Karli's Story

Written by Karli Wentz

"Our journey started in October 2017 just after our first wedding anniversary when we decided we wanted to try to start growing our family.

After a few short months of trying in January 2018 we found out we were pregnant! We were so excited and couldn’t believe how quickly our dreams of becoming parents were coming true! A few weeks later, I scheduled my first OBGYN visit and we went in to be evaluated. At the time I was either 7 or 8 weeks along and they performed an ultrasound. There was a gestational sac, but no baby, but they didn’t seem alarmed or concerned so my husband and I didn’t seem like there was anything to be worried about.

The doctor said that our timing could be off and to come back a week later to make sure our little one was growing appropriately. Filled with hope, we came back the following week and sadly found out the baby never grew in the [gestational] sac. We were diagnosed with a missed miscarriage and I was told that a D&C (Dilation & Curettege) would be my best and only option. I was scared and couldn’t believe surgery was the only choice I had. I had a very traumatic experience with the D&C and also ended up hemorrhaging a week after it. Sadly, the tissue that was collected during the procedure wasn’t enough to give us any answers. But, that didn’t stop us.

We were determined to try again once we got the all clear and we found out we were pregnant again a few months later in July of 2018, but this was different. The labs didn’t match up or make sense and after a few weeks of back and forth along no signs of loss, an ultrasound was performed and I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy.

It was strange because I never experienced any pain. Thankfully due to my lack of pain and my tubes still being intact I did not require surgery but I was hospitalized. I received one dose of methotrexate in the hospital and because that didn’t work I was given a second dose the following week which I guess isn’t very common but the second dose worked.

After this loss I asked my OBGYN for a referral to a specialist and that’s when I met my fertility doctor. Many tests and procedures were done and all came up with nothing. No reason we should be experiencing loss. Essentially, all we had was “bad luck” which was painful to hear.

Obviously we didn’t want anything to be wrong with either of us, but for some reason I think if there was it would have made our processing easier. After all the testing came back negative my doctor encouraged us to try again on our own and gave us progesterone to take monthly after ovulation. We tried for a few months while being monitored closely with no success.

My doctor then decided a round of IUI may be our best bet. We planned a trip to Disney World in February 2019 to just have fun and relax the month before our IUI and low and behold while in Disney we found out we were expecting! We flew home and were seen by our fertility doctor right away. All looked well! Baby was in the right spot, measuring perfectly, and for the first time ever we saw a heartbeat! It was a dream come true and to think we found out where dreams come true - in Disney world!

After a few more ultrasounds and evaluations we were released by our fertility doctor to go see our new OBGYN (we left the first we had our two first losses with). While at our first OB appointment my anxiety was through the roof. I was just about 10 weeks pregnant and begged to have an ultrasound to just calm my nerves because I missed seeing our little one! We were spoiled through our fertility clinic and saw them every time we came in for a visit! They agreed to do one, but sadly when our baby appeared on the screen that little flicker that we had seen three times previously was gone. The tech was very quiet and, this not being our first rodeo, we knew something was wrong. I remember my husband saying when the tech left the room that he didn’t see our little one's heart flickering, but he didn’t understand because they were fine less than a week prior. We were told by our fertility doctor we had a <1% chance of experiencing a miscarriage it all looked that good. After what seemed like hours the doctor came in and gave us the news we were already expecting to hear. We were heart broken.

Bret held me and we both just cried. My body had failed me again. I literally felt like a human cemetery. Three babies had passed away inside of me even though there was “nothing wrong with me.”

We called our fertility doctor right away and she was shocked as well. The baby was measuring perfectly and it just didn’t make sense. We were given a dose of oral medications by our OB to help my body miscarry and it was horrible. The pain that night was so bad and I really thought it all finished the following day, but I did not miscarry my little one until the following week. It was horrible and painful and so traumatic.

I’m an ER nurse and my husband is a paramedic and if we say it was horrible and thought we needed to go to the hospital it was bad.. I was able to calm down, get things under control, and clean up and not go into the hospital thankfully. During all of this craziness we were able to catch our little one and bring them in for genetic testing. After a few days in weeks we received our results. Our third baby was a little girl and it turned out she had Turner's Syndrome.

Turner’s Syndrome is just like other chromosome disorders can cause miscarriage, but there are also people alive and well with this syndrome. After this diagnosis we were told by our fertility doctor that IVF with genetic testing would be our best shot.

Desperate to be parents and to do it the safest most efficient way possible we agreed.

We had our egg retrieval in July of 2019 and had 19 eggs retrieved! After all the testing was completed we had three genetically tested embryos frozen! On September 23, 2019 our first embryo was transferred and that gave us our perfect little boy, Tucker, via scheduled c section on June 3, 2020.

He is our perfect rainbow baby and I don’t know what I would do without him. The plan was to do another round of IVF in June or July of 2021 (which is the plan now), but we did find out we were pregnant again in January 2021, but sadly we also lost this little peanut. This one was hard because I truly thought my body was going to be able to do it all on its own after having Tucker without any shots or medications. Even though my body brought me my rainbow baby it let me down again. We are heartbroken, but Tucker’s snuggles soften the blow. I always tell people Bret and I are going to have our hands full with all our little angels we have waiting for us. After we found out we lost this fourth baby we attempted three rounds of misoprostol with no success and sadly I needed another D&C. Surgery went well and now I am healing. We are doing more tests and preparing my body for a transfer hopefully this summer if all looks well. Stay strong ladies and gents. This all is tough, but we are tougher."