Hello - I just wanted to post here among a supportive community that I am about to have Transabdominal cerclage surgery in a few hours, to try and prevent what happened to my beloved daughters from happening to our hopefully future children. It took us 5 years of trying to conceive our girls, only to suddenly discover at 21 weeks that I was apparently already in pre term labor, my cervix was basically completely gone with no measureable length and was 3cm dilated. The hospital did an emergency amnio reduction on both girls, and a rescue TVC (vaginal cerclage) on me. Things held OK until about 3 weeks later when my first daughter Evie's water broke, and not long after they realized her cord was prolapsed, and thus they had to do an emergency c section, bringing my girls into the world on Oct 1, 2015 at 24.1 weeks, far too soon. Evie lived in the NICU for about 3 days, Rosie for about 33 days. Not having my beloved girls here with me physically, to see them grow into women and who they would become, is just devastation and torture beyond words, as I know you all understand. While I know nothing can replace them, the only real reason I have to keep going is to bring living children into this world and at least counterbalance this tremendous sorrow with some joy.

We have 4 frozen embryos waiting for us, which of course when we were expecting our girls to be here, we thought we might actually end up with more embryos than we could use...now I'm worried we won't have enough, if some don't thaw, some don't take, etc...I feel like I need a minimum of 2 children now just to fill in some of the space of what we have lost. I wanted to put an embryo back asap, but if we wanted to go the transabdominal cerclage route, then it's best to do it pre-pregnancy if possible. For those of us with cervical issues, the TAC is considered to have a much higher success rate than TVCs, but it's somewhat newer technology and not that many doctors perform them. We drove 3.5 hrs to Indianapolis for my surgery tomorrow, and that was the closest doctor to us who is well known and specializes in this surgery.

I'm glad to be getting this done so I can move forward with hopefully future pregnancies knowing we did as much as we possibly could to prevent the same tragic circumstances from happening again. I'm still not eager to have anything else done to my body, or to be back in a hospital setting, but I know this is the best thing. Then hopefully I won't have to wait more than 6 weeks post TAC surgery to put another embryo back in me, and hope beyond hope that it takes, and that I can be on the monthly pregnancy threads by late Spring.

I'm not sure how much prayer is good for on my end anymore, but I still ask for the fates to hopefully be kind to me and let me have a smooth and successful TAC surgery as I do my best to move forward...and if any of you could send good thoughts/vibes/etc my way in a few hours, I would really appreciate it. Thank you!

I'm sending so many positive thoughts and prayers that all goes perfectly with your procedure so you can be well on your way to bringing their siblings into the world by spring. So many hugs to you, sweet mama.

I have tears for you and your little girls that didn't make it. I am wishing you all the best with your surgery, though i have no experience with cervical issues. Please let us know how it went and how the doctors feel your body handled it.

Thank you so much for the support - it truly is appreciated. I didn't get to talk to the Dr post surgery, but my husband did, and it sounds like everything went pretty well and smoothly for the TAC surgery. It was so difficult being wheeled into an operating room again, with all the sad associations of what happened with my girls, and knowing I wouldn't be there having this TAC surgery at all if the fates had let my girls live.

The pain afterwards was less than my emergency c section, but still significant so we had to stay at the hotel another night before driving back home. I had some additional pain from the gas that's put in to inflate the abdomen during surgery, and the breathing tube has caused much more throat irritation than I expected, or else I caught some respiratory crud around the same time as surgery, so I've just felt all around crappy since surgery and don't feel up to returning to work yet, even though I will have to. Apparently I'm always a difficult stick, so I ended up with tons of holes & bruising on my arms yet again, plus a swollen belly post surgery, knowing that big belly is not a baby in there, but just more surgery to my body. Mainly I think I'm just feeling emotionally lower too, having to go through all this on top of what I've already been through, and that my work environment is so hostile for me to be in, it's just all very negatively overwhelming right now.

I know this surgery was the best option, I'm grateful it went OK, and I hope my body continues to be strong and can bounce back quickly so we can move forward with one of our precious remaining embryos a month or so from now. Right now everything seems pretty crappy, and a month or two from now seems like an eternity, but I hope my spirits can start to pick back up, and I hope this surgery will all be worth it in the coming months.

Thank you all again for the support, it is a much needed Lifeline.

I am sending you so much love, prayers and support! I hope that you will have your beautiful new baby in your arms soon.