Rebecca Jarvis’ family just got bigger!
The ABC’s chief business, economics and technology correspondent, 42, made the announcement in Wednesday’s episode Good morning America that she and husband Matt Hanson welcomed their second baby together – son Leo.
Their baby boy, who they welcomed through a surrogate mother, joined big sister Isabel Noemi, 4½.
The happy parents also shared two exclusive photos of their newborn with PEOPLE, including one of Isabel sweetly kissing her little brother on the head while her father feeds the baby.
“When I imagined our family, I always thought of my family, the family I grew up with, as one of two children,” Jarvis said on GMA, in a previously recorded segment. “My little sister Lauren and I are incredibly close. We’re 18 months apart. And when I thought about my future, our future, I always imagined that we would have two. That we would be a family of four.”
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Rebecca Jarvis, Matt Hanson with their newborn son Leo and their daughter Isabel.
Greg Kessler/KesslerStudio
Meet Isabel Noemi! New mom Rebecca Jarvis and her husband introduced their 3-week-old newborn daughter
The journalist explained that her journey to pregnancy was not easy, revealing that she experienced infertility and went through several rounds of IVF.
“Two years ago, we just had another miscarriage through IVF, and that catalyzed the search for another route,” Hanson said. “And so we’ve tried to climb that mountain too many times without success and decided to try another way together.”
“I just lost my pregnancy at five months. We looked at our doctors and said, ‘What do we do? This keeps happening. And there’s no telling if we can be successful… if I can maintain a successful pregnancy. ‘ And our doctors said : ‘Surrogacy is your best way forward,'” Jarvis recalled. – That was hard to hear.
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Rebecca Jarvis with son Leo and daughter Isabel.
Greg Kessler/KesslerStudio
Although they were afraid to start surrogacy, Jarvis said she and her husband talked a lot about the process and decided it was something they wanted to do.
“One of the things we talked about a lot before was whether we could ask another person to do something like that, to do it with their body,” Jarvis said. “And it was really through the process of talking to a lot of people and then meeting our angel, our surrogate, understanding that she considers this one of the greatest things she could do … one of the greatest gifts she could give to the world.”
“When we left New York to witness the birth, I couldn’t get over how surreal the whole thing was,” she added. “That and just the feeling of happiness, but also how strange it was that we would get on a plane, fly across the country and, God willing, return home with a little boy.”
The segment includes footage of the reporter outside her hotel before going to the hospital to meet her son.
Describing the pain she felt after losing each pregnancy, Jarvis says she was still “holding my breath” every step of the way. “So even in surrogacy, I was holding my breath for a really, really long time,” she said, crying. “And probably in a way to protect myself and my family, I didn’t want to feel that huge excitement and that huge joy until I really felt that it was really a sure thing. But when I allowed myself to feel that way, it was really the best feeling. ”
“To be able to look at Matt and say, ‘We’re going to have a baby. We’re going to have another baby. Isabel is going to have a little brother. Our family is going to be four…'” Jarvis said. – It was really magical.
She also received powerful advice on how to overcome some of her fears about surrogacy, Hanson explained. “While talking to a very good group of friends about our trip, I mentioned one of the aspects of my wife’s fear: ‘I’m not going to carry the baby and how will I know I’m going to have a relationship? Someone else is going to carry our child, I’m not going to have that maternal connection. .’ And one of my very good friends said, ‘Just tell her, now you know how dad feels,'” he recalled. “And that perspective was very helpful to you. What it meant was that it doesn’t diminish your love for the child. It does not diminish your love for the family you are building. It just means you have a different perspective.”
Calling the first moment they saw Leo “magical”, the couple recalled how excited they were to meet their boy. “I shouted: ‘He’s perfect!’ ” Hanson laughed. “And then he was covered in all sorts of things and had an umbilical cord attached.
Jarvis and Hanson recall cutting their son’s umbilical cord, and Hanson says it’s a moment he’ll “never forget.”
“Me too, a feeling. And also, a feeling of gratitude to our surrogate mother and her family,” Jarvis said. “I just wanted to hug her and give her all our love that we pour into Leo too because there’s no way this wouldn’t have been possible without her.”
On another place GMA, the family of four appeared via satellite to celebrate their big news. During that conversation, Jarvis explained why she and her husband were so open about their story. “We wanted to give other families hope and make others feel like they’re less alone in this journey,” she said. “We hoped that other people going through this could feel a little less alone and also have enough resources to think about their way forward.”
“Thank you all for being so supportive,” she told her ABC News colleagues, including Michael Strahan, Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and Lara Spencer.
Good morning America airs weekdays (beginning at 7 a.m. ET) on ABC.
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Source: HIS Education