Unexpected Happiness
My husband, Shawn, and I had our first son in January 2005 and about two weeks later Shawn was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He had to have surgery fairly quickly, which was a scary thought, but first we went to Calgary to hopefully save sperm - already knowing we wanted more children.
After his surgery, and 6 months of Chemotherapy, the doctors told us Shawn was healthy again. Then when our son, Schae, was about 1.5 years old we decided it was time to start thinking about a second baby. We went to Calgary to our first appointment at the Regional Fertility Program (RFP) and met with a doctor there, who informed us that the cancer had taken over too much already and we didn't have enough sperm to do an Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) cycle and our only other hope was In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
The cost of IVF was more than we ever planned, so we started saving our pennies and with the help of the Generations of Hope Fertility Assistance Fund, we managed to have enough money by February of the next year.
We began the journey in June and by the end of July 2007, two embryos were implanted. Two weeks later, the pregnancy test came back positive! I don't know if we expected to be pregnant the first time or not, seeing as I had talked to so many other couples going through the same process and this was their third or fourth time doing this with no success, but WE WERE PREGNANT! The next step was to have an ultrasound to see if one embryo had attached or both of them. We discovered at the ultrasound that both had attached….TWINS!
The pregnancy was pretty uneventful, but when I was 29 weeks along, I went into pre-term labour and was brought to Lethbridge in an ambulance. Karter and Kade were taken by C-Section after many attempts to stop the labour. The two of them were fighters and although they were only 3lbs,1 oz and 2lbs,12oz they thrived over the next few weeks.
Now they are growing so fast and I can hardly remember what it was like to have those teeny tiny beings. They have such personality and best of all… they are very healthy.
