Double mammy

16.07.17: BABY MOLLY is the first child in history to share the genes of two women.

When adoring relatives gather round, peer into Molly's cot and murmur "She's going to look just like her mother," someone is bound to ask "Yes, but which one?"

Molly, born yesterday and weighing in at a healthy 7lb12oz, is unlike any other child in Britain, in that half her genes come from Susan Fisher, the woman who gave birth to her, and the other half from Fisher's lesbian lover, Alice Price. Molly's birth proves that gay couples can now genuinely share in making babies together.

"I still can't believe it," said Fisher. "Alice and I wanted a child so much, but adoption was tricky and we felt that if only one of us got inseminated, that would make the other feel excluded."

It was at this point that the couple met Dr Donald Spungen of Leeds Royal Infirmary.

"For years, we have been able to fuse fertilised eggs from two or more animals in the laboratory to create what are known as chimeras, organisms made up of at least two different sets of genes," he said.

"Human chimeras can happen naturally when a woman has two fertilised eggs, that would normally produce non-identical twins, but they fuse to produce one child."

Spungen took eggs from both Fisher and Price and fertilised them in the laboratory. "We spent hours poring over the catalogue to chose the right sperm donor," Price said.

After three days, eight embryos ­ four from each of them ­ were chemically treated and physically pushed together to create four merged embryos.

Spungen implanted two embryos into Fisher and two into Price. Although Price's didn't take, Molly still has 25% of her genes. "She really is my baby
too," Price says. JB