On November 2, Julie Loving gave birth to a healthy baby girl in a hospital in Illinois, assisted by her daughter Breanna Lockwood.
A 51-year-old woman gave birth to her granddaughter while acting as the gestational surrogate for her daughter and son-in-law. On November 2, 2020, Julie Loving gave birth to a healthy baby girl in a hospital in Illinois while her daughter Breanna Lockwood was by her side. Currently, the entire family is enjoying their new addition. Breanna and her husband Aaron’s first child, Briar Juliette Lockwood, is the resolution to their long quest to become parents. Regarding the birth of her daughter, Lockwood said on Good Morning America, “It was definitely a surreal process,” Lockwood told Good Morning America about her daughter’s birth. “All the feelings came at once, just watching my mom go through everything and all she’s done for me and is continuing to do.”
Regarding the birth of her daughter, Lockwood said on Good Morning America, “It was definitely a surreal process,” Lockwood told Good Morning America about her daughter’s birth. “All the feelings came at once, just watching my mom go through everything and all she’s done for me and is continuing to do.”
Lockwood and Aaron started trying to conceive soon after getting married in 2016, as they really wanted Lockwood’s terminally ill grandfather to meet his grandchild. The Lockwoods started seeing a fertility specialist, though, after a year of trying naturally without success. The couple experienced numerous rounds of treatments, surgeries, and miscarriages over the course of the following two years, including a pregnancy with twins. At this point, Lockwood’s fertility specialist advised surrogacy as possibly being their best choice.
Despite Lockwood’s healthy embryos, surrogacy would be the best option for the couple because her uterus could not support a pregnancy. The Illinois woman, 29, who was struggling with infertility said, “Struggling with infertility was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” said the 29-year-old from Illinois. “When you have a plan for your life and then something like infertility gets in the way, I felt like I couldn’t see what I pictured anymore, that it could be taken away from me.” Since finding a surrogate through an agency could cost the couple over $100,000, Lockwood’s doctor, Brian Kaplan of Fertility Centers of Illinois, advised finding a family member or friend to act as her surrogate.
However, when Loving offered to be the surrogate, both Kaplan and Lockwood at first had doubts. “I’ve run 19 marathons and done many triathlons,” said Loving. “I felt like health-wise I could do it and I had really easy pregnancies with my two kids. Once she had the miscarriage with the twins I started to talk to her about it. She was not on board and thought I was crazy, but I just kept pursuing it.” Everything changed when she first accompanied her daughter to a Kaplan appointment a few months ago. As Lockwood recalled, “my mom came with me as my support person and she brought up that she wanted to carry.”
“When he met her I could tell that he was really starting to think about it as a possibility, but he didn’t tell us yes right away. There were a lot of hoops we had to jump through to make it possible.” Kaplan revealed that he remembers looking at Loving and thinking, “How can I look these women in the eye and say, ‘You’re not healthy.’ You’re healthier than everybody here.” Although Loving’s pregnancy was fairly uneventful, giving birth to her granddaughter was a little difficult. After being induced about 10 days before her due date, she gave birth to Briar but needed an emergency C-section because of problems with the umbilical cord.
The mother of two underwent a C-section for the birth of Briar. The birth “definitely rocked her, but she did a great job,” according to Lockwood. “She definitely rocked the pregnancy and the birth rocked her a little bit, but she did a great job,” said Lockwood. “It was a super emotional day with lots of tears and lots of happy times and some scary times but our doctors and team were great.”
Loving documented her pregnancy in a baby book for her granddaughter to one day show Briar all the love and dedication that brought her into this world. “We’re going to be really open with her at a really young age and tell her when we feel like she can understand,” she said. “And just tell her the truth.”