WWE superstar Kelly Kelly and husband Joe Coba never imagined embarking on an IVF journey. The process can be taxing and even take its toll on relationships but for this couple, the process brought them even closer.
The doting couple invited ET's Cassie DiLaura into their home for an in-depth conversation about their IVF journey, which resulted in Kelly, who also goes by Barbie Blank Coba, becoming pregnant with twins. She's due in September, and she's ecstatic, but the 36-year-old wrestling pro tells ET there was a time during the whole process when she "helpless" not being able to conceive naturally.
She got pregnant once before, and though it sadly resulted in a miscarriage (a painful loss she revealed in August 2021), Kelly says she always assumed she would become pregnant again naturally. But when they started trying again, nothing happened. So they kept at it. Again, and again, and again, and again, to no avail.
Finally, Kelly says a friend (Bachelor alum Kendall Long) recommended a great fertility doctor in San Francisco, Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh, also known as "the egg whisperer." And, after a two-year process, Kelly got pregnant. They're filled with joy for the bundles of joy now, but the process had Kelly, at one point, questioning herself.
"I just feel like it is a sense of relief because you do think, as a woman, you're like, 'This is what I'm meant, like- I'm meant to carry a child,'" she tells ET. "For so long I've been able to tell my body to do something and it'll do it. And I feel like I was so helpless in that moment that I couldn't control this, and it was so frustrating."
In opting for IVF, Kelly and Coba say they leaned on a close family member who went through the same process. But in the end, they knew they ultimately had to lean on each other. But Kelly wanted to take it a step further. She wanted to be as open about the process.
"When I started my IVF journey I was like, 'I want to be open about that because I feel like women can relate to that,'" Kelly says. "Women, a lot of times, don't talk about it. And [they're] looked down upon, like, 'Oh my, I have to resort to IVF because I can't get pregnant and I don't want people to know that. I want people to think I'm perfect and everything is great.' And I was like, 'Let me take women along on this journey with me.'"
Kelly recalls the day they were going to plant the embryos, and it just so happened that the date landed on her late father's birthday. Kelly's father, Ron, died in February 2018 from a rare form of brain cancer.
"I just feel like in these little moments ... he's with me," she says. "And it's really significant that that was his birthday and that was the day that my babies were going to be born."
"I felt him holding my other hand," she continues. "It couldn't have been more perfect. I just feel like everything happens for a reason and I feel like everything that we went through was meant to happen."
Joe also lost his father, and the fact that their children won't have a grandfather is a notion that's not lost on Kelly.
"We both talk about our kids not having grandfathers but you know, Joe's got an amazing stepdad, who's just going to be the most amazing grandpa," Kelly says. "Then we have our moms. Everything's going to be amazing. But it is still, you think about, 'Well, what if our dads were here? And how great of grandparents they would be as grandpas?' He would be so proud."
Kelly's approximately 16 weeks pregnant, but the feeling that she's pregnant and carrying twins hasn't fully sunk in yet.
"I feel like the nerves haven't really hit us too bad yet," says Kelly, whose pregnancy cravings so far includes Taco Bell (but chicken is a hard pass). "I feel like once it gets to like the eight-month mark, it'll be like, 'Oh my gosh, this is real.'"
What did feel very real was the moment she found out she was having twins. Kelly and Joe flew up to San Francisco to hear the news, and she remembers waiting for a sign -- any sign! -- from the doctor that there was good news to share.
"I'm looking at her and she's looking at the screen and her smile," Kelly says. "And she looks up and she's like, 'Two.' And we were like, 'Ah!' I get goosebumps talking about it, but it was just the most surreal moment."
For Joe, yes, happiness washed over him but so did a sense of relief.
"Just relief. I mean, the journey has kind of been what it has been and there's been a lot of ups and downs," Joe says. "And watching Barbie, as the female in the situation going through the fertility [process], it was just so much excitement and a lot of relief, too."
The IVF journey brought the couple closer. Sure, Joe says, IVF wasn't their "ideal methodology," but because they were so supportive of each other it made the decision to go through with the IVF process that much easier.
"In a sense, it probably brought us closer," he says.
"He's just been like my rock," Kelly adds. "I don't know what I would do without him."
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