A woman gave birth to her husband’s second child via IVF 16 months after he passed.
Jasdip Sumal, 38, lost her spouse Aman to a brain tumour in December 2021. The couple had planned for a second child to join their then-two-year-old son, Rajan.
Jasdip decided to fulfil her and Aman’s dream of having another child after his death.
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She gave birth to their daughter, Amandeep, via IVF on Easter Sunday, a week before Aman’s 38th birthday.
“We had our son through IVF in 2019 and we always wanted to have another child, but then Aman became sick and everything after that was a whirlwind so we never got the chance,” said Jasdip, a data analyst from Ruislip, London.
“I thought about doing it while he was still here. I knew he didn’t have long and thought it would be a nice thing to tell him if he could understand me, but he passed away in December 2021 and after that, I was coping with the grief of losing him.
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“I still wanted to have a family though, and knew there would never be a good time. It was always the plan to have a sibling for Rajan, and that was important to Aman too, so I decided to go ahead with it,” she said.
Aman was initially assumed to have low-grade cancer, so he was given anti-seizure medication and referred for scans every three months.
After another seizure five months later, an MRI revealed regions of concern, and he had debulking surgery.
A biopsy of Aman’s tumour indicated that it was a grade 4 glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive brain tumour with a 12-to-18-month prognosis. Jasdip became pregnant in August 2022, eight months after Aman’s death, and gave birth to a healthy baby girl in April of this year.
“I know he would have been all over our daughter. It’s just such a shame he won’t ever get to meet her. It’s bittersweet, which is what I think everyone struggles with, but hopefully, she’ll bring acceptance that Aman’s gone and that the next chapter for all of us is the kids.
“I have a big family and had so much support throughout. I couldn’t have done it without them. My sisters-in-law came to my appointments with me and were my labouring partners, so I didn’t have the worry of being alone.
“Aman was obviously very missed, but having the girls with me was the next best thing, and for that, I am truly grateful,” she expressed.
Jasdip named Amandeep after her late spouse, which she said she had always intended to do.
“I always knew I was going to name her Aman because it’s a name for both sexes in our religion, but in the end, I opted to mix bits of both our names,” she explained.
“I know Aman will not be forgotten, but doing so provides us with another memory of him. Hopefully, both of our children will grow up thinking they know him,” Jasdip said.
