Kelsi and Kyle Pierce were excited to start a family when they got married, but they had no idea what kind of journey they were about to go on.
The couple got married in 2016 and moved to Minnesota to start their new life together. It wasn’t long before they started trying to start a family.
But it turned out to be hard to get pregnant, so Kelsi went to see her doctor to find out why they were having trouble.
Doctors told the couple that Kelsi had a low ovarian reserve at first, but after IVF, they found that her uterine lining was too thin to support a pregnancy.
The couple tried for two years and spent all of their money trying to get pregnant. Finally, Kelsi’s doctor broke her heart by telling her that she would never be able to get pregnant.
Kelsi told Good Morning America, “We had already poured more than our savings and gone into debt incredibly just for what we had done before, so it wasn’t an option,” Kelsi told Good Morning America. “It was a very depressing time.”
They thought about getting a gestational carrier, but when they found out it would cost $100,000, they dropped the idea. That is, until Kelsi’s mom, Lisa Rutherford, stepped in.
The 53-year-old woman offered to carry her daughter’s baby.
Lisa said, “When you have kids you want their life to be better, easier, more fulfilling than your life,” Lisa said. “I just thought I don’t have $100,000 to hand you, but this is what I can do to make your dream come true. It wasn’t even a question.”
Mom Lisa had to take a number of tests to find out if she would be able to help her daughter in this way. In December 2019, the procedure was finally approved. By February of the next year, she was expecting her daughter’s child.
But in March, Kelsi found out she was also pregnant, which was an even bigger shock to the family.
“It was an awesome experience…”
“I was so happy for Kelsi to be able to carry a baby, and it was so much fun to talk about our own experiences,” Lisa said.
The mom and daughter both had babies two months apart. They were both girls named Everly and Ava, and the mom and grandmother couldn’t be happier.
“Every time something is hard or I’m tired, I remind myself that this is my dream finally coming true,” said Kelsi. “I appreciate it so much more because of how long it took and how much struggle it took.”