A MOTHER'S AMAZING GIFT - At 51, Julie Loving becomes her daughter's surrogate

AFTER YEARS OF STRUGGLING WITH INFERTILITY, BREANNA LOCKWOOD THOUGHT SHE’D NEVER HAVE A CHILD. THEN HER MUM STEPPED UP – AND GAVE BIRTH TO A HEALTHY BABY GIRL

- BREANNA LOVING; RACHEL VANOVEN; RACHEL LANGLOIS

After three miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy and four failed embryo transfers, Breanna Lockwood had almost given up on becoming a mum. “It felt like my dreams were over,” says Lockwood, 29. And by November 2018, when she lost a set of twins in her third miscarriage, her grief was nearly insurmountable. “I was mourning the loss of my babies, but also possibly any future children,” she says. “I didn’t get out of bed for days, trying to accept this new reality.”

For Lockwood’s own mum, Julie Loving, watching her daughter struggle was equally heartbreaking. “Seeing your daughter so sad for four years, it affects you,” she says. So when 51-year-old Loving accompanied Lockwood to a fertility appointment in August 2019 – knowing the doctor had already suggested surrogacy – she proposed an idea she’d been considering for months: “I said, ‘Let me be your surrogate,’” she recalls.

Which is how Loving, her husband, Rick, and Lockwood (Lockwood’s husband Aaron wasn’t allowed in due to COVID-19 restrictions) all came to be in a delivery room at AMITA Health St Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee, Illinois, on November 2, watching Loving give birth to her own granddaughter – a 3.2kg healthy little girl called Briar Juliette. “She was so tiny and perfect,” marvels Lockwood. “I’d dreamed for so long what she would be like, and the moment was finally here.”

As a nurse handed Lockwood her daughter for the first time, there wasn’t a dry eye in the delivery room. “In medicine, there are always situations that are exceptional,” says Dr Brian Kaplan, the family’s fertility specialist. “And this was an exceptional scenario.”