Grandmother carries twins for daughter

? Marie LaPlant’s offer always stood. She was willing to give birth to her daughter’s baby, Paula Griese just had to say the word.

LaPlant, a former Salina resident, didn’t know the word would be twins, which she delivered in November for Griese, who was born without a uterus.

Griese, 28, and her husband Dan live in Dolliver, Iowa, a town about 100 miles from the Minnesota border. Since Griese found out about her condition around age 12, her mom has always offered to carry a baby for her. But Griese blew it off, never really thinking about kids.

Paula remembered that offer, though, after marrying Dan, 37, nearly three years ago. So did her mother, who’s in her mid-40s. Last spring, Griese’s eggs, fertilized by sperm from Dan, were implanted in the uterus of LaPlant, who lived in Salina for 22 years before moving to Iowa.

And on Nov. 14, LaPlant gave birth to her twin grandchildren, Blaine and Mercedeez, in a Fairmont, Minn., hospital. On Friday, mother and daughter will share their story  and show off the twins  on the ABC television’s “Good Morning America.” They’ve also been asked to appear on the CBS evening television news magazine “48 Hours,” but a date hasn’t been set for the appearance.

LaPlant was living in Salina and working at Philips Lighting Co. when Griese asked her mother if she still wanted to carry her child. LaPlant quickly packed up and moved to Estherville, Iowa, a town of about 4,000 near Dolliver. The two women underwent a battery of physical, genetic and psychological tests before being approved for the surrogacy program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The women said they were together almost daily during the pregnancy.

When she felt the babies move, LaPlant would grab Griese’s hand and place it over her abdomen. “I went to all the ultrasounds,” Griese said. “She told me everything that was going on.”

But even with all of that, Griese said, the situation didn’t seem real until the babies were born, by Caesarean section, at 37 weeks’ gestation.

Although it was a wonderful experience, it’s not one the women plan to repeat. “Two children are enough,” Griese said. “That’s plenty.”

Griese said she wouldn’t have gone through the experience with anyone but her mother, and she doesn’t think her husband would have, either.

“A lot of women carry babies for people and get attached and want to keep them,” Griese said. “I knew we were not going to have problems with my mom.”

LaPlant said giving the babies to her daughter at the end of the pregnancy was never a problem.

“I knew throughout the whole thing I was carrying my grandkids,” she said. “I’m just the incubator. That’s what I am.”