Louise Thompson Opens Up on Surrogacy Journey

has said she is ‘grieving’ the fact she’ll never carry another child as she opened up on ‘wonderfully, painfully different’ £50,000 journey. 

The TV personality and personal trainer partner Ryan Libbey, both 35, revealed their plans to expand their family earlier this year, after Louise almost died while giving birth to her son Leo in 2021 following an emergency caesarean.

After Leo's birth, she 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 are now embarking on a £50,000 journey and plan to use a surrogate to add to their family.

In a new update, Louise said: 'Before I get into it, I want to say something that might sound a little contradictory: I am genuinely, wholeheartedly happy for every person who has announced a pregnancy on my feed lately - but at the same time, it has also been quietly eroding away at my heart.

'This is not a pity piece or a cry for help; instead, it's more of a public service announcement for anyone who has ever felt something complicated and tender while watching other people experience something they might never be able to experience for themselves.

'You are not alone, and you are not a bad person for feeling two things at once. Joy and grief, love and longing, pride and pain…

'These things are not really opposites; instead, they are neighbours, and sometimes they sit so closely together you can barely tell where one ends and the other begins.

'And thank goodness for that. In the depths of my own birth trauma, I grieved A LOT, but I also clung to whatever slivers of joy I could find as well. 

'As long as I experienced 5% of ‘joy’ in one day, and 6% the next, I’d see that as a win. I used to tell people that even on the days when I felt completely hollowed out and disconnected from myself, if I could just make my dogs happy on a walk, then a tiny bit of their joy might find its way back to me. 

'The two can work in tandem. And that’s actually very helpful to know when you go through a tough time.'

Louise added that she previously took 'being normal for granted' as she revealed she 'still feels a little broken'.

She continued: 'So here’s where I currently sit on the spectrum of sadness: I don't have a hospitable womb. I haven't had a period in four years, not since I had my son. And for a long time, I moved forward with such determined speed that I didn't stop to properly mourn what that actually meant.

'Yes, I still have a uterus, but any blood that finds its way out of my lower half seems to exit through the back door. Sometimes I genuinely wonder whether someone connected the wrong vessels to the wrong organ when fixing up a major bleed. Is that even possible? I think I had some form of embolisation?

'It’s crazy to me that I used to function like a totally normal human. Wow, I took that for granted. Currently, I still feel a little broken inside.' 

Louise admitted that something has 'shifted' as friends start to welcome their second and third children as she continues to 'grieve' the loss of not experiencing being pregnant again.

She continued: 'But instead of grovelling, I threw myself into learning about surrogacy. I told myself it was our only option and I embraced it, because what else do you do? You propel yourself forward. You find the path, and you don’t look down. You cling onto the distraction of what is essentially another full time job.

'But lately, something has shifted. Friends around me are having their second and third babies. Some even their fourth. And at the same time…almost as if a tap has been turned on… I’ve started remembering the good parts of my own pregnancy.

'For years, my brain only kept the difficult memories on the surface. The scary ones. It turns out that’s not a character flaw; it’s just how our brains work. We are wired to hold onto danger, to protect us from repeating what hurt us. The interesting thing is…

'I guess the beautiful memories were always there; they were just quietly waiting in the wings for the right moment.

'Now that those memories are surfacing, the grief is surfacing too. And with it, a very specific kind of loss I hadn’t let myself fully sit with before.

'The things I will never have'. 

Revealing the staggering cost of IVF, Louise said she finds it 'irritating' not going down the 'traditional' pregnancy route. 

'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.

'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.

'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.'

She concluded: '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.

'With love, and a lot of honesty, Louise xxx'.