Bachelor Pad couple Holly Durst and Blake Julian have adopted a baby girl, Poppy, after years of struggling with infertility.
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"She's just so perfect," Holly, who won Bachelor Pad's second season, also told Us Weekly.
The 36-year-old added of the new addition to her family, "She's so healthy and sweet, and it's just been the greatest thing that's ever happened to us."
Holly and Blake have reportedly been trying to conceive a baby ever since they got married in June 2012 in South Carolina.
Following two years of no luck, Holly was reportedly informed by doctors she might have endometriosis, when tissue that normally lines the inside of a woman's uterus grows outside of it instead.
Holly therefore underwent surgery on her ovaries and followed up the procedure with unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination, Us reported.
Holly said she felt at the time her body just "could not get pregnant."
"Then we found a surrogate, and she is the most wonderful woman in the world," Holly explained.
"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.'"
But the situation unfortunately turned out to be a "heartbreaking" one, as Holly and Blake's surrogate got pregnant twice and lost both babies at eight weeks.
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Experiencing such pain and repeated loss apparently prompted the married couple to look into adoption next.
Holly and Blake reportedly got on a waitlist with a South Carolina agency in November 2018 but then got in touch with Poppy's birth mother on Instagram themselves.
Holly and Blake then agreed to an open adoption and welcomed Poppy into their lives in September of this year. The couple announced their big and exciting news on September 24 on Instagram.
"We'll send pictures whenever [the birth mother's] heart is ready for it because it's got to be hard to see," Holly told Us.
"We text here and there. If she wants a picture, I'll gladly send her pictures. We're probably going to go up and visit her once a year."
Holly also explained why the couple had decided to name their little girl Poppy.
"[She's named after] a very old poem that was written during WWI about the barren battlefields and how the only flower that would grow there were the poppy flowers... She is our Poppy that grew on our barren battlefields," Holly shared.
Holly and Blake met on the set of Bachelor Pad's second season.
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When the cast reunited for Bachelor Pad's finale in September 2011, Holly and Blake announced their engagement. Holly not only won the $250,000 grand prize, but she also walked away with a fiance.
Holly found fame when she competed on The Bachelor: London Calling and then dated fellow Bachelor Pad contestant Michael Stagliano.
However, Holly went on Season 2 of Bachelor Pad as a single woman following a tumultuous relationship with Michael in which they were engaged but broke up twice.
As for Blake, he found fame when he competed for Ashley Hebert's heart on The Bachelorette's seventh season.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
