Sperm retrieval and life after death: Ellidy and Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin's extraordinary love story.

Ellidy Pullin lost the love of her life, Alex ‘Chumpy’ Pullin, when he was only 32, and while they were trying for a baby. She gave birth to Chumpy’s daughter Minnie 15 months after his passing, through a surprising procedure. This is Ellidy and Chumpy’s extraordinary love story.

This is an edited extract from Heartstrong by Ellidy Pullin with Alley Pascoe, out now. 

I don’t know if I’m the luckiest girl in the world because I got to love Chumpy, or the unluckiest because I lost him. If I could go back to a time in my life, I would go back to 10 November 2012, the night of Laura’s 21st; the night I first kissed Chumpy on the dance floor. The start of our love story. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would. I’d choose Chumpy every time - even knowing that I couldn’t change what was to come.

Chumpy’s loss has brought me more pain than I ever thought I could survive and an ache in my heart that will never dull. But it’s also brought me a new purpose in a way, in my mission to raise awareness about sperm retrieval and as a mum to Minnie. I know I wouldn’t have had my new purpose if things didn’t happen the way they did, and it helps me to focus on the silver linings rather than the dark clouds blocking the sun.

Listen to Ellidy Pullin's conversation with Mia Freedman on No Filter, where they speak about everything from sperm retrieval to life after death.

 
The Darling, Shine! podcast started as a way to share my journey and spread the word about post-mortem sperm retrieval. Since it launched just over a year ago, we’ve released three seasons, 40-odd episodes, and after only six months had over one million downloads. It started as a fun little project with my best mate Chloe, and it’s become a bona fide community of extraordinary women and a successful business (even though, for me, deep down, it’s still a fun little project with Chlo).

In 2022, a Darling, Shine! listener sent in a question asking us both how we cope with seeing the other one have what we want. Chloe still has the love of her life - Fisher - but she hasn’t been able to have a baby yet. Meanwhile, I have a baby, but I don’t have the love of my life. In early 2022, Chloe miscarried twin boys. It was her third miscarriage; she’s lost four babies. As you would expect, both she and Fisher were devastated.

After Chloe lost the twins, I didn’t really know what to do. All I wanted was to hold her and be with her, but I didn’t know if bringing Minnie with me would be too painful. I told Chloe and Fisher I’d leave her at home, so she wasn’t a trigger, and they said all they wanted was to see Minnie and cuddle her. 

"Please bring Minnie over, please," Fisher said. That’s how beautiful they are. There’s no envy between Chloe and me because we’re both so grateful for what we’ve got - and for each other. We’ve both experienced loss, so we understand what the other is going through and can sympathise. When I see Chloe and Fisher madly in love, I only feel happiness for them. And when they see me with Minnie, it’s the same. We’re so close and lean on each other so much. I always think, "God, what would I do if I didn’t have Chlo and Fish?" and I know Chloe thinks, "What would I do if I didn’t have Min and El?" What we’ve lost hasn’t torn us apart; it’s brought us together.

I turned 30 in May 2022. I was relieved to have a friend’s wedding on the same day, so the attention wasn’t on me and I didn’t have to mark another milestone without Chumpy. 

Before I lost Chumpy, we would have thrown a big bash at our house. We loved nothing more than having all of our mates around for drinks, playing music and lighting up the fire pit in the backyard. I know Chumpy would have made a huge deal out of my 30th - in the same way we did his. That didn’t happen, and I’m okay with it. Having a birthday party at home without Chumpy wouldn’t have been the same.

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Instead, a couple of weeks after my birthday, I headed to Crescent Head to celebrate with a good group of friends, all our babies and dogs. There was still plenty of drinks, good music and a fire pit, but it was different. I wasn’t trying to recreate birthdays of years gone by; I was making new memories. 

It’s really hard for me to imagine being 32 in just a couple of years, and then being older than Chumpy was when he died; it’s not right that I will be older than Chumpy. It baffles me that time just keeps on ticking without him. That’s never more obvious than when I look at Minnie and see how much she grows and changes every day.

I also see it when I look in the mirror. Sometimes I don’t recognise my old self. I’ve changed in the biggest ways and the smallest. It’s extraordinary how much you can take physically and mentally when you need to. I’m older - and have the wrinkles to prove it! - but I’m also more sure of myself than I’ve ever been in my life. I am who I am and I’m f**king proud of that person. I think grief has really shaped me in a bizarre way, I’ll never be the same again.

Some days I feel so close to Chumpy, like it was only yesterday that he hugged me goodbye in our garage. Other days, he feels so far away, like an entire lifetime ago. There are also days where I feel like I made him up entirely–that it was all a wild dream.

The days when I feel close to Chumpy are the easiest. That’s when I know I’m being present and living in the moment. It’s when he feels out of reach that I know I’ve taken on too much and am stretching myself too thin. Sometimes I can go months being completely normal and busy and unaffected. Not feeling anything is more awful than being sad. The numbness comes with a wave of guilt.

Of course, I am broken, but not all the time. I don’t cry myself to sleep every night or fall into a heap whenever something reminds me of Chumpy. For the most part, I’m just a regular busy mum with a little baby who needs to put the laundry away and take the dog for a walk and is hanging to open a bottle of wine some nights. When Chumpy first died, I worried that I was a robot. I still do. Even though I’ve had time to process what’s happened, I’m still going in and out of shock.

Having fun can feel like a betrayal. Why should I be able to have a good time when Chumpy isn’t here having a good time with me? How can I be laughing when my person is gone? What does it say about me if I go to a party and don’t think about Chumpy for an hour? Those questions aren’t helpful. Even if I never had another good time, if I stopped laughing forever and if I spent every waking minute thinking about Chumpy, it wouldn’t bring him back. I’ll never not be grieving my loss, but I have to draw the line somewhere. I’ve had to make a conscious effort to let myself enjoy life. I can’t be miserable for the rest of my life. Chumpy wouldn’t want that, and neither do I.

As much as I love Minnie and feel eternally grateful to have her, she’s not a replacement for Chumpy. That isn’t her burden to carry. She is her father’s daughter, but she’s so much more than that. She is her own person, and I can’t wait to keep getting to know her and to continue to learn from her. Minnie has taught me so much already. I already knew what unconditional love was because of Chumpy, but Minnie has taken that to a completely new level. She is everything. I’m so lucky to be her mum.

I like to think of the heart as the muscle it is. No one will ever be able to fill the space in my heart that Chumpy holds; I will always love him. Always. I hope that one day my heart will be able to grow to love another. I didn’t think I could love anyone as much as Chumpy, then we got Rummi [our dog, a Kelpie x Border Collie] ... and then I had Minnie. Love isn’t one or the other. I’ll never ‘move on’ from Chumpy, but I can move forward. Whether that’s with someone or on my own, I don’t know. 

When it comes to Minnie, she will always know who her dad is. Even if another man comes into our lives, he will never take Chumpy’s place. That’s simply not possible. Chumpy is Minnie’s dad. Minnie is Chumpy’s daughter. The end.

Every morning, I wake up, grab Minnie from her cot in the nursery and bring her into my bedroom. We open the blinds and look out of the window to the horizon - the same horizon Chumpy looked at on 8 July 2020, on the same spot he saw it was a glorious day, and in the same room he decided to go spearfishing to make the most of it. 

Every morning, I hold Minnie in my arms and we look out the window together. "Good morning, world. Hello, Daddy in the sky," I say, pointing towards the horizon. "Your daddy’s up there, Minnie. Look at the sun shining down on us."

Every morning, we start the day by acknowledging Chumpy. It’s our ritual, our wake-up routine, our moment of stillness together before we jump into the day with the same energy Chumpy lived his life. 

Listen to Ellidy Pullin's full conversation with Mia Freedman on No Filter. For more episodes of No Filter with Mia Freedman, go to  mamamia.com.au/podcasts/no-filter.

This is an edited extract from Heartstrong by Ellidy Pullin with Alley Pascoe (Hachette Australia, $35) out now. 

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