A woman welcomed her husband’s child 15 months after he died in a tragic accident.
In 2020, Australian model Ellidy Pullin lost her partner, Alex Chump, after he drowned while spearfishing. Since then, Ellidy has opened up about the devastating incident and how she gave birth to her and Alex’s “miracle” child.
On the morning of July 8, Alex went out to spearfish while Ellidy was out walking her dog. Little did she know that this would be the last time she would see her partner, as she later came across a Facebook post informing that a body had been retrieved at the same location where Alex was.
“Wake up call, just like any other day. Sun shining, beautiful day. Chump’s like, ‘Am I going surfing or diving today?'” Ellidy recalled in an interview on the Good Mourning podcast in 2022.
The former Winter Olympics athlete drowned after experiencing a “blackout in shallow water” while attempting to hold his breath for too long. “I saw him that morning – happiest, fittest person – and he just didn’t come home that day,” shared Ellidy.
Hours after his death, Ellidy’s friends and family began discussing post-mortem sperm retrieval, as the couple was already trying to “have a baby”. This procedure, known as PMSR, is legalized in the UK.
“To perform the retrieval, a surgeon or urologist can perform an epididymal aspiration, testicular biopsy, or complete testicular removal. Once the sperm is extracted, it can be frozen and stored in the same way fertility clinics freeze semen from a living donor,” explained the site Health.com.
So, 12 hours after his death, Ellidy agreed to proceed with the process and began in vitro fertilization treatment six months later. Ellidy became pregnant after two rounds of in vitro fertilization and gave birth to Minnie Alex Pullin in October 2021. “She’s four months now – and she looks like him. […] I’ll see him in her eyes,” said Ellidy in 2022.
Since then, she has opened up about the situation of becoming a mother to her husband’s child after his death. “My sadness is for Chump, he’s missing out on the opportunity to be a dad. I see dads with their babies knowing how good he would have been,” she said on her own podcast, Darling, Shine!
“We were so lucky that his sperm was still alive, it was healthy. Everything just lined up and I think Chump was just guiding it all – I think it was all meant to happen,” she added.
This content was created with the assistance of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.