For almost two decades, Johanna Griggs and Todd Huggins have built a life around family.
They married in 2006 after meeting through Johanna’s brother, with Todd quickly becoming an important part of the lives of her two young sons, Jesse and Joe.
But there was one part of family life the couple once hoped would look very different.
They spent around 18 months going through IVF, hoping to have a child together.
It did not happen.
Then, when they began looking into adoption, another setback arrived — one that came down to a difference of just 12 hours.
Years later, Johanna would look back on that period with a mixture of heartbreak, acceptance and, eventually, a very different kind of joy.
The family Johanna already had
By the time Johanna met Todd, she was already a mother to Jesse and Joe from her first marriage to actor Gary Sweet.
Her marriage to Sweet ended in the late 1990s, and Johanna later spoke about how difficult becoming a single mother could have been, while also saying she had found unexpected joy in those years.
Then Todd entered her life.
A building foreman introduced to her through her brother, he quickly became much more than Johanna’s partner.
When she travelled overseas for work, Todd would regularly visit her sons.
He would kick a football with them, help with homework or simply sit down and watch television with them.
Johanna later described that as a “monumental” gesture because Todd never tried to replace their father. Instead, he became someone the boys trusted and looked to in his own right.
The couple married in a small private ceremony in 2006.
For years, they were a family of four.
But Johanna and Todd hoped they might one day have a child together too.
The couple underwent several unsuccessful rounds of IVF over approximately 18 months.
It was an experience Johanna would later describe as deeply heartbreaking.
Eventually, doctors told them they were among the small percentage of couples for whom the treatment was unlikely to work.
It was not simply the end of a medical process.
For Johanna and Todd, it meant confronting the possibility that the future family they had imagined might never happen in the way they had hoped.
And after everything they had already been through, there was still another possibility they wanted to explore.
Adoption seemed like the next step
Rather than immediately giving up on the idea of expanding their family, the couple looked into adoption.
But then came one of those extraordinary moments that can change an entire story.
Their paperwork missed a deadline by just 12 hours.
They were told they would have to start again.
For someone already exhausted by an 18-month IVF journey, beginning the adoption process again must have been a difficult prospect.
Johanna eventually asked Todd what he thought they should do.
His response stayed with her.
“I think it’s the universe telling us just to stop. It’s not going to happen for us.”
It was not the ending they had imagined.
But it became the moment they stopped trying to force the future to look a certain way.
There was no neat happy ending at the time
The story is easy to tell backwards because, years later, the family would experience another extraordinary kind of happiness.
But at the time, there was no guarantee that Johanna and Todd would ever feel at peace with the decision.
Their experience had involved hope, medical treatment, disappointment and finally a missed administrative deadline that felt almost unbearably small compared with the size of what they were trying to achieve.
There was no dramatic revelation.
No sudden change of circumstances.
Just two people deciding they had reached the point where they needed to stop.
And then life moved forward.
Four years later, something changed for Todd
In March 2018, Johanna’s son Joe and his then-partner Katie welcomed their son, Jax Theodore Sweet.
Johanna became a grandmother.
And for Todd, the moment carried an especially deep emotional significance.
Johanna later explained that watching Todd with Jax was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen because the couple had been unable to have children together.
Todd embraced his new role completely.
He bought matching Manchester United outfits for himself and Jax.
He had T-shirts and hats made for them.
And, to Johanna’s amusement, Jax even replaced her as the photograph on Todd’s phone screen.
The man who had once hoped to become a father to another child now had a grandson who had clearly captured his heart.
Johanna saw something she had never expected
Jax’s arrival did not erase what Johanna and Todd had been through.
It did, however, give them a completely new relationship with the idea of family.
Johanna described Todd’s love for his grandson as “a different love” — something he could not fully explain even to her.
The comment was made with warmth, but there was also something poignant behind it.
For years, Johanna had watched Todd hope for a child.
Then she watched him become a grandfather.
And somehow, that role brought him an extraordinary kind of happiness.
The missed deadline took on a different meaning
Looking back on the IVF and adoption journey years later, Johanna did not describe the missed deadline as a tragedy in the same way she once might have.
Instead, the family they eventually built had become something she was deeply grateful for.
Jax arrived just as she was preparing to travel for the Commonwealth Games, and his timing happened to mean Johanna was home for his birth. She later described the moment of seeing her son holding his own baby as almost surreal and admitted she cried for two days.
It became one of those family moments that no treatment, application or carefully planned timeline could have predicted.
A family that grew in another direction
Johanna and Todd now have a family story that does not fit neatly into the plan they once imagined.
There are Johanna’s sons, Jesse and Joe.
There is Todd, who became an important figure in their lives without trying to replace their father.
And there is Jax, the grandson whose arrival showed Todd a new kind of love.
The couple have continued to put family at the centre of their lives.
In a 2025 anniversary post, Johanna described Todd as “the love of my life” and called being with him “still the best decision I ever made.”
They have now been together for about two decades, with their 20th anniversary approaching in 2026.
The story behind Todd’s bond with Jax
When Jax arrived, Johanna noticed almost immediately how completely Todd fell for him.
She joked about how quickly her husband became obsessed with the new baby.
But beneath the humour was something much deeper.
Todd had once imagined what it might feel like to raise another child.
Instead, he found himself becoming a grandfather.
And rather than dwelling on what had not happened, he threw himself into the role he had.
Matching football shirts.
Printed T-shirts.
Photos on his phone.
Tiny reminders that Jax had become part of his everyday world.
Johanna’s own feelings were complicated too
For Johanna, motherhood had begun much earlier.
She had Joe when she was 22 and had already experienced the intensity of raising children while building a career.
By the time she and Todd went through IVF, however, the possibility of having another child carried a different emotional weight.
It was not simply about becoming a mother again.
It was about having a child together.
The fact that it never happened is therefore an important part of their story — even though it is not the whole story.
They did not let that chapter define their marriage
One of the striking things about Johanna’s reflections is the absence of blame.
She has never portrayed Todd as someone who failed her or suggested that the IVF journey damaged their relationship.
Quite the opposite.
She has repeatedly spoken about his values, his steadiness and the way he supported her and her sons.
In 2018, she said she felt incredibly lucky to have met him, while also joking that her only regret was that their paths had not crossed sooner.
That sentiment has remained remarkably consistent.
Even after all the years they have shared, she continues to describe him with the same warmth.
Sometimes family arrives differently than expected
There is something quietly heartbreaking about the story of those 12 hours.
At the time, the missed deadline could have felt like yet another closed door after 18 months of IVF.
But the story did not end there.
Their lives continued.
Their marriage grew stronger.
Their sons grew older.
Then Jax arrived.
And Todd discovered that the capacity to love a child was still very much part of his life — just in a form neither of them had originally imagined.
That does not make the IVF journey or the adoption setback any less painful.
It simply means that, with enough distance, the couple could see that their family story had taken another route.
Nearly 20 years later, the family looks very different
Johanna remains one of Australia’s best-known television personalities, having hosted Better Homes and Gardens since 2005 and continuing to work across television and major sporting events.
Todd has continued his work in construction, away from the spotlight.
Together, they have built a quieter life around family, their home and their shared interests.
And Jax has become a new generation within that family.
The little boy Johanna once described as extraordinary has now grown into a central part of their lives.
A story of what was lost — and what was found
Johanna and Todd’s IVF journey is not a story with a conventional ending.
There was no long-awaited baby at the end of the treatment.
There was no successful adoption after that missed deadline.
Instead, there was acceptance.
Then, years later, a grandson.
A child who changed the shape of the family without changing the history that came before him.
Perhaps that is why Johanna’s memories of the period remain so moving.
She and Todd wanted one future.
Life gave them another.
And today, surrounded by their sons, their grandson and a marriage that has lasted nearly 20 years, they have built a family that may look different from the one they once imagined — but one that Johanna clearly treasures. ❤️