A 51-year-old Illinois woman has given birth to her own granddaughter.
Julie Loving agreed this year to be the “gestational mother” for her daughter, who could not carry a pregnancy herself — and on Nov. 2, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Good Morning America reported.
“My mom was an absolute rockstar through a difficult delivery,” Loving’s daughter, Breanna Lockwood wrote in a post announcing the birth of little Briar Juliette.
“The sacrifices she took to bring this little slice of heaven into our world takes my breath away.”
It was Loving who broached the idea of being the surrogate to Breanna and her husband, Aaron.
“I started to talk to her about it. She was not on board and thought I was crazy, but I just kept pursuing it,” Loving told GMA.
“I’ve run 19 marathons and done many triathlons,” she explained. “I felt like health-wise I could do it and I had really easy pregnancies with my two kids.”
Lockwood said her mother saved her from the heartbreak of infertility.
“Struggling with infertility was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” Lockwood told the show.
“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.”
Lockwood and her mother shared their journey on Instagram, documenting the entire and sometimes difficult journey. On November 2, the entire Loving gave birth to Briar Juliette Lockwood, her own granddaughter.
“Holding my daughter in my arms my heart is bursting,” Lockwood wrote on Instagram.
“The feeling of how I would do absolutely anything needed for this child is radiating through me when I look at her, and reflects back on what my mom did for me.”
Briar Julliette will not be kept in the dark about her amazing birth story, her delighted mother said, promising to be “really open with her at a really young age and tell her when we feel like she can understand … And just tell her the truth.”