9 babies in just 10 years for supermum who was permanently pregnant

Tonia Farrant, 40, has spent 87 months pregnant, that’s over seven years. Her eldest child is 12 and the youngest is two

A bouncy baby with maybe a brother or sister for company sounds like the usual family plan, but what happens when you don’t stop at two, three or four – but nine children?

Supermum Tonia Farrant, 40, knows as she has spent 87 months pregnant, that’s over seven years. Her eldest child is 12 and the youngest is two. Given the headlines about benefit scroungers, she says she and husband Jason, 41, are often tarred with the same brush but, apart from child benefit, they have never claimed welfare.

“Most people are lovely when they find out I’ve got nine children but some immediately think I’m rough or a sponger,” says the busy stay-at-home-mum from Maidstone, Kent.

Nothing could be further from the truth. She has been happily married to hard-working carpenter Jason for 13 years. (They met at Tonia’s 21st birthday party in 1994. It took him 18 months to pluck up the courage to ask her out and they married in June 2000).

“Someone once said to Jason, ‘Well, you obviously don’t work if you’ve got nine kids ’. He was very angry,” says Tonia. “He works very hard to look after us. There aren’t many men who would work as hard and be loving, hands-on dads, too. It’s not easy always being on the go, but he’s wonderful. We make a great team.”

Jason runs his own carpentry business and they take care of their brood of seven girls and two boys without any help. “People never believe that they are all our kids. They think they’re from different marriages or fathers. When they do believe us – they think we’re at it like rabbits!”
The couple didn’t start out wanting a big family, but when Tonia miscarried with her first child at 26 – a boy called Gideon – they realised how much they loved children.

“I lost him when I was six months ­pregnant in 2000. The doctor told me there was no heartbeat and sent me home for two days. It was awful. When I went back to have him removed it was very hard because I wasn’t even allowed to see him, touch or hold him. “I couldn’t even say goodbye to my baby boy. That was a turning point for me and I didn’t ever want to go near a hospital again.”

She soon got pregnant again and on October 2, 2001 they welcomed Kerrec into the world.
They wanted their son to be born at home and opted for a natural birth in a birthing pool with an ­independent midwife on hand every step of the way. It was such a success that 12 months later, on October 14, 2002, they repeated it with baby number two, then 12 months later on October 3, 2003, with baby number three, and yet again on October 4, 2004, with baby number four.
Tonia says: “I love being pregnant, which is lucky because I was permanently ­pregnant ever since I got married!”

In fact this is the longest she has gone without being pregnant. The couple stopped after the birth of baby number nine, in January 2012, when Tonia ­developed high blood pressure.
She also miscarried a second time, the year before, in 2011, so they didn’t want to take any chances.

Eight out of the nine births were home water births with the same midwife, Virginia Howes, who has written about them in her book, The Baby’s Coming. “She has always been so supportive,” says Tonia, who had to have her last baby Tobella in hospital. “I was disappointed because I wanted all my babies born at home but, luckily, Virginia was there too.”

To cope with the pressure placed on them by their children they have a strict routine in their home, which has just four bedrooms and runs like clockwork. “We run a tight ship,” laughs Tonia, but she’s not joking when she says she has to keeps her home shipshape and Bristol fashion at all times.

“Jason and I are up at 5.30am every morning. He unloads the dishwasher and washing machine and starts making breakfast – eggs, omelettes, croissants, toast or cereal – while I shower. We start waking the children at 6.30am. By 7.30am we’re all set for school and Jason leaves for work and is back at 6pm.

“I’m a bit of a clean freak. But I have to be with 11 people in a four-bedroom house. Things need to be tidy or the house can quickly become a stinky mess.“I iron and clean every day and twice a day at the weekend. I can easily put on 16 loads of washing and use up two huge bottles of washing liquid in a week. When other parents say: ‘Oh, we’re running late again – the kids slept in.’ I think to myself – well set the alarm a little earlier. We all don’t want to but we have to. “My kids are always at school on time and picked up on time; their shoes are always polished – clean and shiny.

"We see people looking, especially when we pile out of our minibus (a £23,000 specially adapted 11-seater Citroen) and it’s lovely when they comment how well behaved our kids are and how nice they look.” The family are soon upgrading from their current property to a six-bedroom home by the sea in Greatstone, Kent.