Breanna Lockwood, 29, and her husband, Aaron, are expecting their first child in November. And when their daughter is born, Breanna’s 51-year-old mother, Julie Loving, will give birth.
The little girl will be Breanna and Aaron’s biological daughter. Loving is acting as her daughter’s gestational carrier.
“MY MAMA is carrying her GRANDCHILD.”
Almost as soon as Breanna and Aaron married in 2016, they began trying to conceive. After they were unsuccessful, they sought help from a fertility specialist.
The couple went through several rounds of in vitro fertilization, surgeries, and miscarriages before Breanna’s doctor suggested surrogacy.
“Struggling with infertility was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” she told Good Morning America. “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.”
Breanna, who lives in Chicago, wasn’t the one to suggest that her mother carry her child. It was all Loving.
“I’ve run 19 marathons and done many triathlons,” Loving said. “I felt like health-wise I could do it and I had really easy pregnancies with my two kids.”
Loving brought the idea up to her daughter after Breanna miscarried twins, and her 29-year-old daughter wasn’t on board with the idea.
It wasn’t until Loving accompanied Breanna to an appointment that she and her doctor started to believe Loving could be a surrogate.
Following Breanna’s appointment, Loving began seeing a number of specialists to see if she would be able to be a gestational carrier.
After years of disappointment and countless tests and appointments, the mother and daughter underwent an embryo transfer in February.
They held their breath and in March they learned Loving was pregnant.
“Even when we got the positive pregnancy test result we couldn’t jump for joy yet because we’d had so many losses and so much trauma,” Breanna said. “Just now, halfway through the pregnancy, we’re starting to get excited and shop and plan.”
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Since they learned of the pregnancy about a week before COVID-19 restrictions were put in place, Loving took a leave of absence from her job at a grocery store.
Breanna has been able to attend most of her mother’s appointments, though she says for some of them she has to “really beg,” and since Aaron isn’t allowed they record everything on their phone for him.
Loving, who is due November 12, said the family plans to tell her granddaughter her unique story when she’s young, but old enough to understand.
“The biggest supporter in my life is giving us our biggest blessing. My beautiful mama is carrying her first grandchild, Aaron and my biological child, as a gestational carrier!” Breanna wrote on Instagram.
Congratulations! What an honor for Julie to carry her grandchild, and what a special moment for Breanna to have her mother carry her first child.
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