Johanna Griggs and Todd Huggins’ 18-Month Hope Came Down to Just 12 Hours — Years Later, Life Gave That Chapter New Meaning
Some family stories only make sense when you look back.
For Johanna Griggs and husband Todd Huggins, there was once a hope that the family they had built together might grow a little bigger.
They spent around 18 months trying IVF, before eventually exploring another possibility. But after everything they had already invested emotionally, their next step came down to a remarkably small margin: just 12 hours.
At the time, it helped bring one long chapter to a close.
Years later, however, Johanna would watch something happen within their family that gave those memories a very different perspective.
Todd had already found his place in Johanna’s family
Johanna was already a mother to sons Jesse and Joe when Todd entered her life.
The pair met through Johanna’s brother, and Todd soon became closely involved with the family. When Johanna travelled for work, she recalled that he would still spend time with the boys — helping with homework, kicking a football around or simply watching television with them.
Importantly, Johanna said Todd never attempted to replace their father.
Instead, he became another trusted presence in their lives.
“He’s never tried to be the boys’ dad because they have a dad,” Johanna told The Australian Women’s Weekly in 2019, adding that Todd had nevertheless become someone who strongly influenced them.
Johanna and Todd married in a private ceremony in 2006.
But there was still something they hoped they might experience together.
For 18 months, they hoped for another addition to the family
After marrying, Johanna and Todd tried to have a child together through IVF.
The process continued for around 18 months and involved several unsuccessful attempts. Eventually, doctors told them that IVF was unlikely to work for them.
For Johanna, it was not simply about becoming a mother again.
She already had Jesse and Joe.
This was about the possibility of having a child with Todd — adding another member to the family they had created together.
When IVF did not bring the result they had hoped for, the couple considered another route.
Then everything came down to 12 hours
Johanna and Todd began looking into adoption.
After the long IVF process, it offered another possibility of expanding their family.
Then came an unusually small but significant setback.
Their paperwork missed an adoption deadline by just 12 hours.
They were told they would need to begin the process again.
After everything that had already happened, Johanna turned to Todd and asked what he thought they should do.
His answer was simple.
“I think it’s the universe telling us just to stop. It’s not going to happen for us.”
Johanna recalled those words in her 2019 interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly.
And with that, the couple decided not to start the process again.
Life simply carried on
There was no immediate twist that suddenly changed the situation.
Johanna and Todd continued with the family they already had.
Todd remained a major figure in Jesse and Joe’s lives, while Johanna continued a television career that frequently took her away from home.
Over the years, she has repeatedly spoken warmly about the way Todd fitted into that life without trying to redefine his role.
In a separate 2018 interview, Johanna described him as an unusually secure and supportive partner, saying she felt lucky their paths had crossed.
The dream they had once pursued together became part of their past.
Then the family changed again.
Years later, Todd discovered a completely different kind of love
In March 2018, Johanna’s son Joe welcomed his son Jax.
Johanna became a grandmother.
And Todd became a grandfather.
It was watching Todd embrace that new role that seemed to affect Johanna particularly deeply.
“Todd and I couldn’t have kids, so to see him with Jax is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life,” she told TV WEEK in 2018.
Todd was quickly smitten.
Johanna revealed that he bought matching Manchester United outfits for himself and Jax, had clothing made for them and even replaced Johanna’s picture on his phone screen with a photograph of his new grandson.
They were small details.
But knowing what Todd and Johanna had once hoped for gave them a very different emotional weight.
Johanna noticed something in Todd she had never seen before
Johanna later described the bond between Todd and Jax as a kind of love all its own.
Todd himself would tell her that he had never realised he could love in quite that way.
It did not rewrite the couple’s earlier experience.
Nor did becoming grandparents somehow replace the child Johanna and Todd once hoped to have together.
But it added something neither of them could have planned during those 18 months of IVF — or on the day an adoption deadline was missed by only 12 hours.
Years earlier, they had been focused on one particular idea of how their family might grow.
Instead, it grew in another direction.
Looking back changed the meaning of an old chapter
That may be what makes Johanna and Todd’s story so affecting years later.
The 12-hour deadline remains part of what happened.
So does the IVF journey that came before it.
But neither became the final definition of their family.
Jesse and Joe grew older. Todd remained an important figure in their lives. And eventually another generation arrived — bringing with it a role Todd had never expected to treasure quite so deeply.
Johanna once spoke about how thrilled everyone was by Jax’s arrival, saying both sides of the family had agreed from the beginning that he would be surrounded by love.
For Todd, that arrival revealed something particularly special.
The future he and Johanna once hoped for did not happen in the way they had imagined.
Years later, however, their family still found a way to grow — and an old chapter came to look very different from the other side.
Sources: Johanna Griggs’ interviews with The Australian Women’s Weekly (2019) and TV WEEK (2018), published via Now To Love.