Kevin and Kirsty Brown dreamed of becoming parents but their journey was always going to be a fraught with problems. Now they’ve made it , they couldn’t be happier. Hilarie Stelfox reports

IT’S TAKEN six long years and a lot of heartache, but Huddersfield Giants captain Kevin Brown and his wife Kirsty finally have the baby they always wanted.

Tiny Harry, now just 13 weeks old, is nothing short of a modern miracle – genetically theirs but carried by a surrogate mother.

Because Kirsty, 23, suffers from an extremely rare condition, Rokitansky Syndrome, which causes fertility problems, using a surrogate was the couple’s only chance of having a baby of their own.

“Now we’ve got him home it is a miracle,” says Kirsty. “He’s worth every up and down we have been through. We are just so happy.”

The couple, who met when Kirsty was just 16 and Kevin was 20, knew from their earliest days together that they wanted a family but they also knew that they had many obstacles to overcome.

Rokitansky Syndrome, thought to affect one in 4,500 women, causes baby girls to be born without a uterus. Kirsty was 15 when she discovered she had the condition.

“It was devastating,” she says. “I have always loved children and always had babies around me.”

When she met Kevin through her brother Gareth Hock who plays rugby for Kevin’s former club Wigan Warriors, Kirsty was honest and open with him about the condition.

She also told him that a cousin had offered to be a surrogate mother.

Kevin, 27, said: “But the doctors told us that it could take three years or more to complete the process so we knew we had to start early. And we wanted to have a baby as soon as possible.”

Although Kirsty has no womb, she has functioning ovaries and is otherwise healthy.

She said: “When the doctors spoke to us they said that the treatment should be fairly straight forward. We were both young and fertile.”

The couple, who married in 2008 and live in Fenay Bridge, spent more than £10,000 on the test-tube fertilisation treatment and subsequent embryo implantation. Tragically, their first attempt failed when Kirsty’s cousin Emma miscarried.

But then they received an offer to try again from the partner of another of Kirsty’s cousins and this time everything went well.

The surrogate, Kym, delivered a healthy baby boy, weighing 7lbs 2ozs, on March 6, giving the couple the greatest gift one human being can give another. Harry has been named after Kevin’s grandfather.

Kevin said: “We are so grateful to Kym – she’s been absolutely wonderful.”

Kirsty added: “We saw him born. It was the best experience ever. I will never, ever forget that day and what she did for us.”

The couple now have one more hurdle to overcome.