Woman had a baby with her gay best friend for £8 – using a £3 syringe and a Morrisons Tupperware

The plan to start a family was formed on a drunken night out, but there was one catch – the pair wouldn’t have sex.

A woman revealed how she had a baby with her gay best friend – using a £3 syringe she bought off Amazon.

When pals Kerry Allen and Ali Thomson found themselves single and both desperate to be parents, they formed a plan on a drunken night out to have a child together.

But, there was one major catch – they wouldn’t have sex.

The syringe and Tupperware used by Ali and Kerry to conceive (PA Photo)

So they researched artificial insemination options. Then, after ordering a plastic medical syringe and using the ‘turkey baster method’ – where sperm is put directly into the vagina – at home, discovered Kerry, 29, was pregnant.

But tragedy struck at just 19 weeks when, in May 2017, the pair were told their baby boy Elijah’s heart had stopped beating, meaning Kerry had to give birth to the stillborn infant.

Now though, they are overjoyed to have welcomed a baby girl, Lanah, who was born on May 23 this year.

Adorable baby Lanah, aged 11 weeks (PA Photo)

Kerry, who shares a three-bed home in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland with Ali, 27, and their tot, smiled: “Being parents was something we had both wanted for so long, and seeing Lanah for the first time, I felt completely full of love.

“I would never have thought it would cost us just £8 to bring us so much joy. Using just a cheap syringe from the internet and a Tupperware from Morrison’s, we have an amazing baby.

“People do ask me, ‘Don’t you just wish Ali was straight?’ But I don’t. Neither of us have ever had any sort of romantic feelings for each other and we wouldn’t have the relationship we have now if he was.”

Singletons Ali, a barman, and Kerry, who worked in Burger King until her pregnancy, say they “just clicked” six years ago when they met working in the fast food restaurant – and have been best friends ever since.

He provided support for her, as she’d just come out of an “unhealthy” relationship. But their partnership was strictly platonic.

“Ali is a good-looking guy, but I never fancied him,” said Kerry. “That wasn’t what it was about.”

Ali and Kerry back in 2016 (PA Photo)

The best friends moved in together in 2014 and a year later, during a drunken night out, Kerry had a light-bulb moment.

She continued: “I’d always wanted to be a mum and felt the time was right.

“The only thing was, I wasn’t in a relationship and didn’t feel ready to be in one for a long time as I have been hurt before. Feeling broody, when I looked at Ali, I knew he would make a perfect dad. He was kind, funny and had said he would love to be a father one day too, so why not do it together?”

Steeled by a few glasses of wine, Kerry asked Ali what he thought about having a baby with her.

“I said, ‘Shall we have a baby together?’,” she recalled. “I think he was a bit shocked at first. He probably wondered what I was propositioning him for, but then, after thinking about it, he agreed.”

The morning after, Kerry asked Ali if he was still interested in her plan – and he was.

Ali and Kerry in 2016, a month before they started trying for a baby (PA Photo)

Straightaway the pair started researching how they could get pregnant without having sex.

“Sex was never an option for us. I don’t have the parts Ali likes, and neither of us see each other that way,” said Kerry.

“I did research on IVF but the process was shockingly expensive.”

Lanah at the 20 week scan (PA Photo)

They then found the ‘turkey baster method’ which sounded like the best, cheapest and easiest type of artificial insemination to suit their needs.

At home, Ali would collect his sperm in a medical syringe, which Kerry would then insert into her vagina and inject its contents before letting nature take its course.

After ordering the £3 syringe from Amazon and a £5 Tupperware box from Morrisons, for Ali to collect his sperm in, the pair chose a quiet night in October 2016 to start trying.

PA Photo

Kerry explained: “Ali did his thing, he left the syringe in my bedroom for me to collect before I did my ‘thing’.

“We did it all very separately and privately, and afterwards I laid on my bed with my legs propped up against the headboard for an hour and a half, as that can help with conception.”

Three months later, on their fourth attempt, they were delighted to discover Kerry was expecting.

The syringe used by Ali and Kerry to conceive (PA Photo)

But in May 2017, tragedy struck at just 19 weeks when, at a private scan during which they’d planned to find out the sex, the pair were told their baby boy’s heart had stopped beating.

Kerry had to give birth to their stillborn son, named Elijah, with Ali by her side.

Kerry said: “We were both heartbroken, as all our dreams of becoming parents felt like they were over, but fortunately we were supported by the Scottish charity SiMBA, who help people who have lost a child during pregnancy. We have had counselling online with the charity, which has helped us get through the devastating time.”

Despite their grief, the pair were determined to fulfil their wish to start a family, now even more sure they wanted to be parents together.

Last August, they decided to try for a baby for a second time – using the same £3 syringe as before, which they had kept on the bathroom shelf, and just sterilised.

And incredibly, Kerry fell pregnant straightaway.

Lanah aged two months old (PA Photo)

“I almost didn’t believe it was true,” she said.

“We had been left so devastated after losing Elijah that I never thought it would be possible again – but there they were, those two magic lines on the test.”

Throughout her pregnancy, Ali doted on Kerry, making her dinner and running baths to ease her aching body.

PA Photo

Kerry explained: “He was the perfect partner to go through it all with. And as my bump started to show, people did think we were a couple and congratulated us on expecting. We never hid anything. We just smiled and explained we weren’t a couple, Ali was gay, but we were having a baby together.”

At the 16-week scan, Kerry who is originally from Livingston, and Ali from Balerno, both near Edinburgh, Scotland, found out they were expecting a baby girl.

Kerry became fearful their daughter might arrive on May 20, the anniversary of Elijah’s stillbirth, but, on May 23 – two days overdue and after a five-hour labour – she gave birth to 6lb 11oz Lanah Allen-Thomson with Ali by her side again.

Ali and his new baby daughter, Lanah (PA Photo)

“She was just so perfect,” Kerry recalled. “The way Ali looked at her made me realise everything we had done was so right. And she is the spitting-image of her dad, too!”

Now three months old and living together in their three-bedroom home with separate bedrooms, Kerry says Ali is the perfect ‘other half’, changing nappies and sharing the gruelling night feeds.

Kerry smiled: “Lanah is a real daddy’s girl. She adores her dad, and so do I. We are both so lucky we met each other and decided to have a baby. It’s the best thing I have ever done. “

Ali and Kerry in 2016 (PA Photo)

Worried at first about people’s reactions, Kerry and Ali say the support they have had from family and friends has been nothing short of amazing.

“My mum cried and said she never thought I would give her a grandchild,” Ali said.

“Kerry’s mum was shocked but so happy, and now they are doting grandparents.”

PA Photo

And as for the future, Kerry, who says she has no interest in being in a new relationship, knows Ali, who has not dated for four years, will probably meet someone else and move out one day. But they do not want any more children, because of the trauma of losing Elijah.

She explained: “I know Ali will find someone, and I hope he does. But they will have to accept that Lanah and I will always come first. And we’ll explain to Lanah when she is older that we don’t have the most traditional set-up, but Mummy and Daddy love her so very much.”

Ali added: “The most important thing is that a baby is loved, and Lanah truly is.”

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Tzeela Gez was on her way to the hospital to bring new life into this world when hers was suddenly cut short.

As her husband drove their car through the winding roads of the occupied West Bank late Wednesday, a Palestinian attacker shot at them. Within hours, Gez, nine months pregnant, was dead. Doctors barely saved the life of the baby, who is in serious but stable condition.

Israel says it is trying to prevent such attacks by waging a monthslong crackdown on West Bank militants that intensified earlier this year. But the escalating offensive, which has killed hundreds of Palestinians over 19 months, displaced tens of thousands and caused widespread destruction, has ultimately not snuffed out attacks.

And the latest bloodshed is only likely to fuel a cycle of violence that has persisted for decades between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel has pledged to find the attacker, who fled the scene, and the military chief of staff, who visited the area Thursday, told troops that the broader operation would continue alongside the manhunt.

"We will use all the tools at our disposal and reach the murderers in order to hold them accountable,” Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said, according to a statement from the military, which said it had sealed Palestinian villages in the area of the attack and set up checkpoints.

The shooting, especially because the victim was a pregnant mother with three other children, has the potential to ignite vigilante violence against Palestinians by radical Jewish settlers. They regularly storm Palestinian towns and villages, burning and damaging property, in response to such attacks. Marauding settlers are rarely held to account for their actions and Palestinians are left to pick up the pieces of the destruction with little recourse to compensation or assistance from Israeli authorities.

Gez, 37, and her husband Hananel, were residents of Bruchin, a settlement of some 2,900 in the northern West Bank. She worked as a therapist and on her Facebook page, shared developments in her professional life as well as her thoughts on the war in Gaza, the fallen Israeli soldiers and the hostages still held by Hamas. Meital Ben Yosef, head of the settlement's local council, told Israeli Army radio that Gez was “all mother. A mother in her essence.”

“A couple of parents were driving to the happiest moment that a parent can experience and the wife is killed on the way. It’s a horrific incident,” she said.

Photos of the car released by the military showed a bullet hole on the passenger side of the windshield and a streak of blood on a back door. Soldiers searched the rugged brush on the sides of the road following the attack, according to video released by the Israeli military.

Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, praised the attack as “heroic” in a video statement Wednesday but stopped short of saying the militant group was behind it.

On Thursday, military checkpoints slowed down traffic on roads in the vicinity of the attack, and many Palestinian motorists were at a standstill as they tried to make their journeys, according to video shared on social media.

The attack sparked outrage and calls for revenge.

“Just as we are flattening Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza, we must flatten the nests of terror in Judea and Samaria,” wrote the Israeli finance minister and a settler firebrand, Bezalel Smotrich, in a post on X, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.

The violence in the West Bank escalated when the war in Gaza erupted with Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. Israel has staged frequent raids in the territory, especially but not limited to its north, using ground and air power in violence that has killed many militants but also other Palestinians, some of them throwing rocks to protest the incursions as well as others not involved in confrontations.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said its forces killed five militants in a raid that appeared unrelated to Gez's killing. Hamas mourned the men as “resistance heroes” but stopped short of claiming them as its fighters.

Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, all territories the Palestinians seek for a future independent state. Around 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in about 130 settlements scattered across the West Bank.

Much of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to Palestinian statehood. Israel views the West Bank as its biblical heartland and believes the fate of the settlements should be determined in peace negotiations, which have been moribund for some 15 years.

Israel says much of the Palestinian militancy in the West Bank is fueled by Iran and views the fighting there as part of its ongoing multifront wars to secure its borders and prevent a second Oct. 7-style attack.

Associated Press writers Jalal Bwaitel in Ramallah, West Bank, and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Mourners react next to the body of Tzeela Gez, 37, an Israeli who was on her way to have her baby delivered when she was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank, during her funeral at Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Mourners react during the funeral of Tzeela Gez, 37, an Israeli who was on her way to have her baby delivered when she was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank, at Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Mourners carry the body of Tzeela Gez, 37, an Israeli who was on her way to have her baby delivered when she was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank, during her funeral at Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israeli settlers look towards their neighboring village the morning after a Palestinian gunman killed Tzeela Gez, who was on her way to the hospital to give birth, outside of the West Bank settlement of Bruchin, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Young Israeli settlers sit outside of the West Bank settlement of Bruchin, the morning after a Palestinian gunman killed Tzeela Gez, who was on her way to the hospital to give birth, outside of the settlement, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Israeli soldiers search a Palestinian village next to the West Bank settlement of Bruchin, the morning after a Palestinian gunman killed Tzeela Gez, who was on her way to the hospital to give birth, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)