Chelsey Voogt: The Heartbreaking Fight To Start Her Family

My name is Chelsey Voogt I am 32 years old from Orlando, Fl. 

After 2 failed attempts at IVF to start our little family, my husband and I decided we would try one last time praying that the 3rd time would be as they say "the charm".

Surprisingly, we found out we were pregnant with twins. We were over the moon with joy. Twins! How could this be we thought, how did we get so lucky!?

Before we knew it those feelings of excitement were quickly stripped away from us when after several scares and trips to the hospital landed me on at home bed rest where I could only get up to shower, use the restroom or eat real quick. The doctors had found that my cervix was shortening by the day.

Doing everything we could to keep the babies in, we opted to do a cerclage procedure. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is where they sew your cervix shut in hopes it will keep the babies in until they are at a healthy point where they can survive outside of the womb. My high risk doctor wanted to be extra safe so decided to put an extra stitch in.

This procedure took place at 16 weeks of pregnancy. Around this same time we found out be still our hearts were having a baby boy and a baby girl. Baby Jax Jayden and Baby Mila Marie. We had picked those names out at the very beginning of our trying to conceive journey and to us they were the perfect names!

At 21 weeks of pregnancy things quickly went even more south when I woke up to a large amount of bleeding. One of the two cerclage stitches had pulled through from the weight of the babies bearing down on the cervix. Scared to death not knowing what our future held I was placed on hospital bed rest until the babies came.

On October 4, 2015 at 22 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy Twin A - "Mila" started making her way through the last stitch. With her head already crowning the doctors gave my husband and I the choice to do a c-section and have both babies born or cut the stitch and let her be born and see if Twin B "Jax" makes his way out as well.

After making the decision to cut the stitch at 7:37 AM, Mila Marie Voogt was born weighing in at 1 lb 1 oz & 10 1/2 inches long.  With an endoloop in place after Mila's birth Jax decided to stay on board a little bit longer.

Since I was ordered to stay on the labor and delivery floor as it was unknown what would happen with me next I was unable to make it to the floor directly above mine to see and spend time with our daughter. Mila was born with a brain bleed but for being such a small baby and having the issues she did she continued to surprise us on a daily basis with how amazing she was doing.

Sadly 4 days after being born on October 8, 2015 Mila became very weak. The doctors doing everything they could to figure out what was wrong they discovered she had a small hole in her intestines. With daddy right by her side, the doctors quickly jumped into action and operated on her in hopes they could stop the toxins from pouring into her tiny helpless body.

Due to her issues from being born so early, Mila's heart could no longer take anymore and all of her levels began to drop. My nurses on labor and delivery rushed a gurney into my room so they could get me to her bedside as fast as possible. I made my way up and the moment I became bedside I for the first time ever touched our daughter.

We've never prayed harder then we did on this day. We prayed for her to breathe, We prayed for her to fight, We prayed for her levels to please come back up and by some miracle she came back to us. As her levels started to stabilize she grabbed my finger and squeezed tight. 

Not wanting to leave her side but knowing it was best for Jax I was wheeled back down to labor and delivery. They promised me if anything else were to happen they would come back in and get me.

Not even 20 minutes later the nurses came rushing back in. This time the moment I became bedside my husband looked up to the monitor and said "she has no heart beat baby!" As we prayed and prayed again begging and pleading for her little body to pull through they kept bagging her to get her to breathe. I looked up at her doctor and said "she's gone isn't she?" with tears in his eyes he shook his head yes.

I asked them to please give me our daughter. They took all of her leads off and wrapped her in her pink prayer blanket we had placed on her incubator shortly after she was born. We held her in our arms for close to an hour just taking in every single curve and every single feature of her face, her tiny hands, her tiny feet, everything. We knew the moment we handed her back we would never be able to take those little things in like that ever again.

Having an extremely hard time coping with the death of our sweet angel 3 days later I started having contractions and soon after my water for Jax broke. We were trying to keep him in as long as possible to give him the best chances of surviving.

After 3 days of contractions my body wasn't able to handle the endoloop anymore and on October 15, 2015 at 24 weeks and 3 days pregnant I woke up with a fever of 104. Dr. Desai, my high risk doctor, who stuck by our side through all of this decided for the safety of the baby and now myself it was time to induce.

With Mila in our hearts at 10:19 AM that morning our beautiful rainbow baby made his way into this world. Weighing in at 1 Lb 4.8 Oz's & 12 inches long Jax Jayden Voogt had officially stayed inside me 11 days longer then his sister. Jax was sadly born with a brain bleed as well thankfully not as bad as Mila.

We never gave up hope, we never stopped praying even when we felt angry and confused we did everything in our power to keep the faith. After 104 days of ups and downs in the NICU on January 26, 2016 Jax Jayden got to come home with us.

We've come SO far with our sweet miracle boy. Jax is an extremely smart, healthy, happy little boy who just started school back in October of 2018. Also big surprise he is going to be a big brother in September of 2019 .. we have no doubt he is going to be an amazing big brother! 

I most certainly can relate to being a beautiful disaster. I’ve been through extreme trials and tribulations no parent should ever have to endure and now with this new pregnancy I am trying my hardest to maintain my strength and positivity. 

To follow my family and I’s story head to The Voogt Family Vlog on YouTube New updates every other week.