by Akintomiwa Agbaje

For many 28-year-olds, the idea of starting a family can be a daunting prospect.

But one woman has embraced her matriarchal role with open arms, after welcoming her first great-grandchild into the family.

Kelly Baker from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, took on three step-children and their nine offspring when she married 68-year-old Bob in 2010.

But the 28-year-old couldn’t be happier with their budding family, despite her husband being more than a decade older than both her parents and her eldest grandchild just three years her junior.

Daily Mail reports:

‘It’s so wonderful having a baby in the family,’ says Mrs Baker, who has resigned hopes of children of her own. 

Kelly, whose friends tried to warn her off grandfather Bob when they first met, loves grandchildren, Chanice, Amber, Warren, Chloe, Toby, Kamran, Arran, Jade and Tahra like her own. 

Baby Layla who is just five-months-old is the first great-grandchild in the family.

‘I feel like they’re my own family, we spoil them rotten,’ she told the Daily Mirror. 

The couple who work together as cleaners met when Kelly was just 21, after the pensioner stopped seeing one of her friends who was also in her twenties. 

Having endured the harsh criticisms of friends and families, Bob proposed after four years of dating.

While Mrs Baker has given up on the idea of having their own children, father-of-nine husband Bob insists ‘never say never,’ though admits the family is ‘quite large enough.’ 

Mrs Baker describes meeting her spouse’s three children, the youngest of whom is ten years older than she, as one of the hardest things about their relationship. 

‘But once they had gotten to know me they were very accepting and we’ve since become close’. 

All 13 family members will spend Christmas together in a local pub for a ‘huge dinner’, the couple say. 

And though naysayers sometimes hurt her feelings with ‘snide comments’, Kelly insists she has proved ‘everyone’ wrong with her marriage that is as happy as she could hope for.