A woman had her late husband’s “miracle” baby — 15 months after he died in a tragic accident.
Australian model Ellidy Pullin, 31, was with her partner Alex “Chumpy” for nearly a decade before the Olympic snowboarder drowned while spearfishing at the age of 32.
Ellidy recounted her final moments with her love, the shocking way she discovered the tragedy and her decision to approve post-mortem sperm retrieval to give birth to her husband’s child after his death.
”It was just a normal day, we woke up like any other day — the sun was shining, it was a beautiful day,” she recalled on the “Good Mourning” podcast. “Chump was like ‘Do I go for a surf today or do I go for a dive today?”’
Instagram / @alexchumpypullin
The couple went to breakfast on the morning of July 8, 2020 before going their separate ways as Ellidy walked their dog and Alex went spearfishing.
“I saw him that morning — he’s the happiest, fittest person — and he just never came home that day,” Ellidy said.
As Ellidy was hanging out at home, her neighbor came over to warn her of a Facebook post alerting locals to an unconscious body that had washed ashore near the area when they had seen Alex fishing.
She initially blew it off not believing that it could be her partner but quickly rushed down to the beach with her mother as the news sunk in.
Instagram / @alexchumpypullin
When Ellidy arrived at the beach, she was heartbroken to discover that the man was in fact her husband.
The Olympic athlete had drowned after suffering a ‘’shallow-water blackout’’ when trying to hold his breath for too long.
As the reality set in, Ellidy agreed to the post-mortem sperm retrieval at the suggestion of friends and family who knew the couple had been planning to have a child.
Although she was unsure at first, the grieving widow underwent her first round of in vitro fertilization using her late husband’s sperm six months after his death. After two rounds of IVF, the model gave birth to Minnie Alex Pullin in October 2021.
”She looks like him. […] I’m gonna see him in her eyes,” she said.
“Everything just aligned and I think Chump was just guiding it — I think it was all meant to be,” she said on her podcast, “Darling, Shine!”
There are no federal regulations on the procedure leaving the decision up to individual institutions. New York State requires a court order before sperm may be extracted from a deceased man.
Once a highly condemned procedure by ethical, medical, and religious organizations, posthumous conception has become just another way of making families.
