Brandon Lowe, wife Madison share parenthood journey

ST. PETERSBURG — It was just before 10 p.m. on Jan. 23 when Brandon Lowe and his wife Madison heard their newborn son’s first cry. Emmett Dean Lowe had finally arrived, and his parents could not contain their emotions — or their tears.

“It broke me. I mean, I looked at her face. She had tears rolling; I had tears rolling. You couldn’t have asked for a better moment,” Brandon said. “It probably wasn’t the most glorious moment for other people looking in, but at that moment, it was the best moment of my life.”

It was a moment the Lowes had been anticipating not just for nine months, but for three years.

A little more than three months before Emmett was born, Madison shared a candid Instagram post explaining that the Lowes decided in January 2020 that they wanted to start a family. She then detailed the couple’s struggles with infertility — a heartbreaking journey that included miscarriages in 2020 and ‘21, emergency surgery in May 2020, three failed rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI) in 2021 and a failed in vitro fertilization (IVF) transfer in February 2022.

And, as Madison wrote, “Those ‘highlights’ don’t tell the whole story.”

There were countless trips to doctors, along with blood work, medication, injections and other procedures. Each cycle came with emotional highs and shattering lows. The point of that post, Madison said, was to remind anyone going through it that they aren’t doing so on their own.

“There’s just so many people that go through something — and you don’t realize until you’re going through it and you share with your friends, and they’re like, ‘Oh, well, I went through that,’” she said, as Brandon held Emmett outside the Rays’ clubhouse at Tropicana Field during Spring Training. “It is hard, and I think everyone needs that support and to know that they’re not alone, that they didn’t do anything wrong. They deserve that love and support through that.”

Infertility, defined as an inability to conceive after a year or more, can feel isolating. The treatment is often long, financially taxing, physically demanding and mentally exhausting. But it is unfortunately a common issue. According to a recent report by the World Health Organization, around 17.5 percent of the world’s adult population — roughly one in six people — experience infertility.

So the response to her post, Madison said, was sadly unsurprising but occasionally still heartening. She and Brandon heard from strangers who reached out with messages like, “We had never really shared what we had gone through, and this made me feel not alone.”

“You don’t know when or if it’ll end, right? You hope that this is the outcome,” she said, nodding at Emmett as he downed a bottle in Brandon’s arms. “But for some people, it’s not. … The uncertainty is what’s so hard.”

These days, Emmett is a regular pretty much wherever the Rays are playing. Sunday is his first Mother’s Day — and he has already seen games in St. Petersburg, Cincinnati, Chicago and Baltimore, among other places. He’s “definitely a baseball baby,” as Madison put it.

What they went through to have that baseball baby left Brandon in awe of his wife’s strength, brought the couple closer than ever and drove them deeper into their faith, Brandon said.

“Understanding that God has a plan, there’s a reason for everything that’s going on right now,” he added. “And understanding that if it’s not OK right now, it will be in the end.”

The Lowes also credited the Rays and their baseball family for offering help at every turn.

Brandon, who had back-to-back Top 10 American League MVP Award finishes in 2020-21, credited Tampa Bay’s tight-knit clubhouse for affording him “necessary distractions” at the ballpark, noting that teammates “went out of their way” to keep his spirits as high as possible. The group of Rays wives provided similar emotional support for Madison. And some physical aid, too, with many of them stepping up during the busy baseball schedule — in ballparks, airports and road cities — to administer the multiple daily injections involved in the IVF treatment.

“They were just great. Made it so much better,” Madison said. “It was definitely a team effort to get me all my shots and to get [Emmett] here.”

Understanding how difficult and demanding the process was for them, the Lowes began looking for ways to help others sharing that experience last year. So when Brandon was named the Rays’ 2022 Roberto Clemente Award nominee, he was surprised — and thrilled — to learn the recognition came with a charitable donation.

“I think we were sitting in the car and Madison said, ‘Why don’t we try to find somewhere that we can donate an IVF treatment?’” Brandon said. “That’s kind of where it started.”

The Lowes thought about starting their own organization, in addition to their other charitable endeavors, but decided they could make a bigger and more immediate impact through the Baby Quest Foundation, which provides financial assistance through fertility grants to people who can’t afford the high costs of infertility treatments.

Their donation covered an IVF cycle for another couple that Madison still emails back and forth with. They heard around Thanksgiving that they were completing the transfer. Around Christmas, they learned it worked and the couple was expecting twins.

“That was very special,” Madison said.

Their hope now is that couple, and any others they can help along the way, will get to feel the way they did just before 10 p.m. on Jan. 23.

“There’s nothing that can describe that,” Madison said. “I don’t think anything can make those three years go away or make the losses better. But just having him, and finally having a baby, there’s just no words to explain how grateful I was to have him.”