A 23-year-old Russian woman has become a mother of 11 in just 10 months time, after turning to surrogates in order to have as many babies as possible, as quickly as possible.

Christina Ozturk only gave birth once, at the age of 17, when she had her first daughter Vika, but after marrying millionaire husband Galip Ozturk, 56, she was keen on building a big family with him, so she turned to surrogate mothers to have 10 babies in just 10 months. The couple’s first child together, Mustafa, was born in March of last year, while their most recent addition to the family and tenth child together, Olivia, was born last month. Christina and Galip don’t know how many children they’ll end up having together, but they definitely don’t plan on stopping at 10.

Photo: Christian Bowen/Unsplash

“I gave birth to my eldest daughter Vika myself six years ago. The rest of the children are genetically ours from my husband and I, but were carried by surrogates,” Christina said. “At the moment, I have 10 children with the latest addition, Olivia, who arrived at the end of last month.”

The young mother met her husband while vacationing in the Georgian seaside city of Batumi, also known as the Las Vegas of the Black Sea. She described meeting Galip on her first day there as love at first sight, and calls him “a mentor, guide and fairytale prince all rolled into one”.

56-year-old Galip Ozturk, a transport and property magnate, originally from Turkey, said that Christina was the kind of wife he always wanted, a “diamond in the rough” with a “pure, kind” heart. Despite being a lot older than her and having adult children of his own, Galip agreed to start a large family with Christina.

Originally, the couple decided to have a baby every year, but soon realized that her reproductive ability may not be up to the task. Luckily, they live in a country where surrogacy has been legal since 1997, for married couples. They turned to a clinic an agreed to pay almost $10,000 per pregnancy, in order to go from one child to eleven, in less than a year.

“The clinic in Batumi chooses surrogate mothers for us and takes full responsibility for the process,” the Russian woman said. “We are not personally acquainted with surrogate mothers and do not have direct contacts with them in order to avoid problems after pregnancy. All communication takes place through the clinic, we only monitor health indicators, I make up a dietary menu for mothers so that the food is complete, I look at the test results.”

The process has not been completely smooth, as Ozturk revealed that one of the surrogates wanted to keep the baby as her own. Because the child was genetically Christina’s and Galip’s, the woman who brought it to term for financial compensation had no right over it, and was forced to hand it over as per the contract.

Although the Ozturks have not ruled out the possibility of having children together the old fashioned way, they claim that the option simply isn’t very practical at the moment, especially with so many children to take care of. They may also turn to surrogates again. Media reported that the couple planned to have a total of 105 children, but they later clarified that it was just a random number they came up with.

“We just not ready to talk about the final number. Everything has its time,” Christina said when asked how many children she plans to have in total.

Christina Ozturk documents her life as a young mother of 11 children, on Instagram, where she posts with the handle @batumi_mama.