Holly Durst and Blake Julian are now parents. The Bachelor Pad couple, who met on the show in 2012 and got married in 2013, are parents to a beautiful baby girl. Since leaving ABC behind, the couple has lived a private life away from the spotlight, but their fertility story is worth sharing.
Holly and Blake welcomed their daughter Poppy recently after years of fertility struggles. For years, Holly tried to get pregnant and she was told that she may have endometriosis, a condition that can prevent women from carrying a healthy pregnancy to term. She underwent surgery on her ovaries and had two unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination.
As she points out to Us Weekly, her “body could not get pregnant.”
The couple then explored surrogacy. Their surrogate lost two pregnancies at 8 weeks before this third one finally stuck.
“Then we found a surrogate, and she is the most wonderful woman in the world,” Holly told the website about their journey. “It has to be a calling to want to carry someone else’s baby. She was like, ‘I always felt like I was meant to be a surrogate.’”
“She is all of our answered prayers! Baby girl, I would wait another 7 years for you!” she revealed when Poppy arrived. She shared the news on September 24.
This is wonderful news for the Bachelor Nation couple, who tried to conceive right after their 2013 wedding. Their fertility journey has taken upwards of 7 years. So far, there’s been no word on whether they will try for a second child, but one can imagine they are enjoying their daughter Poppy to the fullest.
Both surrogate and baby Poppy are doing great and are both healthy.
Bachelor Pad is no longer airing. Bachelor In Paradise took over 6 seasons ago.