Christy's story is one of loss, but it's also one of subsequent life. Read it, you'll see. I pray that her story encourages you as you read her words, not simply because it has a 'happy ending' but because the Lord had a plan all along, for all three of her babies.
Sometimes I feel I don't have much to grieve over because I was only nine weeks pregnant when I lost my baby. But the story goes back further than nine weeks: four years of trying to get pregnant, three surgeries to remove endometriosis, six months of Chlomid medication, six IUIs, and our first IVF cycle. An IVF cycle costs about $10,000 and we were only able to retrieve 4 eggs.
We found out through testing that I have very few eggs left, like as if I were 40 years old. We were devastated when they told us that only one out of our four eggs had fertilized. But it only took one, and I got pregnant for the first time ever. I was on cloud nine and never could have imagined what was to come.
I went for an OB appointment at nine weeks. I wasn't even supposed to get an ultrasound, but I saw my doctor at the front desk and told him I was pregnant. He was so excited he said "well let's go take a look."
We couldn't find the heartbeat that we had heard at my six week dating ultrasound. We lost our baby.
The doctor had me wait in a room for what seemed like forever so he could talk to me. I was alone with my 18 month old adopted daughter Kayln. How was I going to drive 70 miles back home after this?
Two nights later I started having horrible cramps. I told my husband Kenny in the middle of the night that we were going to go to the hospital first thing in the morning to have the D&C. I was already in so much pain and took some pain killers I had, but in did not want to sit around and wait for the pain and bleeding to get worse. I wanted it to be over. Even though I had known for a few days that there was no heartbeat, I hadn't cried yet because I still had hope and for me it wasn't over yet.
We went to the hospital and when I woke up from the D&C I just cried and asked for my husband. We picked up Kalyn and went home that same day. Later that night I just started screaming and crying so loud that I made Kalyn do the same thing. Kenny was freaking out because he didn't know what to do with two screaming girls. Kenny asked "Did it just now hit you?" And only then did I find out that he had been crying for days.
After our loss, we knew we wanted to try IVF again, but we wondered how we would get another $10,000 for the procedure. So Kenny worked overtime and in just two months we saved up the money we needed. I felt this was God's plan, but hadn't we just emptied out our entire savings?
Since I have endometriosis I discovered that I had really poor quality eggs. So I started doing some research to see if there was anything I could do to make my eggs healthier. I started taking a bunch of different vitamins and supplements and doing acupuncture. I learned that my endometriosis had damaged my eggs, but I was told that the vitamins I started taking would help protect any new eggs. But it takes new eggs 90 days to form.
So in January we started the IVF process over again. I was giving myself injections twice a day and we had ultrasounds scheduled three times a week to see how my follicles were growing. We were so excited when we retrieved six eggs this time and they all fertilized! Five of them made it to a five day blastocyst and only one died. Our very first embryo never quite made it to a blastocyst and so probably never really had a chance. We decided we would put two embryos in this time because we had lost the only one we had before. I was okay with having twins and there was still a chance that one or none of the embryos would implant and keep growing. And we'd have 3 embryos left to freeze.
Ten days later we found out I was pregnant, but I was cautiously optimistic. Then at six weeks we found out that both embryos had implanted and we heard were two little heartbeats. We were going to have twins!
I was excited but still a little hesitant. Turns out I have had a great pregnancy without complications other than a ton of Braxton-Hicks contractions after 30 weeks. We will be welcoming our boy and girl twins into this world next week!
At the time I lost my first baby I wondered why would God even allow me to get pregnant just to take it away. Little did I know that He had much bigger an better plans for us! More than I could ever imagine!
- Christy Cash
And Christy and Kenny did deliver their healthy little twins, Chase and Kylie, into this world after she submitted her story. And I will tell you that in all of their pictures they are quite adorable...
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