Louise Thompson says she is ‘grieving’ not being able to carry another child, following a traumatic birth, but is hopeful to welcome a second child, via surrogacy
Louise is exploring surrogacy and IVF to welcome another child(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Louise Thompson is planning to welcome a second child via surrogacy. The former Made In Chelsea star says she feels as though she is “grieving” due to not being able to carry another child following the birth of her son, Leo.
Despite Leo’s traumatic birth, Louise and her partner Ryan Libbey are keen to expand their family. However, the route to surrogacy has brought up mixed emotions with the reality star saying she finds it difficult to process that she might not carry her future child.
Now, though, Louise and Ryan are looking towards welcoming a second child via surrogacy in order to give their son, four, a sibling. The cost for their IVF journey would total around £50,000.
During Leo’s birth, via an emergency caesarean, Louise, 36, almost died. She lost three-and-a-half litres of blood, and the source of the bleeding was later confirmed to be from a tear in Louise’s womb. She underwent a three-hour operation to stop a haemorrhage, but Louise was awake and not under general anaesthetic.
Louise has been extremely open about suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and post-natal anxiety due to the complications she faced. She was later diagnosed with Lupus, Asherman’s syndrome, as well as suffering from a second haemorrhage and has a stoma bag.
Speaking about her plans to welcome a second child, Louise said: “Surrogacy is a miracle. I genuinely believe that. It is also likely to cost me over £50,000+ with all the rounds of IVF included, which is its own kind of grief, and it means that my path to motherhood will always be wonderfully, painfully different.”
She added: “I will never feel a baby kick inside me. I will never feel that particular heaviness where you can’t breathe properly or lie on your side… The kind that makes you slow down and order maternity leggings and lie on sprawl on the sofa with complete permission.
“Nobody will walk toward me in the street and clock my bump. Nobody will say ‘congratulations’ without being told. I will never see a heartbeat flickering on a screen inside my own body. I’ll never be able to use ‘I’m growing a human’ as a completely valid excuse for being tired.”
An emotional Louise continued: “Instead, there could be an embryo transfer. And then, nine months later, a baby. It is extraordinary. It is also very removed from the version of motherhood that seems to be everywhere I look right now. As someone who is very traditional, I find it irritating. Especially because I didn’t do ANYTHING wrong. I also hate that I can’t just leave things up to fate and adopt the ‘let’s see what happens’ approach.
“Yes, I’m a control freak in many areas of my life, but I never intended to have this level of control over fertility. I’m not like some mothers who time a shag in December so their child can be born in September (beginning of the school year), apparently giving them an unfair advantage…. according to Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers. So, why I’m writing this. I’m writing it because I suspect I’m not the only one. Not the only person who has ever felt a complicated tug in their chest while scrolling through a feed full of scan photos and baby announcements. Not the only one who smiles and means it, and then puts down their phone and just sits quietly for a moment.
“Grief doesn’t always look like weeping. Sometimes it looks like pausing on someone else’s joy and noticing the shape of what’s missing in your own life. That is allowed. It doesn’t make you jealous, bitter, or small. It makes you human. Things worth remembering. You can be genuinely happy for someone and also grieve your own circumstances at the same time. Neither cancels the other out.
“Our brains are wired to surface painful memories first… It’s a protection mechanism, not a punishment. The good memories are usually still there, waiting for you to reconnect with them when you’re ready. Now I’ve refamiliarised myself with almost all my memories, I feel like I’m a good mesh of new and old Louise and not this alien ‘new Louise’ anymore, who was sometimes a little unrecognisable to friends and family.
“Moving forward fast isn’t the same as healing. Sometimes we bypass the grief entirely because there isn’t time or space for it… and that’s okay, until it isn’t. There are forms of loss that come with no ceremony…no scan photo, no bump, no public announcement. That doesn’t make them less real or less worthy of being felt.
“If social media feels heavy right now, that’s information, not weakness. You’re allowed to put the phone down. You’re allowed to protect yourself. Choosing a different path to parenthood, whether that’s surrogacy, adoption, or fostering, is not a consolation prize. But it is okay to grieve the path you didn’t get to walk.
“I don’t know exactly where I’m going with all of this yet. But I wanted to say it out loud and on a Sunday after Leo has gone to bed, when things tend to feel a little slower and a little more honest, because I think naming this problem matters. For me, and maybe for someone else reading this who has been carrying the same quiet thing.
“You don’t have to be fine about everything. You’re allowed to feel the loss and still show up with hope. Let’s be honest, nobody plans for the detours. But somewhere along the way, I’ve come to believe that it’s exactly those unexpected routes that tend to make us into someone worth knowing.”
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