The chicken or the egg?
A lot of people asked me after we lost the twins, why would you try to get pregnant again if the same thing could happen? How would you survive that grief all over again? Well you never shake that fear or PTSD. And in the beginning I didn’t have an answer ... all I knew was that I had to keep moving towards our goal and I would seek out any tools I could to help get me there.
When I went into preterm labor with my twins I was evaluated for a cervical cerclage immediately. However, since I was having contractions, I was told it was too dangerous and my cervix could rip apart from the stitches. We all know what happened after. I delivered and lost them at nearly 22 weeks.
Doctors at Northwestern in Chicago really had no definitive explanation for what happened to my body. By the time we all discovered what was happening, my cervix had shortened by nearly half of what it was, my uterus was ballooning (a sign of delivery), and unbeknownst to me, I was having contractions. They didn’t know which happened first. The pre-term labor (contractions) which caused the shortening. Or the shortening that caused the pre-term labor. I was left with little to no answers and anxiety-filled fears that this could happen to us again.
Almost a year later I was processing my grief while still desperately trying to get pregnant again through IVF (with no success) when I was introduced to a woman who had just suffered a similar loss. She told me about the TAC (trans abdominal cerclage) and the world renowned Dr. Haney and his team at University of Chicago. Dr. Haney says that the TAC has a greater than 99 percent success rate in preventing pregnancy loss among women with an incompetent cervix. While it’s more invasive (c-section incision) once you are healed you can be a lot more active during your pregnancy (than with a cervical cerclage). Also the TAC is permanent and can sustain multiple pregnancies. Needless to say, we made an appointment immediately to be evaluated and see if I qualified.
When I met with Dr. Haney (who had reviewed my medical records prior) he said, without a doubt, that I had an incompetent cervix. In his eyes the shortening happened first which caused the pre-term labor. His confidence washed over us as he diagnosed me and told me I was a candidate for the TAC.
Dr. Haney typically recommends a pre-pregnancy procedure but you can also have it done up to 13 weeks if you’re pregnant. Since I didn’t know if I could even get pregnant again, we decided to wait. And if we were blessed at some point, I would have the surgery in-pregnancy. We left his office with the game plan on how it would work if I got pregnant and I tucked my new tool away until I (hopefully) needed it.
I had a couple of pregnancies that didn’t make it in the next year, so we then moved on to using a gestational carrier to have our twin girls to term. ❤️ Little did I know, almost 4 years after that appointment, I would be back at Dr. Haney’s with a progressing miracle pregnancy and a TAC surgery that was needed to get me to term.
Please look for part 2 next Sunday, where I’ll share more detail around my in-pregnancy TAC experience. I’ll also collect some information and resources to help anyone who may be considering this procedure.