Doctors Told Her She Was Miscarrying After 36 Ultrasounds, Allison Wilcox Gave Birth to a “Miracle” Baby

Allison Wilcox says she spent months holding her breath, bracing herself for the moment doctors told her the heartbeat was gone.

When the former Colorado elementary school teacher found out she was pregnant in January 2023, excitement quickly turned to fear. Just one day after her positive test, she began experiencing heavy, alarming bleeding — a symptom that often signals pregnancy loss.

An early exam at just five weeks appeared to confirm her worst fears. Doctors told Allison and her husband that she was likely miscarrying, leaving the couple devastated.

But instead of closure, Allison’s pregnancy entered a long, emotionally exhausting limbo.

“My pregnancy was a rollercoaster from the very beginning,” Wilcox, 33, tells PEOPLE exclusively.

After being told the pregnancy wasn’t viable, the couple spent the next week grieving. Then, new symptoms emerged. Severe lower back pain prompted a physician in the family to urge Allison to visit the emergency room to rule out an ectopic pregnancy.

The ultrasound showed no ectopic pregnancy — but doctors went even further, telling her they didn’t believe she was pregnant at all. One ER physician reportedly told her that “miscarriage would be the best outcome.”

Days later, on her way to a follow-up OB appointment, Allison tearfully called her sister after having a vivid dream in which doctors suddenly found the baby during an ultrasound. Moments later, that exact scenario unfolded.

Her pregnancy hormone levels had jumped significantly, and an ultrasound revealed a yolk sac — though still no heartbeat. At the time, doctors told her this could be normal.

“It felt like a miracle,” Allison recalls. “We celebrated, called everyone we loved, and taped the ultrasound photo to our fridge.”

That hope didn’t last long.

Just two days later, while she was teaching her third-grade class, Allison received new lab results. Her hormone levels had barely risen, her progesterone had dropped to concerning levels, and the bleeding continued. Her OB called that afternoon to say the pregnancy would not survive.

“It felt like the miracle was ripped away from us,” she says.

Unwilling to give up, Allison sought additional medical opinions across Colorado. Over the next several weeks, she underwent 36 ultrasounds, yet nearly every doctor reached the same conclusion: miscarriage was inevitable.

At around seven and a half weeks, another OB confirmed there was still no heartbeat and that the baby was measuring behind. She was given three options — medication, surgery, or waiting for the miscarriage to happen naturally. Allison chose to wait.

“I didn’t get many explanations,” she says. “I was drowning in grief and just trying to survive each moment.”

The following day, she returned to her hometown OB, where a high-risk sonographer carefully reviewed her case. Though cautious, the sonographer offered something Allison hadn’t heard in weeks: hope.

“She told us she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel,” Allison recalls.

The sonographer — affectionately nicknamed “Auntie Beth” by the family — continued monitoring the pregnancy weekly, offering reassurance whenever possible.

Then, at eight and a half weeks, Allison heard something she’d been waiting for since the beginning: her baby’s heartbeat.

Despite concerns about an unusually large yolk sac, the sound of that heartbeat marked a turning point — the moment when fear finally gave way to belief that her baby was still fighting.

“I never once stopped holding my breath, waiting to hear that heartbeat,” Allison says.

Eight months later, against every medical prediction, she welcomed what she now calls her miracle baby.