Kristine Casey, Chicago Woman, Gives Birth To Own Grandson

Kristine Casey became the oldest woman in the history of Chicago to give birth last week, and the fact that she gave birth to her own grandson made it even more special.

Casey, 61, served as a surrogate mother for her daughter, Sara Connell, 35, according to the Chicago Tribune. Connell had apparently been trying to have a child for years.

So how did a post-menopausal 61-year-old woman give birth?

Hormone supplementation had a lot to do with it, according to ABC News. Casey became pregnant during her second round of in-vitro fertilization.

The grandmother had not given birth in 30 years, but carried her grandson, Finnean, for a full term and gave birth by Caesarian section last week at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago, according to ABC News.

As weird as the whole experience may seem, Connell and the family were overwhelmed with joy.

From the Tribune:

When the baby let out a cry, "I lost it," said Sara Connell, the first family member to hold him. "It's such a miracle."

The doctor who delivered Finnean said there wasn't a dry eye in the crowded operating room.

"The surgery itself was uncomplicated, and the emotional context of this delivery was so profound," said Dr. Susan Gerber, obstetrician and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Comments

[Social Shrink]

06:54 PM on 02/16/2011

Women, no matter what their age, are mysterious creatures! Congrats to this family!

www.thesocialshrink.blogspot.com

[meleager]

10:57 AM on 02/16/2011

My wife suddenly gave birth at 54.Now that was a surprise.Sometimes I wonder whether she was really 54.Women...you never know.

[PC0207]

09:52 AM on 02/16/2011

Now thats a true display of a mother's love! Congratulations to all...

[Widespread Panic]

01:48 PM on 02/16/2011

I agree!

[Bee]

09:34 AM on 02/16/2011

Finally, a use for old people. jk.

[naschkatze]

12:12 AM on 02/18/2011

I hope jk stands for joke? Otherwise, booooooooooooooo.

[Jaxy]

09:12 AM on 02/16/2011

Having cared for many an infant in my time, I have developed a curious habit of ascribing advanced mannerisms to young children.

My guess is that the baby shown above (most likely a stock photo) is exhibiting a guarded and somewhat skeptical attitude. Sort of like: "Are YOU my mommy? I mean, really?"

[anothervoice]

09:03 AM on 02/16/2011

I'm happy for all of them. As encore, now they could perhaps adopt a child nobody wants?

Seems like they have enough love to support it.

[zuzuzpetalz]

10:38 AM on 02/16/2011

Perhaps you could do that, too?

[anothervoice]

04:41 PM on 02/17/2011

Probably wouldn't qualify at this point.

[el sistema]

11:09 AM on 02/16/2011

I am still waiting for all the conservatives to lead the way in adopting children. Since they are so pro-life.

[vonPinto]

08:50 PM on 02/16/2011

....Unfortunately, the republiKans love "s perms & eggs" so much that they are just waiting for such babies or life to be delivered just fast enough for them TO DENY THEM HEALTH CARE.

It is all about the deficit, isn't it?

[daffey]

08:42 AM on 02/16/2011

You can't help but wonder what, in a couple hundred years, the human race will be thinking. Will they look at things like this and say, "Wow! That's when it all started! Thank goodness they were pushing the limits so that we can have what we have today!" Or will they be saying, "What on earth were they thinking? Why? Why couldn't they see the folly in their actions? Now we are stuck with all this!" It does make you wonder. After all, many of the things we lament today were once celebrated. I saw an old news clip a few months ago. It was all about how wonderful was our progress! Science, technology, industry! Wow!! It showed bulldozers wiping out a forest, and proudly proclaimed how technology was allowing us to conquer nature and make the world better for us to live in. Men were interviewed (an old clip, it was all men) who were showing us how all of this pointed to a bright horizon, where all problems could be solved, and everything could be better. All with clips of the machinery knocking down trees by the hundreds, bulldozing hills and soil, and building steel and concrete structures in its wake. I had to chuckle at how blindly optimistic that era was in its great scientific, industrial, and technological progress. And now how we are stuck with the results and lamenting every minute of it.

[anothervoice]

09:00 AM on 02/16/2011

Daffey begins to sound right.

Double return does a paragraph break.

[daffey]

02:37 PM on 02/16/2011

Great post-modern comeback. Everything we've come to expect.

[Richard Bartholomew]

09:02 AM on 02/16/2011

That's an interesting insight. What do you think you are personally doing at this very moment that your distant descendents would look upon with utter horror if they could see you doing it?

[anothervoice]

09:04 AM on 02/16/2011

Lol. They'd say, "Ah, the good old days" - just like I do.

[daffey]

02:40 PM on 02/16/2011

Probably not doing enough to stop things like this, I would imagine. Just like we look back and wonder why people who should have been as smart and good as we are just didn't snap their fingers and make it all right.

[TheNuff]

08:41 AM on 02/16/2011

Boy...that takes a lot of love. Good for them.

[Richard Bartholomew]

09:05 AM on 02/16/2011

Hey, as long as they do it with their own money and don't try to make me do it too, then nihil obstat as far as I'm concerned.

[Aldyth]

08:38 AM on 02/16/2011

That grandmother brought much happiness to her daughter.

My sister considered doing the same thing for one of her girls who had issues with being able to carry to term. Fortunately, my niece's last pregnancy went fine and it wasn't needed. They would have had my total support, if their choice had been to try.

[mikey09]

08:37 AM on 02/16/2011

Grandma was the surrogate for her daughters child...good for her....nothing is more powerful than a mothers love..

[vonPinto]

08:02 AM on 02/16/2011

What is this world coming down to? So, out of billions of women on this planet, this couple could not find another woman to bear this child for them?

I can't imagine the confusion of identity that this poor child will face when he/she grows up. We need to think about the kind of actions we take TODAY because of it's unintended consequences TO MORROW.

[Tyler-Durden]

09:43 AM on 02/16/2011

you should stick to reading books with cardboard pages.

what you are focusing on, is hardly relevant to sane individuals.

they're not baking a loaf of bread, and borrowing the neighbor's oven. who would you trust to bake your baby in? for 9 months, and not do something to jeopardize it's health; to not decide to run off and keep it; to risk the expense that such a procedure costs?

it's a matter of trust. she obviously felt she could only trust her mother with such a responsibility.

[wwhitfie81]

03:46 PM on 02/16/2011

The confusion? Her eggs were inserted into the grandmother, it's not like the grandmother gave birth to her own child and they're calling this baby the grand child... She simply nurtured him/her and gave birth, that child is still very much the child of the woman who simply could not carry to term. I think you may be a small amount confused. And, as Tyler-Durden said, it's probably a matter of trust, and the cost to do so wouldn't be astronomical.

[vonPinto]

08:44 PM on 02/16/2011

I still cannot comprehend your arguments above. According to both of you, "if only LIFE and LIVING could be reduced to just EGGS, and who DONATED them" then I will agree with both of you.

If I follow your arguments, when you were born (by a woman, I suppose), there was NO debate who donated YOUR EGGS and whether it was mom or granny that did the actual DELIVERY. The law of nature (which we all may not be able to change or re-classify at will) abhors vacuum. All I said was that this lady could have sought out another surrogate mother (instead of her own mother, who incidentally, is a GRANNY to the child) to do that job.

I will like both of you to please tell me how you want that child to address or relate with GRANNY (who carried him/her for 9 months and delivered him/her) and his/her "EGG-DONOR MOM" when the child actually GROWS UP and is able to think, feel and rationalize. You may want to over-simplify this in favor of SCIENCE or SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD, but this phenomenon is closer home than the normal.

Let's maintain civility during this debate, guys. I am in the medical profession, yet I am not in favor of this arrangement. It is not just a matter of "TRUST". It is more than that.

[Richard Bartholomew]

07:42 AM on 02/16/2011

Many, many years ago when I was twenty-three
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her and soon they, too, were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life
For my daughter was my mother, 'cause she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to dad
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad
For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my step-mother.

My father's wife then had a son who kept them on the run
And he became my grand-child, 'cause he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue
Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandmother too.

If my wife is my grandmother, then I am her grandchild
And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
(This has got to be the strangest thing I ever saw)
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpaw.

Chorus
I'm my own grandpaw
I'm my own grandpaw

[vonPinto]

08:05 AM on 02/16/2011

I like your piece. EXCELLENT. Can you put this down on paper for documentation and "enterprise?"

You need to be an AUTHOR or a POET or SOMETHING...lol.

Can I use your poem? Please. F/F.

[Richard Bartholomew]

08:14 AM on 02/16/2011

Sorry, I didn't have room for the credits. According to Wikipedia:

"I'm My Own Grandpa" (sometimes rendered as "I'm My Own Grandpaw") is a novelty song written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe, performed by Lonzo and Oscar in 1947"
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_My_Own_Grandpa

If I had half the talent needed to write lyrics like that, I probably be a lot richer than I am now.

[takeabigdeepbreath]

06:38 AM on 02/16/2011

Puh-leese! Are you now the National Enquirer?

[DrVic]

09:49 AM on 02/17/2011

I'm hoping that HuffPo makes the transition in "Weekly World News" territory.

[cragusa]

06:30 AM on 02/16/2011

All over the southern part of our country, people give birth to their grandchildren all the time. What's the big deal?

[enzodalverme]

04:49 AM on 02/16/2011

"Connell and the family were overwhelmed with joy"??? This is SICK !
What's the point of view of the baby boy? I wouldn't like to be in his position
Plus, we are 7 billion now, in the sixties we were 3 billion "only". We don't need grandmothers delivering more babies. There is no enough space/resources on our planet... Sick and selfish, shame on them.

[eisor]

06:12 AM on 02/16/2011

I think you may be the sick one...shame on you

[UKNOWHOW ICM]

06:48 AM on 02/16/2011

Ewww...funny but ewww. You stop that now, y'here!