Louise Thompson’s partner Ryan Libbey has admitted he has struggled to come to terms with the fact they are planning to use a surrogate to have another child.
The TV personality, 35, has been documenting her experience on social media after revealing her plans to expand her family, after almost dying while giving birth to her son Leo in 2021 following an emergency caesarean.
After Leo’s birth, Louise went on to suffer with PTSD and post-natal anxiety due to her near-death experience and has since been diagnosed with Lupus, Asherman’s syndrome, suffered a second haemorrhage, and has also had a stoma bag fitted.
The couple recently explained how they are embarking on IVF and plan to use a surrogate to add to their family.
Ryan has admitted though that it has taken him a long time to accept that Louise wants to have another child, and the fertility treatment his partner will have to endure.
Louise broke down in tears in a recent episode of their podcast He Said She Said as Ryan explained: ‘I am still struggling to accept it.
Louise Thompson’s partner Ryan Libbey said he has struggled to come to terms with the fact they are planning to use a surrogate to have another child
Ryan has admitted that it has taken him a long time to accept that Louise wants to have another child, and the fertility treatment his partner will have to endure
‘My motivation to enter this journey with fertility and surrogacy is because you were effectively robbed of being a mum to a newborn because you were so unwell.
‘Regardless of what I’m about to say next, I think that is really, really sad and unfair, and not how it should be at all for any woman.
‘That alone is enough of a reason for me to… I don’t want to say go along with because that makes it sound like I haven’t considered it, but that’s enough pull for me to say yes to the idea of IVF and surrogacy.’
He then added though that surrogacy is ‘still a really f**king bizarre thing for me and I am still struggling to accept it but that does not detract from the reason for it’.
Louise told him that ‘nothing makes me happier than hearing you say that’, because she said that it helped her to hear him open up on his thoughts as previously he would shut down any conversation about adding to their family.
She said: ‘If I tried to talk about it before, like in the car or something – I remember when we were going down to the Cotswolds – and you were like, “I don’t want any of this, I can’t do it, you’re forcing me into something I don’t want to do.”
‘I know now that you’re saying those things from a place of fear, and you’re pushing away the conversation because what you’re actually carrying is the fear that maybe we can’t make this work, because we’ve got a long journey ahead and also that you’re 50 per cent of this, and there’s a contribution from both sides.
‘It’s going to require an awful lot of work in order for us to have another baby. But I feel like we have turned a corner with it. I feel like we are now really aligned.
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Louise broke down in tears in a recent episode of their podcast He Says She Says as Ryan explained: ‘I am still struggling to accept it’
‘Surrogacy, and I don’t think we’ve really like said that out loud publicly, but that is going to be the only way that we will be able to have another baby and as you said it’s something that I think as like a man you really, really struggle to understand.’
Ryan explained though that his fears lie with the fact that Louise will be ‘voluntarily putting yourself back into’ hospital environments again.
‘When you put on a gown and have a blood test, that’s enough to send me off into a bad space,’ he admitted.
‘And then, seeing you laying in a bed after a procedure, like the egg retrieval, which is nothing compared to what you’ve previously had, still hurts me.
‘It’s a very different thing being in it yourself and then witnessing someone you love going through something like that.’
Louise got tearful as she agreed, saying: ‘It’s it’s a very different thing, isn’t it? Being in it yourself and then witnessing someone you love go through something like that.’
Taking to Instagram on Friday, Louise shared an update on her fertility journey as she announced herself and Ryan have one embryo ‘in the freezer’ after undergoing IVF.
Taking to Instagram on Friday, Louise shared an update on her fertility journey as she announced herself and Ryan have one embryo ‘in the freezer’ after undergoing IVF
Sharing the news, Louise posted a picture of a bouquet of flowers Ryan gave her with the message: ‘You did it. One in the freezer for safe keeps x.’
She captioned the picture: ‘One in the freezer for safe keepy’s. ✨ Inside that sentence is a universe. If you’ve listened to the latest episode of our podcast then you might already know what this stands for.
‘For those of you that haven’t – Ryan isn’t always comfortable communicating about this fertility stuff at home… sometimes he’ll even threaten that it’s too much for him to handle, but this bunch of flowers was all I needed to reassure me that we’re reading from the same hymn sheet. And he is VERY good at using words when it’s really needed.
‘This was NEEDED. You can imagine how much this bunch of flowers meant to me… even when exchanged in silence at the end of a very long grey working day.’
Louise continued: ‘In truth those words hold years of planning, weeks of needles (years including the biologic-jak inhabitor-biologic switch), scans, waiting rooms, clenched jaws, forced optimism, and tears, lots of tears.
‘It’s the kind of bravery nobody gives you a medal for – and why would they because we’re chosen to pay to go through this process when we could just… not. We could just accept the cards we’ve been dealt. But I don’t want our past trauma to dictate our future.
The TV personality has documented her experience after revealing her plans to expand her family, after almost dying while giving birth to her son Leo in 2021
‘For those who know this road well, it needs no explanation. Staring at wee sticks. Counting follicles like prayer beads. Tracking bloods meticulously. Learning a whole new language in the hope that it will help us edge closer to our goal.
‘By educating I thought I could control the outcome. But this isn’t predictable like other areas of my life. There is no playbook.’
Detailing their IVF journey, Louise added: ‘From our first cycle we went from seeing 20+ gooood looking follicles on the scan, to getting 8 eggs retrieved to holding onto hope that many of them would make it to day 5.
‘I did a lot of research and looked at many many stats for people in a similar situation to me (and us), but every case is SO individual and we ended up with just one. One embryo. One possibility. Not the perfect outcome. Especially with an amh averaging 25.
‘It makes me wonder if something else is wrong. Not enough to say “we’re done”. But a chapter where something worked. And that feels like an ok place to start. So we’re letting ourselves process that.
‘One in the freezer. One in our hearts x.’
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