They already had four children, four cats, four dogs, a number of horses and a pet pig called Philip. But for Alan and Judith Kilshaw, this wasn’t enough. When IVF failed, they decided to try to adopt another child. What happened next would lead to them being pursued by the FBI, as well as a media frenzy, a fraught transcontinental legal dispute and international notoriety.
In the spring of 2000, they were simply an eccentric couple living in obscurity in a ramshackle farmhouse with their children and menagerie in the small town of Buckley, north Wales. Unable to conceive again, even with medical assistance, the Kilshaws began looking into the possibility of adoption – only to discover that they were unlikely ever to meet with any success in the UK. And this led them to explore the then briefly booming area of adopting overseas.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, a 28-year-old woman in St Louis, Missouri, was heavily pregnant – very heavily pregnant.
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