Recently, we transferred our last embryo — a baby boy — hoping and praying everything would be perfect and that we could finally complete our family. We had longed for him since we created our embryos back in 2021, alongside our baby girl, Ellie.

Ellie was our first transfer after the egg retrieval, making her beautiful debut in 2022. After she was born, we knew we still had a baby boy waiting for us. We focused on me finishing school and celebrating that accomplishment before turning our attention to our next transfer.

When the time finally came, we were so excited to get the chance to meet our little boy. We could never have expected it to end the way it did. Around six weeks, I started bleeding and went in to get checked — only to find out we were actually expecting twins! Two perfect, strong heartbeats. The embryo had split! We were completely overjoyed, already imagining life with identical twins.

At 7 weeks and 2 days, we lost one of them. We were devastated and heartbroken. After pulling ourselves together, we focused on our remaining baby, putting all our love and hope into him. With every shot I took, I prayed everything would stay okay. The doctors remained optimistic and believed this pregnancy would continue to be healthy.

After passing into the second trimester, we thought we were out of the woods. But at 15 weeks, we lost our baby boy, Luka. Because I was so far along, I had to be induced and go through labor and delivery. It was an experience no one should ever have to go through, but heartbreakingly, it does happen.

After mourning our boys, David and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t how our story was meant to end. We had always dreamed of having four beautiful blessings. We decided we would go through another egg retrieval.

Our doctors believe this was an isolated miscarriage that couldn’t have been predicted. They suspect the embryo splitting caused issues with the placenta’s growth, preventing a healthy pregnancy. The odds of this happening in IVF are about 1%. With both our doctors’ and our family’s support, we plan to start our next egg retrieval in February or March.

We’ve already started taking steps to make this possible — downsizing to a smaller, more affordable home and sticking to a tight budget over the next several months. Still, IVF is incredibly expensive, and we are humbly asking for help.

Any support — whether financial, through prayers, or simply words of comfort — means the world to us. The last time we did this, we received exactly what we needed to bring Ellie into the world. We are praying that this next retrieval will bring us our rainbow baby, in honor of Luka and his twin brother.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for reading our story and supporting our family’s journey. ❤️