51-year-old woman gives birth to her daughter’s baby

A 51-year-old woman who became a gestational surrogate for her daughter has given birth to her granddaughter.

On 2 November, Julie Loving, from Chicago, Illinois, gave birth to a healthy baby named Briar Juliette Lockwood, the biological first child of her daughter Breanna Lockwood and her son-in-law Aaron.

Lockwood, who has posted frequent updates about her and her husband’s infertility struggles, and the family’s eventual journey on Instagram, where she has more than 125,000 followers, shared the news with a photo of her newborn daughter.

“Welcome to the world Briar Juliette Lockwood,” the new mother wrote, before expressing her gratitude towards her own mother for carrying and delivering the child.

“My mom was an absolute rockstar through a difficult delivery,” she wrote. “The sacrifices she took to bring this little slice of heaven into our world takes my breath away. Holding my daughter in my arms my heart is bursting. 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.”

According to Lockwood, who spoke to Good Morning America after the birth, her mother was induced 10 days before her due date and had to undergo an emergency Caesarean section due to difficulties with the umbilical cord.

However, the 29-year-old told her followers that her “mom and baby Briar are doing fantastic and healthy!”

The arrival of the couple’s first child comes after Lockwood and her husband tried for years to get pregnant, with the influencer previously revealing that she underwent seven surgical procedures, numerous attempts at in-vitro fertilisation, two miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy before their doctor suggested surrogacy.

At the time, Loving had offered to be a surrogate for the couple, a request that Lockwood turned down at first due to concerns over her mother’s age.

But after Loving passed numerous tests to determine whether she would be a good candidate, both the couple and their doctors approved the 51-year-old, with an embryo transfer on 25 February proving to be successful.

In gestational surrogacy - the most common type of surrogacy - the surrogate is not biologically related to the child, as the embryo is created via IVF from eggs and sperm of the parents.

“They say: ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, but for some it can take a village to HAVE a child... “ Breanna captioned a photo of her mother, herself and Aaron posing with sonogram photos in June. “We are happy to announce, finally, ...BABY LOCKWOOD IS ON THE WAY!

“Made with a lot of love, and a little bit of science… Baby Lockwood will be brought into this world via gestational carrier, and this little miracle’s carrier is quite a special one. My mom! My mom will be carrying and delivering our baby!"

In her latest Instagram post, of herself and her newborn daughter, Lockwood said she is “just living in new mama bliss!”