Arlette Schweitzer says she's neither an oddity nor a miracle worker for carrying her grandchildren in her womb - just a mother who loves her daughter.
Medical ethicists say the 42-year-old is the first American woman to serve as a surrogate mother for her daughter. Schweitzer's daughter, Christa Uchytil, was born without a uterus.She compares herself to parents who donate kidneys or other organs to their children.
"I don't know a mother or father in the world who doesn't do what they can for their children," said Schweitzer, already a grandmother of four.
The school librarian spoke publicly about her role three weeks ago in hopes of helping others with fertility problems. She since has been flooded with phone calls and letters.
"We just never, never dreamed this would get this much interest around the world," Schweitzer said.
To prove her point, the telephone rings again in the white house she shares with her husband, Dan, and their spaniel. Schweitzer, nearly seven months pregnant, lets the answering machine do the work.
The twins she carries, the biological children of her 22-year-old daughter and son-in-law, Kevin Uchytil of Sioux City, Iowa, are due in late October or early November.
Eggs were taken from Uchytil's ovaries, fertilized in a laboratory dish with her husband's sperm and implanted in her mother's uterus.
A doctor discovered about seven years ago that Uchytil did not have a uterus. Schweitzer says she quickly decided she would serve as a surrogate someday.
The family never thought much about making medical history: "We were just thinking of what we could do to help Christa have babies."
Uchytil, a teacher's aide, said that when she first told her future husband about the plan, "he thought it was pretty amazing."
Critics have questioned whether the family should have adopted a child instead. Some medical ethicists question whether the children will be confused about their relationship to their mother and grandmother.
Uchytil said the children will be told at an early age how they were born and will be made to feel special. They will understand she and her husband are their genetic parents, she said.
"There's no way they'll be confused," Uchytil said. "I guess we know who the grandmother is and who the mother is."