Mark and Benita Cutter thought their chance of ever becoming parents was lost when they discovered that their surrogate mother was actually a conwoman two years ago.
Samantha Brown painted herself as the saviour who would help the Hull couple complete their family with a child of their own.
But instead, the 25-year-old spun a web of lies, attending non-existent hospital appointments and sending the couple a scan picture she found on the internet.
And as her “due date” approached, the Tain woman faked a car crash, claimed the baby was stillborn – and even sent the shattered couple a photo of their “dead” baby.
Her nasty scheme, which lasted for nearly a year, cost the pair more than £8,000 in maternity and baby clothes, travel expenses and even rent.
In February this year, Brown was handed a two-year prison term to be followed by a year of supervised release.
“Two years ago Samantha Brown almost destroyed us and our faith in humanity by faking the pregnancy of our little boy Tommie and shattering our lives,” Mrs Cutter said.
“We’d faithfully trusted her and we all but gave up hope of having a child of our own after what she did to us. Never in a million years did we think we’d ever find or us a surrogate again, it was just too painful.”
Now the couple’s lives have been completely changed, after a real surrogate gave birth to their baby son, Logan-John, last month.
Becky Harris stepped in to help the couple after reading about their tragedy and Mrs Cutter said she is a “remarkable human being”.
“She’s everything Samantha Brown could never be,” she added.
“We’ll be forever grateful for restoring our faith in humanity and giving us our beautiful son. Now we’ve seen the worst, but also the best of human nature.”
But even on the day of their baby’s birth, their thoughts turned to the son they never got to meet.
“I was feeding Logan and I turned to Mark and said: ‘We could have had all this two years ago’. Although Tommie wasn’t real, he was a real baby to us. We sat there and we cried and Mark said: ‘I never thought this was going to happen’.
“I’ve kept a memory box of Tommie, as he will always be real to us. But now we can finally move on with our lives. Earlier today, Logan woke up, looked at me and smiled, then he held my finger.
“I said to him: ‘You’ve been a long time coming Logan and I’m so happy you are finally here.”