Ellie Freeman carried her twin brother’s baby and uncovered a hidden cancer threat that may have saved his life.
Adam Braitberg, 47, and his husband Omer Kuchman turned to Adam’s sisters when they decided to start a family near Melbourne, Australia. Their elder sister Jess volunteered first, offering to serve as both surrogate and egg donor. Australian law bars one person from filling both roles, so Jess became the egg donor while Ellie, already a mother of three, stepped in as the surrogate.
The arrangement required routine blood work before embryo implantation could begin. Ellie said in Australia that her husband, gastroenterologist Elliot Freeman, flagged her unusually low iron levels and pushed for a colonoscopy. Doctors found and removed 21 polyps. Because the condition can run in families, her siblings were urged to get screened too.
Adam went in for his own procedure. The results arrived one day before Ellie was scheduled for her first embryo implantation.
“Sh-t, he’s got cancer,” Ellie recalled thinking.
Doctors had discovered a 10-centimeter mass. Adam quickly located a specialist in Jerusalem. “We found a doctor in Jerusalem who managed to see me and a month later, I had a surgery,” he said. “Then tests, follow-ups, and I’m clear, I’m in remission. A month later, Ellie fell pregnant with our baby.”
Ellie prepared her own children for the unusual pregnancy. “Next time Mummy is pregnant, I’m helping Adam and Omer create a family, so it’s not going to be our baby, it’ll be your little cousin,” she explained to them.
Nine months later, baby Gali was born. Adam and Omer cut the umbilical cord and held their daughter immediately.
The twins had grown up close in suburban Melbourne with their parents and two sisters. “We had a beautiful upbringing in our suburban Melbourne with our parents and two sisters,” Ellie said.
Adam now sees his daughter as living proof of what family can mean. “She’s a beautiful symbol of what family is and what family could be,” he said. “For Gali, she’s going to know, it’s not something to hide from her. [We’ll tell her] ‘This is how you were created; you have two incredible aunties that wanted you to exist so much they helped us create you.'”
Ellie described the delivery itself as deeply personal despite the unconventional circumstances. “It was a beautiful birth,” she said in Australia. “To have my husband by my side was the most important thing for me.”
The medical chain reaction — from surrogacy screening to family-wide colon checks — transformed what began as a fertility arrangement into a life-saving intervention. Adam’s cancer was caught and treated before Ellie carried Gali to term, leaving him in remission and present for his daughter’s birth.
