Sebastian Vettel has achieved almost everything he's ever wanted in life; a career in the sport in he loves, four world titles, financial stability and a beautiful home in the Swiss countryside. He's a humble, down to earth guy who believes that mon...
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Holly Brooks smiles fondly at the photo of a handsome little boy that she's been sent by e-mail from his parents. Taken in the woods not far from his parents home near Los Angeles, USA, little Logan has had his hair styled and looks like he wears trendier clothes than Holly herself. Though he doesn't look too impressed about having his photo taken, maybe it was interrupting his playtime too much.
She traces her finger over the screen of her iPad, her fingertip caressing Logan's cute chubby cheeks with a huge sense of pride and satisfaction. He doesn't seem to have inherited any of her looks, instead he's a stunning mini me of his American father. For a second she debates making this photo her lock screen image, thinking how his parents must be so proud at how cute and handsome he is. There's no doubt they've got the image on their devices too. In fact, she can imagine the walls of their home being covered with photographic portraits of Logan as he grows, charting every stage of his young life. She won't use this image though, instead it will get saved to a special memory stick to look back on as a fond memory.
She sighs and raises the iPad to her lips to give Logan a virtual kiss, it's a bittersweet moment for her; this photo might celebrate Logan's first birthday but it's the last photo of him that Holly will ever receive. And that's the way she wants it, it's the way it has to be. A year on from the birth is an important milestone for both the child's parents and herself, it is the point at which she closes the book on another happy chapter of her life. It's now time to move on.
Logan might be living his best life in America with his parents spoiling him rotten but she is his biological mother. That's as far as it goes though. Holly is a surrogate, having babies for men and women who, for whatever reason, can't have children of their own or for whom it simply hasn't happened yet. Although it pays well, it is not an easy job. Logan was her fourth child but it hasn't meant that this pregnancy or birth has been any easier for her.
Carrying and nurturing a child inside of her for nine months, it's always inevitable that she'll become attached, that those maternal instincts will always kick in. She always tries to see herself as the vehicle to someone else's happiness, a gatekeeper with the key to someone else's dreams, that's she only looking after someone else's child until he or she is ready to enter the world. From the moment she finds out that she's pregnant she constantly tells herself that the baby she's carrying is not her own, she's just growing it and nurturing it like a plant - from a little seed to a mighty oak.
She's never wanted a family of her own, she's never wanted to be tied down in a settled relationship. Marriage and kids has never been for her. However, renting out her womb has been and it's been a lucrative profession. Giving birth to four babies has given her a fantastic lifestyle, just one pregnancy can earn her just as much money that a good, well paid job could give her in a whole year. Giving birth to Logan had earned her just over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, over one hundred and ten thousand pounds in English money. She plans on having one or two more surrogate babies, then she'll stop. It wouldn't feel right to have more than six of her biological offspring roaming around the world. Once she's finished, then maybe she'll think of settling down, she'll turn her thoughts more to romance and finding Mr Right because at the moment what she does for a living scares off every man she meets. None of them want to be with a woman who has babies for other people and not all of them want to be screened for STD's and asked about their sexual health and past just in case it affects her ability to carry someone else's unborn child.
"Such a beautiful little man," she murmurs affectionately, taking one more look at the blonde haired one year old. "Goodbye little one, may you grow up to achieve great things and have everything you'll ever dream of." With a few taps the photo disappears, moved into a file that will be soon be synced over to another file on a laptop before getting transferred to a memory stick. It's the closure of another chapter, another dream achieved for a set of wonderful parents.
She's finally ready to start a new chapter of her incredible surrogacy story, ready to make someone else's dream come true.
Putting the iPad down on the coffee table in front of her, she rises from her white leather sofa and heads over to her home office area where a large brown, paper envelope sits on her white desk.
Her 2 bedroom apartment is in an expensive area of London, overlooking The Thames river. It's mainly open plan with floor to ceiling windows and a large balcony, it's decor white and minimalistic, tidy and spotlessly clean - a perk of not having kids, although it's ironic as it's having kids that's paying the mortgage.
It's with trepidation that she picks up the A4 envelope, inside is the details of her next prospective clients or client, the future parents of her next baby. It always feels like a big moment and she can already feel her heart rate increasing and the nervous butterflies filling her stomach. Who will it be this time? Where will they be from? With Logan's parents being in America, she's also helped a married couple in Scotland, a gay couple in Ibiza and another couple in the Isle of Wight.
She takes a deep breath and sits down at her desk before starting to open the envelope. Then she pulls out it's contents, two sheets of printed A4 paper. The second sheet she won't bother with, it's the same standard paragraphs of information, terms, conditions and get out clauses that she's always provided with. It's basically telling her of all the risks involved, the rules of the company that she has to abide by for her own safety, mental and physical well-being and the all important information that states the procedure she has to go through if she wants to end her time as a surrogate. It's the first page that has her full attention, the details of her potential new client.
He's a man, he's currently single, he's thirty-four and from Heppenheim in Germany but he now lives in Thurgau, Switzerland, it's a beautiful country to bring up a child.
She briefly wonders if he's gay, if that's why there's no mention of a girlfriend or a wife, not that it bothers her in any way but he's the first single man to become a possible client of hers so it's made her curious.
Then she finds his name and her eyes widen. "Nooooo! No way! It can't be!" She's in shock, her hands are starting to shake and she keeps looking up at the ceiling and then back down again at the information in her possession. He's a famous sportsman, a Formula One driver, a man who could have any woman he wanted and have as many babies as he wanted with her. This has got to be some kind of mistake and a huge one at that! There's no way on earth that someone like him would seek out a surrogacy agency and someone like herself. Maybe she's read it wrong, maybe her eyes are deceiving her but it's there in black and white. His name is Sebastian Vettel and he wants to arrange a meeting with her.
