Rutherford was implanted with the embryo that would become her granddaughter. A month later, the unthinkable happened: Her daughter, Kelsi, fell pregnant, too, after years of thinking it wouldn’t happen.

The babies are full biological siblings.

“It’s just so surreal,” Kelsi told GMA. “I keep pinching myself, like I can’t believe this is my life.”

On October 1 Rutherford gave birth to her granddaughter, Everly. On November 23, Everly’s mama gave birth to her sister, Ava.

For Rutherford, this pregnancy was different for a few reasons.

“With my pregnancies for my children, I was young but didn’t eat well or exercise and I was sick a lot,” she told GMA. “This pregnancy, since we had been researching and planning it, I did my best to make sure I was eating well and in the best shape possible and this pregnancy was awesome. It went off really well.”

She did have preeclampsia, which meant Everly was born via an emergency C-section and spent 6 days in the NICU after her birth.

The whole family is now in good health and loving on the baby girls who were born seven weeks and three days apart.

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