Medical ‘Firsts’ Celebrate Their First Birthday : Childbirth: South Dakota woman bears a boy and a girl after serving as nine-month host to embryo created by her daughter and son-in-law.

Lurching forward on tiny legs, Chad Uchytil explores his living room while his twin sister, Chelsea, wails from a nearby bedroom to announce that she has awakened from her nap.

It’s an ordinary scene involving two extraordinary children, born a year ago Oct.12 from their grandmother’s womb.

“It is a love story of the grandest kind,” said Arlette Schweitzer, 43, the first American woman to act as surrogate mother for embryos created by her daughter and son-in-law. “We sometimes say, ‘Can you believe we pulled it off?’ ”

Christa Uchytil was born without a uterus, making it impossible for her to bear children. Eggs were taken from her ovaries, fertilized with her husband’s sperm and implanted in her mother’s womb.

“Maybe it was our miracle,” Christa Uchytil said, watching her son waddle across the living room. “But I truly believe that all births are miracles.”

Schweitzer and her 23-year-old daughter agreed that the surrogate experience worked for them because they are a close family.

“It’ll turn out OK if they’re close,” Uchytil said. “But it’s not for everybody.”

Since the pregnancy was disclosed, the media glare hasn’t dimmed. The family is negotiating with producers to make a television movie, tentatively to air on Mother’s Day.

“They assured us they would not fictionalize the story,” Schweitzer said. “We’ve just tried to be so cautious about not sensationalizing this.”

Schweitzer is writing a book and already wrote an article for Ladies Home Journal. The family also made an exclusive photo deal with People magazine for pictures of the birthday twins.

Otherwise, things have settled back to normal.

Christa is considering an eventual return to work as a counselor for troubled youth. Her husband, Kevin, works as a grocery store manager.

Other than asking how the babies are doing, friends and neighbors don’t pepper the family with questions much anymore, Uchytil said.

Some medical ethicists had warned that it could cause confusion about whether Schweitzer is the twins’ mother or grandmother. But Uchytil said her mother isn’t any more attached to the twins than to her other grandchildren.

“Biologically, she’s not their mother,” Uchytil said.

The method of their birth shouldn’t cause any problems for the twins, Uchytil said.

“They’re just always going to know that I didn’t carry them,” she said. “We’ll never keep it from them. In our family, it was just a natural thing to do.”

But they don’t plan to repeat the experience. The Uchytils are happy with two children, and the family is unsure if Schweitzer could or would tolerate another multiple pregnancy--favored by the odds in such cases.

They are content with what they have accomplished, Schweitzer said.

“In some ways,” she said, “I feel like an astronaut that went to the moon and my feet still aren’t on the ground.”