As surrogate, woman bears granddaughters
3/2/2004 12:53 PM  News 24 Houston

Lubbock-(AP) -- Marianne Thoms has skydived and piloted planes. But the South Plains woman says bringing her granddaughters into the world was a bigger challenge.

The 52-year-old Levelland woman served as a surrogate mother to her eldest son and daughter-in-law's children.

On Sunday, she gave birth to Sydney -- 3.8 -- and 3.6-pound Morgan at Covenant Medical Center in Lubbock.

Thoms says they're the first set of girls born to the Thoms family in two generations.

She tells the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that, at her age, she's "a lot more sensitive to how fragile life is and the possibilities about what might happen" than when she was 22.

Thoms' pregnancy followed a 28-year interval.

Her son and daughter-in-law, Shawn and Traci Reed of Dripping Springs, learned that Traci couldn't carry a child after trying for five years to get pregnant. That's when Marianne Thoms volunteered to carry the babies for them.