I longed for my own baby but my adopted children felt I had betrayed them: Baroness Oona King reveals the guilt amid the joy of her first Christmas as a biological mother By Richard Barber While the arrival of a new baby is a joyous occasion for its parents, it is often deeply unsettling for older siblings. And surely never more so than when the older children in question are adopted, and the new baby is a much-longed-for biological child. This is the position in which Oona King's three adopted children found themselves in October, when she had her first natural baby, Tullio. At the time, the 46-year-old Baroness King of Bow, as she's known in the House of Lords, told the Mail of the excitement she felt at having her first biological child. She also revealed that she had spent more than £70,000 on six failed IVF attempts after a miscarriage and years of vain attempts to conceive, before adopting three children - a son, eight-year-old Elia, and daughters Kaia, six, and Ariel, two. Even after adopting those beautiful children, Oona dreamed of having her own baby. New baby: Oona King holds her surrogate son, Tullio Jahan The former MP had frozen a clutch of her fertilised eggs years before adopting. When the hospital staff told her they would soon have to destroy the embryos, she was left to make a monumental decision. And so she and her husband Tiberio resorted to a surrogate. Tullio was created from Oona's egg and Tiberio's sperm, but carried by 24-year-old Zarayna Lee. This Christmas was spent as Oona had long dreamed it would be, with her newly-expanded family all around her. As well as the children, she and Tiberio also celebrated it with his parents and family, plus Oona's mother and her brother. "There were 18 of us: ten adults and eight children," she says. But while there's much festivity in the King household, Oona confesses to being strict when it comes to Christmas presents for her children. "Last year, they were each given £7 and taken to Poundland, where they bought seven presents," she says. And this year? Elia got a Kindle. He's a voracious reader. Ariel had a Play-Doh sculpture set. And Kaia got a miniature drum set. We must be mad. As though this house weren't noisy enough already. What about Tullio? Was he spoilt? No, Tullio didn't get anything. His present was being born. Indeed, Oona is adamant that she is trying her best not to treat her only natural child differently from her adopted children. Yes, Christmas felt different, but not because Tullio is our biological child. It was because he's a newborn baby. And the next two years are going to be really hard. Four children equals four times as much aggro as one child. But it's also four times as much joy. This conflict of emotion is expressed again and again when Oona discusses her family life. While husband and wife were delighted to be blessed with a biological child, she confesses today that the new baby's arrival has thrown their family into turmoil. It seems her adopted children - some of whom still bear the scars of their traumatic starts in life - feel that they may have been superseded by their new brother. "There was one incident that was like a dagger in my heart," says Oona. I'd always had a beautiful picture of Elia and Kaia on my mobile phone's screensaver. Then everyone was asking me about Tullio, so I decided to use a photo of him instead. Oona King, Baroness of Bow, with her husband and children Kaia, aged six, Ariel, aged two, Tullio, Elia, aged eight, and husband Tiberio Santomarco "The first time Elia saw it, he said: "Oh, I see you've abandoned us. You've swapped our picture for his. I spluttered a bit, but I can see that I'd made a mistake. Part of the family's unease has been down to the fact that the first few weeks of little Tullio's life were so fraught. Perhaps it is little wonder that his parents have been focused on their newborn, and that his older siblings have been left reeling. Tullio's birth on October 10, two weeks early, was far from smooth. Oona, who was in the delivery room with Tiberio and Zarayna, was already on tenterhooks, terrified that something would go wrong. So on edge was she that as soon as Tullio was born, Oona asked the midwife to hand him straight to her husband. "It was as if there were a sheet of glass between me and Tullio," she continues. I was sealed somehow from him, unable to take in this surreal event. Her fears of complications were realised when Tullio failed to make a sound in those first moments after birth. "He didn't cry," she says. He made strangled, gurgling sounds as he tried to breathe. He just lay against Tiberio's chest. The midwife said: "Oh, we've got a quiet one here." "And I said, "Yes, a bit too quiet for my liking. Are you sure he's all right?"" Staff tried to reassure Oona, and - struggling to contain feeling that all was not well - she turned her attention to their surrogate. I was told Tullio was just fine. So I asked Zarayna if she'd like the glass of champagne I'd always promised her after the baby's birth. She smiled weakly and nodded, so I went to get it from a fridge in a room on the other side of the corridor. Then she heard an alarm begin to ring. "I just knew it was for my baby," Oona says. I saw eight doctors and nurses running, properly running, towards the delivery suite. I followed them in. There was an oxygen mask on the baby's face and they were pumping his little heart for all they were worth. "I thought: "Of course. He's going to die. Why on earth would I have imagined everything would be OK? My lifelong dream had been to be let into the healthy parent club, and it wasn't going to happen. Eventually, Tullio was stabilised, but then began choking on his first bottle. "He turned violet," says Oona. I ran to get the midwife who tried reassuring me until she saw him, at which point she hit the emergency button. The baby was struggling to breathe and, again, the room filled with doctors and nurses. "One of them shouted: "Put him on the resuscitator now!" Then a nurse said: "Oh God, it's broken." Three of them tried to find a resuscitator in working order, but they returned empty-handed. Then someone decided that maybe the plug had to be changed. As this farce was unfolding, my baby was struggling to breathe while his heart was being pumped manually. Six minutes later - and who knows what damage occurred in that time? - the resuscitator lurched into life. When the crisis appeared to have passed, a desperate Oona pleaded for her baby to be transferred to intensive care. But the doctor who could sanction it wasn't on hand. "And that's when I started to lose it," she says. As we were arguing the toss, Tullio had another relapse. The alarm was pushed again and the team returned in force to pull him back from the brink once more. Tullio was finally transferred to an incubator to be taken to intensive care. Two nurses pushed his incubator followed by me and my husband. "Where are you going?" shouted a doctor from the other end of the corridor. Intensive care's in the opposite direction. By then I didn't know whether to laugh or cry - although, once he got there, the care was superlative. Doctors ran a battery of tests on Tullio, but found no specific reason for his breathing problems, attributing them to his premature arrival. Over the next few days, his condition stabilised, and his parents were able to introduce him to his siblings. "They were intrigued that he was being kept in a glass box," says Oona. But we explained what was going on and that seemed to satisfy them. I'd also allowed myself to start attaching myself to Tullio emotionally. It looked as if he wasn't going to die. I started to dare to love him. He had looked like a little alien as he emerged from the womb, but within a few days I noticed he had my African nose and chubby cheeks - and lots of dark hair. A touch too quickly, Oona adds: "I didn't love him more than the others." Her haste perhaps reveals a deep-rooted concern that others will assume she will favour her biological child, with his genetic and physical resemblance to his parents, over her adopted children. But she says: "The one I'd loved most at first sight was Elia for the simple reason that he was the first, the one who'd made me a mother." Part of the family's unease has been down to the fact that the first few weeks of Tullio's life were so fraught Kaia joined the family two years later, aged 13 months. "She didn't smile for the first year," Oona says. Clearly, she'd been badly damaged by being removed from her foster family. The couple then waited four years before adopting their third child, Ariel, aged five months, in January 2012. She's this vital ball of energy, our magical ray of sunshine, as bright as a button. And then there is Tullio. He remained in hospital for almost three weeks undergoing tests for any possible damage caused during his traumatic entry into the world. Thankfully, doctors said there was no sign of any lasting problems. "He was what the consultant called a floppy baby, because he appeared to be so limp," Oona says. I was convinced he was brain-damaged. And then, on my birthday on October 22, two days before what would have been his due date, it was as though he woke up, as though he was ready to join the world. I believe in a glass-half-full approach to life. So when the consultant tells us his gut instinct is that Tullio is going to be fine, I put aside any thought of his being brain-damaged. In fact, I think he'll end up as a brain surgeon. Not Tiberio, though. He still thinks Tullio may have some problems. But then he's one of nature's worriers. Oona pauses, before reflecting: "There's no doubt, though, that many profoundly disabled children fill their parents with immeasurable pride and joy. We'll just have to wait and see. On October 30, Tullio was finally allowed to go to the family home in Mile End, East London, his crib installed in his parents" bedroom. So how is the family adjusting to the new arrival? Elia isn't the only one who has been thrown off-kilter by his new sibling. Kaia has started creeping back into her parents" bed at night. And Ariel, who had been fully potty-trained by September, needed nappies again. Tiberio, 51, says: "That's stopped now but, at some fundamental level, Tullio's arrival must have affected her. This was a cry for attention. Some may feel it's unfair to bring a biological child into their family for precisely these reasons, that it might make the adopted children might feel displaced or inferior. But Oona insists not. "The thought that a "genetic" child might reduce their worth has made me love my adopted children all the more." She also admits that she has "felt like I was being unfaithful to my other children" and so has made more of an effort to reassure them. "Tullio's existence, strangely, has made me feel even more fiercely protective towards my adopted children," she says. Most of the world seems to think blood is thicker than water but, for me, the opposite seems true: love is more important than genetics. I love all my children to distraction. Tiberio is similarly insistent. There's no question in my mind. Tullio isn't my first child; he's my fourth," he says. The fact that he's biologically the only one who's ours simply doesn't come into it. Nor does the fact he looks a little bit like me make me love him more than the others. Caring for Tullio has brought other challenges. "This is the first time I've had to look after a newborn baby and I'm beyond shattered," Oona admits. Having said that, when you adopt a toddler, it's harder in some ways. Tullio isn't a traumatised, adopted kid who'd been removed from the only "parents" he'd ever known and given to a couple of strangers. However, he does suffer from terrible reflux which means he'll bring his food up if you don't keep him upright. That basically means sitting up all night. When I changed the photo on my phone, my adopted son said: 'you've abandoned us. You swapped our picture for his. It felt like a dagger in my heart. Originally, Oona planned to go back to her job as a diversity executive at Channel 4 after six months. But I'm freelance so I only get paid if I go into work. I'll soon be doing two short days a week, when I'll also take Tullio into the House of Lords when I have to vote. We have a weekday nanny to help with the baby and collecting the kids from school. The funny thing is that you have to stay with any adopted child for a year before you return to work. Those are the rules. But, with a biological child, anything goes. And what of the future for Oona's family? Ten of their fertilised eggs remain in the freezer. Will they be tempted to use them? It's even harder for me to discard them now because, for all the problems we've had, Tullio exists. But trying again would be like playing Russian roulette. And what about her husband? When the subject of the remaining embryos came up, Tiberio said they're going straight in the bin. He says we have enough children, but I was begging him to have just one more," Oona says. If I were married to another man willing to give it a try, I'd do it. But I'm not and that's the end of it. Or is it? Just the other day, the troubled mother of one of their adopted children gave birth again. Oona and Tiberio were asked by the social worker if they'd consider adopting the child. "My instinctive reaction was yes," says Oona. And Tiberio? "He said: "Over my dead body."" When asked if her family is now complete, Oona smiles. Oh, I'd never say that. I'd like to adopt an older child one day when Tullio is, say, eight. I have my miracle baby. It's time to start counting my blessings.