Judi and Josh Haley never planned to have another child.
The couple already has two, Brianna, 7, and Taylor, 5. Judi had a daughter, Kaitlyn, who passed away two years ago when the girl was 9.
The couple had talked about the possibility of more children, and ultimately Judi underwent a tubal ligation with her obstetrician-gynecologist last year.
“So, yes, I was extremely surprised when I turned out to be pregnant earlier (in January),” Haley said.
Three-months pregnant, to be exact, as of Jan. 5. Today, it’s four months.
“I just stayed home and cried for an entire week,” Haley said. “I wasn’t at all excited at first.”
Haley said she was feeling sick throughout the holidays, and was diagnosed with bronchitis in December.
“I had to go to the hospital for that,” she said. “By the beginning of January, I’d gotten over that, but then I was feeling sick again.”
This time, Haley was throwing up every morning.
“I thought it was just from maybe fluid having built up in my lungs during the bronchitis,” she said.
Haley made a post on Facebook, and friends started joking that she was pregnant.
“I said something about how all the throwing up was getting old, and friends started posting, ‘Oh, you’re pregnant,’” she said. “I laughed and brushed it off, because I knew I wasn’t. I’d had my tubes tied. There was no way I could be pregnant.”
Josh Haley saw conversation on the post and took the joking a little more seriously.
“We have a friend whose niece got pregnant after her tubes were tied, and he was more concerned about it,” Haley said. “So, he went out and bought two different pregnancy tests.”
Both tests were positive.
“I went straight to the OB that tied my tubes and told him that we have a problem,” Haley said. “He said there is a 1 in 1,000 chance of a woman becoming pregnant after having her tubes tied in the first year. And then, like I said, I cried for a week.”
Tears quickly changed to excitement.
“I am really excited now, and Josh is probably even more excited than I am,” Haley said.
She said she got her tubes tied last year because the couple initially feared having another child. Judi’s late daughter, Kaitlyn, had been born with only 75 percent of her brain, and both Haley’s brother and one of her other daughters were born with medical issues.
“My daughter who passed wasn’t supposed to make it seven days,” Haley said. “They cut off her breathing machine and she made it nine-and-a-half years.”
“With all the medical problems, we just thought it was best to have the tubes tied,” Haley said.
So, are she and her husband concerned about their third pregnancy?
“A little bit, but we’re already doing all the above-and-beyond tests to make sure everything is OK,” Haley said. “We did that with our other two daughters.”
Judi and her family believe the third child is definitely a miracle. Her due date is July 18.
“My mom says it’s my oldest daughter, that she did it,” Haley said. “We’re definitely over the shock, and the realization that there will soon be another little baby, that’s exciting for us. We definitely didn’t think it would happen again, so it’s a nice surprise.”
Haley said she has visited a geneticist as an extra precaution.
“Something that makes me feel better is that he’s told me one thing that one person has in my family has nothing to do with what someone else may have,” Haley said. “In other words, it’s not genetic, and these things are unrelated. It’s just plain bad luck that it happened.”
