Christmas is just around the corner and they still have thousands on their credit card from failed IVF treatments, but proud parents Claire and Mark Davies are relishing their first festive season with their very own tiny angel.

The couple, from Wheatley, spent £40,000 on fertility treatment, endured three surrogacy attempts and three miscarriages over seven years, before their daughter Francesca Patience amazed everyone by being conceived naturally. The treasured tot was born in July this year.

Mrs Davies, a former teacher at Wheatley Primary School, said: ”This Christmas will be absolutely magical. We have the baby we always longed for and on top of that we are having her christened at the end of December. It will be perfect.”

Doctors told Claire and Mark, both 38, that their chances of conceiving naturally were slim.

Mrs Davies was diagnosed with kidney disease as a teenager and during her first job as a teacher at Rose Hill First School she found out her kidneys were dying.

After four years of dialysis, her mum, Carole Newman, 63, and also from Wheatley, volunteered to be a living donor. On April 19, 1998, the transplant took place at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital.

But even though Mrs Davies' life was transformed by the surgery, her heart-ache was not over — doctors revealed years of disease had made it unlikely she would conceive.

IVF was suggested and they underwent their first cycle of treatment in May 2003.

Mr Davies said: “To be told it hadn't worked was totally crushing.”

After two further unsuccessful courses of IVF, the couple registered with a surrogacy agency and used embryos left over from their failed IVF attempts.

They met their first surrogate mother through the organisation Surrogacy UK and the embryos were planted in April 2005. But the first attempt was unsuccessful.

Then Claire's sister Lucy volunteered to be a surrogate and was implanted with embryos three times.

Mrs Davies said: "On two occasions she became pregnant. But Lucy miscarried at six and seven weeks."

Devastated and exhausted, Claire and Mark attended an adoption course in October 2007 and booked a holiday.

It was then that their patience finally paid off.

Mrs Davies said: "I'd noticed my period was two days late, but by then we'd given up on conceiving naturally.

"I did a test and got in the shower. Then Mark came in and said it was positive — we just couldn't believe it. The debt's not important now — only our little girl matters."

The couple will be spending Christmas morning at home, unwrapping their daughter’s first Christmas gifts before getting together with family.

Mrs Davies said: "I'm so thankful to my mum. She's given me two lives — my own, when she gave me her kidney, and the health I needed to have Patience.

“This Christmas will be extra wonderful for us all.”