PUSHING her buggy through the supermarket, Lauren Kaye beams as fellow shoppers coo over her two babies.
Leaning over the pram the women gush over newborn Hettie and Nellie before turning to Lauren’s companion.
“You must be the proud big brother, you’re so lucky to have such gorgeous little sisters,” one woman says.
But Lauren’s 5ft 3 co-shopper isn’t her teenage son but her 30-year-old wife – and the second mum to their daughters.
It is a mistake that Lauren and Hannah are used to.
“People think I married a ten-year-old boy and had his children,” Lauren says.
“Equally Hannah is regularly mistaken for our babies’ older brother.
“We politely explain that Hannah’s not underage , that I’m not a ‘ paedophile ’ and we are loving mums to girls.”
Social media promoter Lauren, 32, lives in Surrey with her wife, specialist engineer Hannah.
They’re proud parents to four-month-old Hettie and Nellie, the surviving two triplets , and little Winnie, who would have been the third but tragically passed away in utero at 23 weeks and six days.
Lauren is also mum to a son, 11, and a nine-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, who she co-parents with Hannah.
It’s been a whirlwind of a year for the pair, packing in a wedding, IVF treatment, and a triplet pregnancy before their bittersweet birth.
“The trolls can’t get to us,” Lauren says.
“I found a new life with my wife and became a mum again and I couldn’t be prouder of our little family.”
It’s a life revolving around caring for the couple’s daughters, who arrived with their sister in April at just 32 weeks – nine weeks premature.
In September 2024, Hannah and Lauren flew to Northern Cyprus for their first round of IVF.
Lauren is already a mum to a son, 11, and a nine-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, which ruled them out of having NHS treatment in the UK.
The wives spent £9,000 on reciprocal IVF, a fertility treatment option available for same-sex female couples and also sometimes referred to as shared motherhood.
It involves taking the eggs from one woman, fertilising them with a donor sperm, before implanting the embryos in the womb of another.
The couple chose a Swedish sperm donor as he was the closest match to the couple’s skin tone and looks.
Two weeks later a blood test confirmed Lauren was expecting – and a scan revealed she was pregnant with not just one baby, but three.
In April this year, Lauren, with Hannah by her side, underwent a C-section at St George’s Hospital.
Hettie arrived first, weighing just 2lb 4oz, followed by Nellie, the heaviest at 3lb 1oz, and then little Winnie, who the couple knew had already passed away in utero, weighing a pound.
“I can’t explain how wonderful it was to see the babies, all three were and are special,” Lauren says.
“It was joy, happiness, fear, worry combined with desperate sadness because little Winnie had passed away.”
Hannah adds: “Watching my daughters being born was incredible.
“My heart was completely full when I saw them. My protective mother lioness mode kicked in.
“We knew that Winnie would be remembered. The girls would always be ‘the triplets’. They’re not twins.”
When Hannah is out with Hettie and Nellie in the buggy alone, people constantly ask where her mum is
Lauren Kaye
Nellie and Hettie were rushed to ICU where they spent the next five weeks.
The couple were given time to hold little Winnie and the opportunity to say hello and goodbye to a much-loved sister and daughter.
“Any parent who has suffered the loss in utero carrying multiples knows the gut-wrenching heartbreak of emotions you feel,” Lauren says.
“Happiness for the surviving babies and tears for the little baby who will be forever small.”
The couple are, however, angry because unlike her sisters, Winnie was not given a birth certificate or officially recognised as having been born.
In Britain, if a baby is born and shows a sign of life like breathing or a heartbeat, the birth is deemed ‘live’ and a birth certificate is written.
‘IT BROKE ME’
If a child is born and shows no sign of life, no birth certificate is allowed.
“That broke me,” Lauren says.
“All babies deserve recognition, it is why we refer to the girls as the surviving triplets.
“If the law did not recognise our precious daughter as a baby, then we will.”
The family waited until Hettie and Nellie were home after five weeks in hospital and held a private funeral for little Winnie in June.
“We were overwhelmed with love, support and even gifts from our social media followers,” Hannah explains.
“They’ve been with us throughout the pregnancy journey and considered us family.”
But the trolls couldn’t stop their spiteful comments even when the babies were born.
TWISTED TROLLS
“There were comments telling us we didn’t deserve to be mums, or we should be ashamed of ourselves and we were disgusting,” says Lauren.
“When Hannah is out with Hettie and Nellie in the buggy alone, people constantly stop and ask her about being their ‘big brother’ or ask where her mum is.
“If we share a kiss holding the babies on social media or out in public, there is a storm of hate and horrified looks.
“People seeing us for the first time assume it’s a perverted relationship.
“Others instantly jump to disgusting conclusions.
“The haters can’t keep away, they love to hate but the algorithm picks up on that and their hate earns us money from views.”
HOW TO REPORT SOCIAL MEDIA TROLLS
X, formerly known as Twitter, is one of the most common platforms for social media trolling, so the bosses have come up with lots of ways to combat the keyboard warriors.
The social media site is fighting back against trolls with:
- A ‘mute’ feature which allows users to block notifications based on certain keywords and phrases
- By allowing users to collect multiple tweets, and therefore multiple users, in a single complaint report called a ‘moment’
- You can also report an entire profile, if it has been set up purely to spam or post harmful content
On Facebook, you can report abusive photos and posts by clicking the arrow in the top right hand corner, and then ‘report post’.
On Instagram you can click on the elipses on the top right hand corner of the post to report a post, the same elipses can be found next to invidual comments.
The method can be used on TikTok to report both videos and comments.
Lauren has faced many challenges throughout her life but says meeting Hannah transformed her.
She first hit the headlines in January 2023 when she shared her amazing 15st weight loss after having a gastric sleeve fitted and met Hannah on Tinder the same year.
“I knew I was gay but I had been in denial most of my life,” she says.
“I lost my dad in 1999 in a plane crash and my mum found love with another woman and I was severely bullied as a result.
“I had two children with a man and was determined to have what I thought was my idea of ‘normal’. It wasn’t.
“Finally accepting my true self, completing a surgical makeover and weight loss and finding Hannah and her love was the key to the new me.
“I had a makeover mentally and physically. Now I am the happiest I have ever been.”
In January 2024 Hannah proposed and the couple tied the knot at a registry office wedding in August 2024 in Surrey.
However, despite their growing following of over 300,000 on social media, the pair known by the handle @_TheKayeFamily say the tsunami of hate did not stop.
The haters launched what the couple call the “paedo mum” campaign when the couple shared their wedding photos on social media.
I constantly correct trolls and as a mum it has gotten to me a few times
Hannah Kaye
“Some people thought Hannah was my ten-year-old son walking me up the aisle,” Lauren recalls.
“Even when we started going to the hospital for scans, some staff mistook Hannah for my son or a teenage friend.”
Hannah adds: “I constantly correct them and as a mum it has gotten to me a few times.
“I sometimes felt sidelined from conversations even though it was my eggs that Lauren was carrying.”
But while the trolls are doing their best to tear the family down, the mums and babies are thriving, sleep deprivation aside.
“We have one baby each during the night and it allows us both to get some sleep because they wake at different times,” says Hannah.
Lauren and Hannah are also raising money for a Cuddle Cot for St George’s Hospital.
“It is a unique cot which can be used by parents after their baby’s premature death or in utero loss to spend extra time with their child after birth to help grieve,” Lauren says.
Now Lauren is focused on sharing the joy of raising her family, life with Hannah by her side and dealing with the trolls in just one way.
She adds: “Let them hate because we are only feeling the love.”
