A young widow hopes to have her late husband’s child using his frozen sperm – and has kitted out a wardrobe of baby clothes already.
Isobel Barnes, 22, lost her husband Luke, 34, after he was diagnosed with heart muscle disease in 2019.
He died from multiple organ failure while waiting for a transplant in March 2023.
Isobel Barnes, 22, lost her husband Luke, 34, after he was diagnosed with heart muscle disease in 2019.
He died from multiple organ failure while waiting for a transplant in March 2023.
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00:00 I thought I'd answer this question. Obviously it isn't a daft question at all.
00:05 Somebody is asking how I bring mine and my husband's children into the world.
00:10 Obviously my husband passed away four months ago but he preserved his sperm
00:17 before he went into hospital because we were a bit concerned about the impact
00:23 that the surgery and the medication might have on him because he was waiting
00:27 for a heart transplant and you have to be on high levels of antirejection medication.
00:31 We were already trying for a baby before he went into hospital.
00:34 So even if he came out of hospital it would give us the freedom to go and have a child
00:40 even if he wasn't in a position to with his medication.
00:44 We did obviously cross the idea that something might happen to him
00:50 so we signed all that relevant paperwork but that wasn't the reason that we preserved it.
00:54 So yeah I am starting my IVF journey which is so exciting and also look at my hoodie.
01:01 How cute is this? This is me and Luke on our honeymoon and it says there'll always be space in my heart
01:07 which was his entrance song to his funeral and it's like one of our favourite songs.
01:13 How special, I absolutely love it.
01:15 So legally I own the sperm. Now he's passed away that is because of the paperwork he filled out
01:22 to make that happen. So when he went to freeze his sperm
01:28 he filled out lots of paperwork about what happens.
01:31 If something was to happen to you, obviously death being one of them.
01:36 Also if he became like mentally incapacitated and couldn't make your own decisions.
01:40 In both of those cases he signed over to myself and gave permission for me to turn his sperm into embryos
01:49 and to also freeze them and to use them to bring children into the world.
01:53 There was also a section where he got to choose whether he wanted to be listed on the birth certificate
01:59 if I was to go ahead and, before pregnant, bring a child into the world and he took yes to that
02:07 which is just so nice because as a family that means he is biologically their parent
02:14 and also still legally their parent even though he's passed away.
02:18 Something so small is actually so significant to us.
02:23 So yeah it's really nice and I did actually get really paranoid about this after he passed away.
02:31 So I rang the clinic just to talk through it all and they were so reassuring and so kind.
02:37 I hope that answers the question.