As we go through National Infant Loss Awareness Month, The Clarke County Tribune would like to recognize a few of the families that have dealt with the loss of their babies, how it affected them, and how they overcome each day thereafter.
After a few years of marital bliss, Chris and Christy King decided they were ready to grow their family. Like many other couples, however, they struggled to get pregnant.
For months, Christy took medication to try and help, but it was to no avail. Eventually, her doctor knew it was time to send her to a specialist.
“We were married for seven years when we decided that we wanted to have children. We tried for about a year and a half and went to our local doctor. We had been taking Clomid, and that stuff just makes you really mean,” explained Christy. “She said we should do another six months of that and keep trying, and I just broke down in tears. She asked what was wrong and I told her that I wanted a baby. I didn’t want another six months; I wanted a baby. She told me I would be getting the first available appointment with Dr. Isaacs, a fertility specialist, in Jackson.”
She went to the specialist on her own for a consultation, and she didn’t like him at all; however, she knew he was the best, and that is what she wanted so that she would be able to help their family grow. She may have strongly disliked her specialist on the first visit, but she started to love him once she really started to see him. He was very thorough and discussed a disease that she is a carrier for and the impact it could have on her future children. While she was going through the struggle to have a baby, she didn’t realize that her infertility was actually a blessing; now, she completely understands.
“At the time, he was at Baptist. I went to Dr. Isaacs for a consult, and I hated him at that first visit. I told Chris I hated him but that he’s the best in his area, so that’s who we would go with. He is very no nonsense because he knows by the time people get to him, they’re at their last resort. He had a plan and laid that plan out to say what we were going to do. He said we would do some inseminations and that if that didn’t work, we would do IVF,” informed Christy. “We talked about how I’m a hemophilia carrier, and it is independently 50 percent hereditary. I was about 13 years old and had already started praying for my children that God would protect them from that. I did not realize that God’s plan for all of that was infertility, but God’s ways are higher than our ways. We realize now that infertility was a blessing for our family. It was a difficult path to walk and not one we would have chosen, but it did protect us from hemophilia.”
Dr. Isaacs gave them more options, but at the time they wanted to start with the simplest option they could. Once the decision for how they would approach getting pregnant was made, Christy started having her procedures, but each month only brought her gloom as she learned she still wasn’t pregnant.
“The specialist told me we could do donated eggs or embryo adoption. I was dead set against it and said that we would do IVF and would try inseminations. Inseminations was our first step because we always start with least invasive process first,” proclaimed Christy. “We did four rounds of uterine insemination, and the medicine for that is pretty harsh.”
By the time the third attempt failed, they knew they had to make a new plan. Unfortunately, they were on a race against the clock as they had to beat an amendment that would make their new plan impossible if it passed.
“After the third one, we decided to go on the embryo adoption list. We didn’t know how long the list was or how long it would take us to get a call saying some embryos were available. This was during the Personhood Amendment that we voted on that sought to end abortion in Mississippi. Had it passed in Mississippi, it would have rendered IVF illegal because it would have made the embryos people, and you can’t freeze a person because that’s illegal,” continued Christy. “Everybody felt like it would pass in Mississippi, so the doctor started looking at all the embryos he had in storage. He called all the families and told them they couldn’t keep them and that the families would have to decide to either list them for adoption or let them go because it would be illegal to store them if the amendment passed. A lot of families decided to go ahead and put their embryos up for adoption. We had three embryos made available to us from the same family, triplets.”
She was busy at work when the call came to inform her about the three embryos. She originally was upset because she and Chris had decided to give her medication a break and never renewed it. What she originally was distraught about ended up being a blessing.
“I was sitting at a 4H livestock events with agents sitting on each side of me when I got a call from Dr. Isaacs. I answered, and our precious nurse, Peggy, told me they had three embryos for me. I didn’t have my Clomid refilled that month, and I told her I hadn’t taken my medicine and that if she has to give them to someone else then to do that. She said she was hoping I’d say that because you can’t get the embryo if taking the medicine and that the babies were mine if I wanted them,” remembered Christy. “I called Chris, and he told me to call her back and tell her that we’re taking them. Dr. Isaacs normally only does two at a time, but we felt like this was our last shot because I couldn’t have a pregnancy test until after the vote we were sure would pass, so he did all three.”
For the first time since they started their journey, they were able to finally hear the long awaited news they wanted.
“The amendment failed in Mississippi, and I’d had the embryo transfer on October 27 and lay in bed for three days because you have to lie flat on your back for three days after a transfer,” explained Christy. “About 14 days later we drove to Jackson for a blood pregnancy test. We were in the McDonald’s drive thru when Peggy called and told me I was pregnant. When we went for our ultrasound, we didn’t know how many heartbeats we would see since there were three embryos transferred. We saw one little blinking light, and it was Jackson.”
They were elated to finally have their healthy little boy, but they still wanted to continue to grow their family. Once again, they took the necessary steps to be able to try and get pregnant again, but they were faced with disappointment.
“When Jackson was six months old, we went back on the embryo adoption list because we wanted our babies to be about two years apart and didn’t know how long it would take to get more embryos. Dr. Isaacs had been offered to move from Baptist to UMC, so he was getting ready to move clinics. He called and told us that he was about to move clinics and didn’t know how the move was going to go because embryo adoption would look different once he was at UMC,” recalled Christy. “Once again, he said they wanted to get embryos out of there fast and that they didn’t have time to synchronize me with medicine and would have to go with my natural cycle. He told me to come on in. There were no shots ahead of time, and once we got the transfer done, there were shots to keep me pregnant. The first pregnancy test came back positive, and the second test came back negative. It was a chemical pregnancy, so we lost those twins.”
While they were upset about losing that pregnancy, they continued to pray and try again. They were ecstatic to learn the results of the procedure, but after only six weeks, something happened that was cause for concern.
“We went back on the embryo adoption list, and in June 2016, we got a call that there were twins. We picked the twins and did all the synchronization and had the embryo transfer done on June 10. Everything was looking really good, and both of the twins took. We went in for ultrasounds and didn’t see heartbeats on the ultrasound, but for twins it wasn’t unusual because the ultrasound was so early and the twins were so small. The numbers looked really good, though,” Christy expounded. “Then, I went to the bathroom and was bleeding pretty bad with heavy clots. We went to the ER, and they told us that everything was okay and that they babies were there and everything good and for us to make an appointment with our obstetrician. The earliest appointment we had was nine days later. We had a vacation planned during that time, and Dr. Isaacs told us it would be fine to go on our vacation. I was taking shots at the time. We had blood work pulled, and the numbers weren’t the best but also not the worst. I just didn’t feel good; I was just sick and just didn’t feel right.”
While she and Chris had already fallen in love with their young twins, her gut was telling her that something was wrong. Later at her doctor appointment, her worse fears were confirmed. She and Chris had been experiencing infertility, but now they had to experience something new: loss.
“We went to the obstetrician at what should have been about nine weeks at that point, and the babies were measuring six weeks with no heartbeat. We knew then that we had lost the twins,” Christy somberly stated. “The doctor scheduled us for surgery, and I asked her if she would do another ultrasound the day before the surgery just so we could check for a heartbeat and make sure. She agreed to it, and the person taking our ultrasound that last time took a lot of pictures of each baby. We had the surgery and stayed overnight. We didn’t know whether the twins were boys or girls, so we named them Jamie and Jordan.”
Chris had been with Christy at the hospital, but once she returned home, he had to attend band camp. Everything was fine as long as he was busy, but when he had a still moment to himself, he was overwhelmed by grief. He wasn’t sure how to handle the grief and took it out on those around him without meaning to do so. He finally consulted his boss and was allowed to return home to be with Christy and talk and try to work through everything they were going through.
“That was hard for Christy especially. It was hard for me too, but I was at band camp. I was busy, and there were things to keep my mind off of it,” expressed Chris. “When I got still and quiet, it was really hard. I threw a chair across the band hall. I yelled at my director colleagues in the cafeteria and got in a big argument. I was just really angry and hurt. Christy called and was beside herself. She said I was at band camp and even though she had her mom, she needed me there. I was told to go on home and take care of my wife.”
While upset, they did place their faith in God and trust that He had something to teach them through their loss. They constantly prayed that they wouldn’t miss anything and could see what God had in store for them.
They decided to have another try. Again, they were able to receive the news they wanted to hear.
“We lost the twins in July and went back on the embryo adoption list. We got a call in September that some more embryos were available, so we started the process again,” informed Christy. “The doctor called and gave us some dates for embryo transfer. One of the dates he gave us was October 27, and Chris and I told him that’s the date we wanted. On October 27, we had two more embryos transferred, putting us at nine embryos transferred overall. Jones was part of that set.”
This time, they witnessed God perform a miracle as he allowed them to later give birth to another healthy little boy, Jones, even though symptoms she faced during pregnancy would have suggested the opposite happen.
“When we were pregnant with Jones, we were also pregnant with twins. In the same time frame that we lost the twins, we started having the same symptoms with Jones—heavy bleeding. We were certain that we were losing Jones and his twin, too. We drove back to Jackson for a blood test knowing that it was going to show that we were losing those babies, but God had other plans. When the blood test came back, we were healthy pregnant,” exclaimed Christy. “We did lose Jones’ twin—but not Jones. I was on modified bed rest through the first trimester with Jones to make sure we didn’t lose him. There is no earthly reason for Jones to still be here or for him to have survived and stayed in my tummy after what all he went through in there because the bleeding was worse than what I went through losing the twins.”
While they are more than thrilled to have both of their little boys, both Chris and Christy will always love and miss all of their babies who left too soon. They still think of Jamie and Jordan and miss them. Through their journey with both infertility and loss, they are able to empathize with others who are in the same situation. They are open about their loss and what they have experienced, and they both agree that they made it through all of their tragedy thanks to their faith and God’s help.
