Liz Kendall, Labour shadow minister and ex-leadership challenger Liz Kendall announced that she will become a mom at 50.
She and her partner, a Leicester West MP, are planning a baby in 2012 with help from a surrogate.
She said she plans to temporarily step down as shadow minister for social care ‘to make the most of this precious time with the newest member of our family’.
Although she is considered to be the first MP who had a child this way, Labour peer Oona King also experienced a surrogate pregnancy in 2013.
The Spectator was informed by Ms Kendall that she had suffered two miscarriages, and needed surgery to conceive naturally. She said: ‘We’ve been going through a lot but now it’s happening and have been telling everyone this week.
She and her partner, a Leicester West MP, are planning a baby in 2012 with help from a surrogate.
Kendall, who is of the centrist moderate side of the party, was elected for the first time in 2010. Ms Kendall was photographed in 2016 during a visit with the APPG of the Armed Forces
Ms. Kendall was in an earlier relationship with Greg Davies, Inbetweeners star and Taskmaster actor. However, it ended in 2015.
Blairite, a Cambridge graduate who longed to become a ballet dancer
Liz Kendall was born in Abbots Langley, near Watford.
Although her mother was a teacher in primary schools, her Labour-supporting father left school when she was 16 and worked his way up at the Bank of England.
Watford Grammar was her head girl and she won a Cambridge place. However, her mother convinced her to accept the offer after convincing her not to pursue her dream of being a professional dancer.
As Queens’ College’s female football coach, she also earned a first class degree.
She began her career in Westminster as an assistant to Patricia Hewitt, arch-Blairite health secretary.
In 215 she ran for the presidency but came in last to Jeremy Corbyn. The party veered to the Left following the defeat of Ed Miliband to David Cameron. She resigned.
Her party supported stricter immigration restrictions and she said that they should support an EU referendum. It took place in the next year.
Also, she stated that the party had to embrace businesses and not advocate high taxes ‘just for a point.
She tweeted last night: “Overwhelmed at all the messages today.
“I am sorry that I cannot reply to everybody, but it was a truly wonderful day and one I will always remember. Thank you.
Ms Kendall, who is from the moderate centrist wing of the party, was elected for the first time in 2010.
She was running to be Ed Miliband’s Labour leader in 2015. However, her candidacy on a Blairite platform failed.
After refusing to work with the Left-leaning leader, she was offered a role as a shadow by Sir Keir Starmer.
Breaking her family news in her local paper the Leicester Mercury she said: ‘I’ll be taking leave from work to make the most of this precious time with the newest member of our family.
“But, I want to assure my constituents that the office will remain open through all of this and that my entire team will continue to offer support and assistance to residents.
All parties expressed their admiration, with Ruth Davidson (former Scottish Tory Leader) stating: “That is wonderful news Liz. Our sincere congratulations. Your daughter will be a great mom.
Ms. Kendall was in an earlier relationship with Greg Davies, Inbetweeners star and Taskmaster actor. However, it ended in 2015.
While running to be Labour leader she opened up on her private life, saying: ‘As you get older, of course you want to be settled, but life changes and it doesn’t work out.
Who knows what might happen next? All I can say is that. It is a love-filled person.
In a discussion on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), she discussed the impact of the menopause to Parliament.
To be completely honest, I don’t know when my symptoms began. But they have been building steadily over the last year—the truly terrifying sense of anxiety and panic that I had never experienced before; feeling completely exhausted, sore and aching all over, wondering in the evenings if I could make it up the stairs to go to bed, let alone do the exercise that has always been such an important part of my life; the itching, the hair loss, and just feeling downright low; and above all, what I can only describe as the catastrophically bad sleep, night after night.
“I’d finally wake up in the morning, sweaty and thinking about how I was going to get through the day.
“Like many women, I didn’t know what was happening.”