"Made with lots of love – and a little bit of science."
Not all families are made in the exact same way.
This week, 51-year-old Julie Loving made headlines when she gave birth to her own granddaughter, having served as a gestational carrier for her daughter and son-in-law.
Julie delivered a healthy baby girl in an Illinois, US, hospital earlier this month with her daughter, Breanna, by her side
The newborn, named Briar Juliette Lockwood, is the first child for Breanna and her husband, Aaron, who are the baby's biological parents.
"It was definitely a surreal process," Breanna told "
Good Morning America" about Briar's birth. "All the feelings came at once, just watching my mom go through everything and all she’s done for me and is continuing to do."
Breanna confirmed that her baby daughter and mother are both doing "fantastic and healthy."
The mother-daughter duo has been widely followed on Instagram,
where Breanna has been sharing their surrogacy journey with more than 129,000 followers.
After several rounds of IVF and suffering multiple miscarriages, Breanna's doctor asked if she would consider surrogacy as an option to have a baby. Speaking to
CBS, Breanna explains that her mother was enthusiastic about the option and even volunteered to be the surrogate.
"I just kept telling her no and kept turning her down pretty frequently, only because I didn't think it was a possibility with my mom's age, and my mom was actually menopausal," Breanna told CBS News. "So, as far as I knew about reproductive science, that didn't add up, that wouldn't work."
But after several tests and exams, doctors determined that Julie was fit to be her daughter's surrogate. Breanna admits she first thought her mother was "crazy," but Julie says she had no doubt she could carry the baby. She had carried two children of her own and insisted she is now the healthiest she's ever been.
Eventually, Breanna says she came around to the idea and Julie became her daughter's surrogate. Through the IVF process, the baby girl Julie was carrying is genetically Breanna's and her husband's. Meaning, the only biological connection Julie has to baby girl Briar — besides carrying her — is being her grandma.
