After six years of marriage and almost as much time trying, Lady Antebellum singer Charles Kelley and his wife, Cassie McConnell Kelley, are expecting a baby. This is a pregnancy that beat the odds. Their fertility doctor told them they had a 1 percent chance of conceiving naturally!
"Charles and I are SO BEYOND EXCITED to share with y'all that we are expecting a baby!" Cassie Kelly writes in a post on her blog Womanista. "He or she is due in February and we are so happy we can hardly stand it. Like, ecstatic and I’m crying even as I type those words!"
Cassie revealed the couple's struggles to conceive. "I just assumed that when we wanted to start a family, it would happen just like that," she writes. "Well, it didn’t." After years of trying they met with a Nashville fertility doctor in November who put them through a series of tests. That's when they found out how low their chances of getting pregnant were.
Cassie says they never gave up hope, but they did decide to spend the summer simply relaxing and living life, and in the fall they would "regroup" and figure out their next steps.
In June Cassie found out she was pregnant.
Now that she's through her first trimester the Kelleys are ready to share their happy news with the world. But they are also sending a message of hope and support for couples who are struggling with fertility like they were.
Cassie mocks those "annoying clichés" people kept telling them, like "'Just relax and it'll happen!' or 'You just need to go on a vacation...'" It's true that she and Charles conceived just when they decided to relax and go on vacation. But they of all people know that's not a prescription to cure infertility. They got lucky.
So they're not offering advice on how to beat the odds. Cassie is the last person who will tell you it'll happen as soon as you stop trying. Instead, she offers a sweet and sincere prayer for couples in the process that they'll remain united and hopeful.
She and Charles are simply grateful.
Image via charleskelley/Instagram