'I had a baby at 68 with my dead son's sperm - and I might not be finished yet'

An actress has spoken out about how she was "resurrected" after welcoming her granddaughter to the , who she conceived using the sperm of her late son. And she hasn't ruled out having more.

now 70, had when she was 68, in accordance with her son wishes. Aless was just 25 years old when, in 2020, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. He died two years later, at the age of 27.

Prior to his death, Aless had his sperm frozen, which was later used alongside a donor egg to conceive Anita. Ana, who is Anita's legal mother, has spoken out about how she felt "dead for three years" after losing Aless, with her little granddaughter helping to bring her back to life.

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In a recent interview with iHola!, Ana shared: "I know I'll never feel the happiness I had when Aless was with me again. That pain will never go away. You don't accept or get over the death of a child. You end up accepting that you'll never be able to come to terms with their departure. Fortunately, Anita now fills my days. I was dead for three years from Aless' death until Anita was born.”

Nowadays, Ana's home is "full of stuffed animals and toys", with young Anita, who was born at a Miami hospital, often getting her to dive into her ball pool. And although the grandmother admits picking up the child is starting to hurt her back, she wouldn't have things any other way.

In an post shared to mark Anita's first birthday, Ana, who made a name for herself as a star of Spanish TV and cinema in the '80s and '90s, picked up on the striking similarities between her son and granddaughter. Addressing the little girl directly, Ana wrote: "I can only thank you for filling my heart with light submerged in the deepest darkness and mutilated by immense pain.

"Thank you for your smile, your babbles, your crawls and first steps. Thank you for looking at me with the same love as your dad looked at me… never had anyone looked at me that way. You are a copy of your dad, desired from that heaven that borders eternity.

"One day, I will tell you how your dad was: noble, generous, brave, supportive, funny, loving, with a crazy girl tenderness that provoked love in all of us who were lucky enough to love him. And you will be the same, Anita. My little angel of light, you will blow the candle tonight in your dream with your dad while I hug you, dying of love."

Ana opted to pursue the surrogacy process in the US as surrogacy is currently illegal in Spain, while adopting a child born abroad is lawful. It's believed Anita's biological mother is a Cuban woman, living in Florida.

At the time, Ana faced some backlash over her decision, with condemning the practice of surrogacy as being "a form of violence against women". However, Defence Minister Margarita Robles defended Ana, asserting that, while surrogacy laws were clear in Spain, there should be respect for personal decisions.

Going forward, Ana is considering welcoming more grandchildren via surrogate, as Aless himself had expressed a wish to have five children of his own. She does, however, have some anxieties about the future, as she raises Anita as an older parent. Opening up on Spanish TV, Ana admitted: "With Aless, I would go to work confident that everything would be fine. But life has taught me that one day, you have a perfectly healthy child, and out of the blue, you're told he has a very aggressive cancer. Life is a breath of fresh air."

Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com

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