Willow

Sarah and Cory, we are lifelong friends who met in elementary school. We started dating in 2007 and in 2014 decided to try to start a family. Things didn’t go according to plan and after a few early pregnancy losses, 5 rounds of unsuccessful IUI’s we tried our first round of IVF.

We were ecstatic to find out we pregnant with twins! but after just 10 weeks we lost one of them. We still had one fighter! Growing strong! Around 22 weeks we went for a routine ultrasound and were informed there were multiple congenital birth defects and our daughter would not survive birth. It wasn’t anything we did, there was no way to prevent this, it was just terrible luck. Pentology of Cantrell was the official diagnosis.

At 23 weeks Rose entered the world for a brief period of time. She passed peacefully in loving arms shortly after birth. Those moments together will be cherished forever in our hearts.

There were some complications after birth and Sarah was rushed away for emergency surgery. Eventually we did our second round of IVF which was unsuccessful. Feeling defeated and still grieving the loss of our sweet baby Rose, we still held onto hope that we were meant to be parents.

Our third IVF was success and everything was going great. I was followed closely due to our previous complications but wasn’t showing any signs of an abnormal pregnancy. We were cautiously excited.

We decided to take a camping trip aka a “baby-moon” to Yellowstone National Park. I had a checkup up from our doctor and we were all clear to head out. After a few days I started to feel ‘off’. I was packing up our tent when I felt a strong sensation across my tummy but it went away as soon as I stood up. I knew something was up and we decided to head home early instead of moving to a new campground. We also knew we did not have travel insurance, due to this being an IVF pregnancy, we were not eligible. We drove to the Canadian border and the closest hospital was swift current.

There they confirmed I was in Preterm labour and 4cm dilated. I was told, “we are not set up to deliver a baby at this gestation, if you have this baby here we will not be able to save it.” I will NEVER forget those words. They rushed out to call Stars air ambulance but they had just went out on a call and were not available for us!

There weren’t enough resources to s