A mother who suffered three miscarriages became pregnant with quadruplets just as she was about to give up on having more children.
Dayna Childress, 28, became pregnant with her first child Lincoln in 2015 after less than a month of trying.
The pregnancy went well and the couple’s first son, Lincoln, was born in December 2015. When Lincoln was nine-months-old, Dayna and Colby decided to try for another child because they wanted Lincoln to have a sibling close in age.
Dayna began to worry that she wouldn’t be able to conceive after battling for six months to become pregnant. She tried for seven months until a pregnancy test came back positive.
“I always had a gut feeling I’d have trouble conceiving, so when I was 22 I did an egg donation to confirm or deny that before I was ready to have my own,” said Dayna.
“I was told I was very fertile and I donated around 20 eggs for each donation and knew that everything was normal.
During her second pregnancy, Dayna was nauseous but at five weeks gestation the sickness stopped. ‘A week after the nausea stopped, tests confirmed I had miscarried. I was devastated and couldn’t accept it.’
Despite her heartbreak at losing her baby, Mrs Childress became pregnant soon after. However, she miscarried again at four weeks.
Dayna worried that she wouldn’t be able to carry another pregnancy to term, so she visited four gynecologists to find out what was going on, but there were no issues with her fertility.
“I was happy there were no issues found but also stressed because if they couldn’t find anything wrong, how could they help the problem before I miscarried again?” she said.
A specialist diagnosed Dayna with unexplained recurrent miscarriages, and she started using fertility drugs, Clomid and Follistim.
After a year of fertility treatments, the couple became pregnant once more, but the pregnancy failed because Dayna’s body was already preparing for her period when the egg was placed.
In 2018, a fertility doctor warned Dayna and Colby not to try conceiving during the month when she produced six eggs because there was a chance of multiples.
Wonderfully, the couple found out they were growing from a family of three to a family of seven during an ultrasound scan at five weeks when four sacs were visible.
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“I produced six mature eggs, but my doctor advised against trying that month since Follistim has a thirty per cent chance of multiples.
“My husband and I decided to try anyway since every cycle before, I had four eggs and only conceived once.”
At five weeks, an ultrasound revealed the couple were expecting quadruplets and Otto, Willow, Simon and Willis were born June 29, 2019, at 28 weeks and six days.
“The first ultrasound showed four sacs, but we could only see two babies with beating hearts, so I thought it would only be twins at the most, so I was delighted about that but even happier about quads,” Dayna said.
“You don’t realize how widespread infertility is because everyone keeps it a secret; it’s like we’re all too ashamed to talk about it, but that was what helped me get through it,” the couple said after sharing their experience.
