S3 E19 – Grieving While Giving Birth: Sephine Llo on Love, IVF and Solo Parenting

In this episode, Rosie Gill-Moss speaks with musician Sephine Llo (Josie) about love, loss, and the complicated road to motherhood after bereavement.Josie married fellow musician Rob just days after his stage-four cancer diagnosis. Over the next two years, they endured 30 rounds of chemotherapy, multiple surgeries, and the looming reality of terminal illness—all while clinging to hope and planning for a family. Before treatment began, they froze embryos, a decision that would shape Josie’s life long after Rob’s death.When Rob died in hospice care, Josie was carrying their son Laurie. Years later, she returned to those frozen embryos to conceive their daughter, Connie. Now a solo parent of two, she speaks with raw honesty about postpartum depression, the judgement she faced for using embryos after loss, and the daily work of raising children who will only ever know their dad through photographs and recordings.Music threads through it all. For years Josie couldn’t write a song, until she found Rob’s unfinished demos and turned them into Diamond Fall—a posthumous album released on what would have been their tenth anniversary. She describes it as a conversation with Rob, and a way to keep his voice alive for their children.This conversation touches on:Managing illness, work, and finances as cancer takes over a householdIVF after bereavement and the emotions of parenting children conceived with a late partnerThe silences of grief: “I didn’t laugh for years”Dating again after monumental lossContent warning: Includes discussion of terminal cancer, IVF after partner death, hospice care, suicidal thoughts, and solo parent grief.If you’re a solo parent, bereaved partner, or navigating medically complex grief, Josie’s story may resonate—and remind you you’re not alone.