The Truth About "High Risk": Kortney on Twin Loss, IVF, and Finding Joy in the Aftermath

I remember sitting across from Kortney—someone I’ve known since our college days—and feeling the air in the room shift. We weren't just two old friends catching up on the last twelve or thirteen years. We were stepping into the wreckage and the beauty of a story that most people are too terrified to even whisper about.

"She will regret it for the rest of her life if she doesn't." 

That’s what a nurse whispered to Kortney’s husband while Kortney was in the middle of a waking nightmare, terrified to hold her daughter, Kinsley, who had just been born at only 21 weeks. It’s a quote that hasn’t left me since we stopped recording. It’s the raw, vibrating heart of what it means to be a mother in a moment where "motherhood" looks like saying hello and goodbye in the same breath.

When the "Natural" Path Hits a Wall

Kortney’s journey to her family didn't follow the timeline we’re all sold as kids—the one where you decide you’re ready, and it just happens. At 24, she was diagnosed with PCOS, a reality that "rocked her world" before she and her husband, Tyler, even started trying.

What followed was a years-long marathon of clinical intervention. They started with IUI (Intrauterine Insemination), hoping for the "easy" route. But as anyone who has been in the trenches of fertility treatments knows, there is nothing easy about scheduling your entire life around blood draws, ultrasounds, and the "emotional rollercoaster" of every failed cycle.

By their fifth IUI cycle, they finally got the news: Kortney was pregnant with twins. But in the world of high-risk pregnancy, joy is often shadowed by a "pinch me" kind of disbelief and a heavy dose of fear.

21 Weeks: The Shift No One Prepares For

Everything was fine until it wasn't. At a routine 20-week anatomy scan—the appointment where you’re supposed to be celebrating seeing the babies—the tone in the room changed. The technician went quiet. The doctor didn't come into the usual room.

Kortney’s cervix had opened completely. She was rushed to the hospital, put on strict bed rest, and pumped with medications to stop the contractions that her body shouldn't have been having yet.

She spent seven days in a hospital bed, unable to even brush her teeth, praying for her body to just cooperate. But on the seventh day, active labor took over.

Kinsley was born first, breathing for just a few precious minutes. Eight hours later, her brother Cameron followed, stillborn.

Kortney went from planning a nursery to signing cremation paperwork in a matter of hours. She walked out of that hospital with two brown teddy bears instead of her babies.

3 Things I Learned About Navigating Impossible Grief

1. Grief and Joy Are Not Mutually Exclusive

• One of the most profound things Kortney shared was how she learned to let "grief and love and grief and joy coexist at the same exact time".

• Early on, she felt guilty for laughing, but five years later, she can talk about Kinsley and Cameron with a smile on her face.

• While the "anticipatory grief" leading up to their birthday still hits hard, it is no longer as dark or heavy as that brutal first year.

  
  

2. The Importance of "The Cuddle Cot"

• A Cuddle Cot is a cooling system that allows parents to stay with their deceased babies for longer, slowing the natural processes of decomposition so they can memorize every finger and toe.

• Kortney and Tyler raised funds to donate one to a local hospital that didn't have one.

• It gave them 24 hours of memories they wouldn't otherwise have had.

• It turned their pain into a "purpose" that helps the parents who will inevitably follow them.

  
  

3. Your Medical Team Should Care About Your Mind, Not Just Your Body

• When Kortney went back to her fertility clinic ready to jump into IVF just months after losing the twins, her doctor did something incredible: she said no.

• The doctor recognized Kortney wasn't mentally or emotionally ready yet.

• This forced Kortney to focus on therapy and retreats for lost moms during those months of waiting.

• This built a foundation of trust that helped her through the subsequent pregnancies with her children, Kennedy and Camden.

  
  

The Expert Take: Resilience is a Team Sport

We often talk about resilience as this solo act—pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. But Kortney’s story proves that resilience is actually a team sport.

It was the nurse who pushed her to hold her baby. It was her husband, Tyler, playing games on his phone just to distract her from the "dark thoughts" in the hospital. It was her mom cleaning her house and doing laundry so Kortney could just be in her grief.

Kortney didn't just "get over" it. She built a life around the loss. She calls her family a "family of six," even though only four are here on earth. That is the ultimate form of self-advocacy: refusing to let the world erase the parts of your story that are invisible to them.

You are not alone

To the girl sitting in a hospital room at 21 weeks, or the one staring at a negative pregnancy test for the twentieth time: You are going to be okay. You are stronger than the version of yourself you haven't met yet.

Kinsley and Cameron’s legacy isn't just the sadness of their departure; it’s the resilience they sparked in their mother and the light they continue to bring to their siblings, Kennedy and Camden.

If you’re struggling with loss or the heavy weight of a high-risk pregnancy, please know you aren't alone. There are groups, there are "lost moms" waiting to hold your hand, and there is space for your story here.

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