Crystal Sirignano never expected to be pregnant with twins at 52. Even more surprising is that the babies she is eight months pregnant with are her grandchildren.

“Every day I’m so amazed,” said Crystal, who is a surrogate for her daughter, Kendra Sirignano, and son-in-law, Aaron Simpson. “This is such a miracle. People say it’s a sacrifice, but I don’t feel that way. I feel blessed that I’m able to do it.”

Kendra, a 1996 Goodrich High School graduate, agrees that it is amazing.
“There’s no better person to be a surrogate for me,” she said. “She’s a wonderful mother and very selfless… I feel like I can’t thank her enough and show her how I love her enough. I told her on Mother’s Day that I needed to buy her a house. She wants grandchildren very much and she is giving us a gift, but I told her it is also a gift to her.”

Kendra, a social worker, and Aaron, a college wrestling coach, were married in November 2002 and live in Arizona. Four years ago, they began trying to conceive their first child, without any luck. Three years ago, the couple adopted Claire, now 15, whom Kendra met at a shelter and had been a “big sister” to since the girl was 8.

Kendra and Aaron continued trying for a baby and she said they went through multiple infertility treatments, including drugs and surgeries. They turned to in vitro fertilization, a procedure in which they extract eggs from the mother and mix them with the father’s sperm in a laboratory dish to create an embryo which is then transferred to the mother’s uterus. The procedure is expensive, $16,000 for each attempt using fresh embryos, and about $10,000 for each attempt with frozen embryos. Kendra and Aaron tried in vitro fertilization three times with no success, draining their life savings in the process. They were devastated.

“My dream my whole life was to be a mother,” Kendra said. “After the last in vitro, we had to decide whether to adopt more children or live a life without children.”

However, the couple still had some frozen embryos. Kendra’s doctor told her that if she found a surrogate, there was an 80 percent chance the embryos could be carried successfully.

In stepped Crystal.

“During all this, I’d always said,’ I wish I could do this for you,’ she recalled. “After the last one failed, I said, ‘Please let me try.’

Her daughter and son-in-law were adamantly opposed.

“I thought it was selfish of us,” explained Aaron. “We were concerned about her health.”

Crystal, however, was not. She is the owner of Total Body Fitness in Grand Blanc and is also a personal trainer who is healthy and doesn’t smoke or drink.

“I said, ‘Let me just try to go through all the doctor appointments and try one time,'” Crystal remembered. “If it’s not meant to be or if they say it’s unsafe or unhealthy, at least we tried.”

The doctors never said anything about her age, Crystal said, rather, they just wanted to make sure her heart was healthy and there were no problems with her uterus. The doctors determined she was in great health and told her there was no reason why she couldn’t carry a baby.

Crystal’s husband and Kendra’s father, D.J. Sirignano, the owner of John’s Steakhouse in Goodrich, was very supportive and Crystal started taking progesterone shots and medications to prepare her body for a baby. They didn’t tell the rest of their family, including Kendra’s brother, what they were doing.

At the end of October, doctors transferred two of Kendra and Aaron’s embryos into Crystal’s uterus. The procedure took 10 minutes.

Ten days later, Kendra got the call confirming her mother was pregnant.

“All four of us just sobbed,” Kendra recalled. “My dad said the other day it was the greatest day he had in his whole life. I wasn’t prepared for a positive test, because I hadn’t had one. With so many years of negative tests, I didn’t know how I would react. I thought I might still be nervous, but all I could think about was holding my baby in my arms.”

A week later, she learned that they would have twins, two babies to hold.

“Twice the diapers, twice the bottles,” she said. “I won’t sleep for the first three months. But I know it will be twice the fun, also.”

The first ultrasound came three weeks after the positive test, when Crystal was 7-8 weeks pregnant. Kendra, Aaron and D.J. stood around Crystal as the technician found the heartbeats on the babies.

“That’s when it became real for me, when we heard the heartbeats,” said Aaron, who recalls crying. Kendra, meanwhile, was jumping up and down with excitement.

They waited three months to share the news with their family and friends and Kendra and Crystal say they have only had positive reactions.

“We expected there would be some people against this kind of thing,” Crystal said. “But we have not had one person against it. People are praying for us and happy.”

“Mothers especially, tear up and get really emotional and say how wonderful my mom is,” Kendra said. “Men have a different reaction; they’re more surprised and shocked. They ask, ‘How does that happen?’ and, ‘What does that mean?’ My dad jokes around and tells people, ‘My wife is pregnant with twins and they’re not mine.'”

At the 4-month ultrasound, they were thrilled to learn the twins were a boy and a girl.

Crystal has stayed in Arizona for the duration of the pregnancy and Kendra has advised her on all things pregnancy related, reading to her mom from a pregnancy book. Crystal is nauseous much of the time, but expected it, as she experienced it when she was pregnant with each of her two children years ago. What she has noticed is more kicking and Kendra and Aaron love to feel their children kick as they lay their hands on Crystal’s stomach.

“I will never experience the pregnancy I always dreamed about as a child, but I’m over that and so happy to have my biological children,” Kendra said. “My mom plays a 30-minute CD everyday of my husband and I reading children’s books to the babies and I talk to them everyday and they kick.”

Crystal has reached the 33-week mark of her pregnancy and the babies could be safely delivered anytime. A planned C-section is scheduled for June 18. She plans to stay for about two months after the babies are delivered to enjoy her grandchildren and help Kendra. Eventually, she and D.J. plan to spend six months a year in Arizona, and six months here.

Crystal has kept a written and video diary of this pregnancy, in which she talks to the twins and every time she goes to the doctor, she tells in the diary what happened and shows how her stomach has grown. She says she did it mainly for herself, so she won’t forget any part of the experience, but says it will be up to Kendra if she wants to show it to the twins one day.

Kendra, 30, and Aaron, 32, plan to be completely honest with their children about how they came to be.

“I think we’ll say, ‘Mom couldn’t hold you in her stomach, so Grandma held you for us. You are our biological children and they mixed you in a dish and then they put you in grandma.'”

Aaron is just amazed about it all.

“We’ve suffered through three years of infertility and it was hard on me, but harder on Kendra,” he said. “To see her cry and she can’t control what she’s feeling and to finally see a smile on her face is worth it all. My mother-in law is unbelievable. It was more out of her love for us that she did it, to see smiles on her daughter’s and son-in-law’s faces. There is nothing we could ever do to repay her.”

Crystal said giving Kendra and Aaron two children to love and raise is the most rewarding thing she’s ever done, next to having her own children.

“It’s a gift and a miracle,” she said. “I feel so blessed that I am able to do it.”

Kendra simply can’t wait for her twins, who will be named Domenico Jason Simpson and Mia Sirignano Simpson, to arrive.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said. “I can’t sleep. I lay awake thinking about the day when they’re born and I can hold them finally. I’m overwhelmed with joy when I think of that.”

‘American Gladiators’

Kendra and Aaron missed just one doctor appointment out of dozens Crystal had while carrying their twins.

During that appointment, Kendra and Aaron were busy preparing to be contestants on “American Gladiators,” a show on NBC in which participants compete in various physical contests.

The show’s producers were fascinated by Kendra and Aaron’s story and chose the couple from thousands of people who auditioned for the show.

“It’s really strange and wacky events, something you never get to do in your lifetime,” Aaron said in explaining what the show is about.

“We had an amazing experience,” Kendra said. “We felt like superstars and it was extremely challenging, but so much fun at the same time. It’s definitely a lot harder than it looks on TV.”

The show on which Kendra and Aaron will appear is scheduled for 8 p.m., June 23, on NBC. For more information, visit: http://www.nbc.com/American_Gladiators/