CATHERINE WILLIAMSON EMMA SMUTS-MULLER PODCAST
90
When Leamington’s Catherine Williamson embarked on her new podcast, Gobsmacked! little did she anticipate how much it would reignite her own buried emotions. In this series, she introduces us to some of the guests which have most inspired her.
This month we meet Emma Smuts-Muller from Balsall Common. Listen back to Emma’s podcast interview: Emma Smuts Muller - Gobmacked!
Best friends since school, Emma Smuts Muller and Laura Donohoe share an incomprehensible bond.
At her time of need, Laura stepped up to make a gesture that changed Emma’s life - acting as a surrogate for her baby.
While still coming to terms with a miscarriage, newly married Emma was to be dealt another huge blow when she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in 2019. Months of intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed as well as a mastectomy to remove her right breast and, with it, a 5cm cancerous tumour.
Emma and her husband Thomas had been told by doctors that the chemotherapy could affect her fertility, but, determined not to let go of their dreams to become parents, they decided to explore IVF before commencing treatment.
It was while they began to investigate the possibility of surrogacy, that Emma was one day stopped in her tracks by Laura’s life-changing offer.
She recalls: “I remember Laura said, really matter of fact one day, ‘I've been having a think about it and I'd like to try and be your surrogate.’ My first reaction was disbelief and then excitement. It was a very surreal conversation. I couldn’t believe that she was willing to put herself through that, irrelevant to whether it could be successful or not. My best friend was willing to put herself and her body and her family on the line.
“I was just crying and hugging her. She said she'd done a lot of reading up on it and thinking about it but hadn’t mentioned it to her husband Rob yet. She told me this funny story afterwards that she went home that night and got into bed, and turns to Rob and says: ‘just to let you know, I think I've offered to be Emma and Thomas's surrogate!’ He just said, ‘oh have you?’ And that was it! It was like a no-brainer. She said, ‘I can't guarantee it's going to happen though, but I'm willing to give it a shot.’
“Thomas had previously already asked me if I could ask my friends and I was adamant that I wouldn’t. I would rather have asked my friends for a kidney or some other body part than asked them to put themselves in that position. It's got to come from that person and it's got to be right for her and her family.”
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ENTERTAINMENT CATHERINE WI L L IAMSON
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