Penticton couple who lost two babies announces they are expecting thanks to community donations helping fund surrogacy costs

Photo: Contributed

Scott and Jessica Tregoning share their pregnancy news

A Penticton couple whose hearts have been broken from losing their two sons are healing once again, delighted to announce that their surrogate has become pregnant.

Scott and Jessica Tregoning were expecting their first child on Feb. 9, 2019, but Jessica's water broke 12 weeks before, too soon for their child to survive. Their firstborn son, Paxon Alexanda Tregoning, was flown to Children’s Hospital in Vancouver and only lived for three days.

The same devastation hit the couple when they fell pregnant again.

Jessica had a scheduled C section in September 2020 when just two weeks before her date, on Aug. 31, the uterus incision from her previous C section burst while at home one evening. They were rushed to the hospital and after 20 minutes trying to revive him, Matix Jack Tregoning was pronounced stillborn.

Since losing the second child, Jessica has learned her body is not safe to carry another baby.

But not all was lost, as one of the couple’s closest friends offered to carry a baby for them.

“So we did an embryo transfer with our surrogate Jessica R. at the beginning of April and everything was really positive with it. We were so hopeful and we just thought 'How can this not work?” Jessica said.

The in vitro (IVF) process usually only has a 25 per cent chance of success on the first try of becoming pregnant, but happy news came shortly after the procedure.

“We were able to take an at home pregnancy test about 10 days later and found out that she was pregnant.”

The surrogate is now almost eight weeks along and Jessica said she's feeling good, everything is "really positive."

“With what I've gone through in the past, I was kind of cautiously optimistic, because so many things have gone wrong already and we only had two embryos, which is a bit scary.”

The successful news has helped the couple through their grieving process, becoming ‘hopeful and happy again.’

“After we lost our first, there was kind of that glimmer of hope knowing we could try again and get pregnant again after we grieved. Now there's kind of that glimmer of hope again. We've grieved a little bit, we feel good about kind of moving on.”

Jessica explained that this all became possible because of the support they received, with her aunt starting a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the medical expenses.

“We're just so overwhelmed, and it still feels too good to be true,” she said, with emotion behind her words.

“We're just so grateful. It was way more than I ever thought it could be, the way we raised the money so quickly and just how the community came together for us.”

Jessica added the family will be forever thankful to the community that helped them have hope for a child again.

“We're really going to try to pay it back and pay it forward as much as we can now, after being helped out by so many people.”

The baby is expected on Dec. 17 right near the surrogate’s birthday on Dec. 12.

"She is just so excited to give us this gift for her birthday," Jessica added.