WWE Superstar Kelly Kelly and husband Joe Coba never imagined they would undergo IVF. The process can be stressful and even put a strain on a relationship, but for this couple, it has brought them even closer together.

The loving couple invited ET’s Cassie DiLaura to their home to talk in depth about their IVF experience, which resulted in Kelly, who also goes by Barbie Blank Coba, becoming pregnant with twins. She is due to give birth in September and is over the moon, but the 36-year-old wrestling pro tells ET that there was a time throughout the process when she felt “helpless” because she couldn’t get pregnant naturally.

She’s been pregnant before, and although it unfortunately resulted in a miscarriage (a heartbreaking loss she revealed in August 2021), Kelly said she always assumed she would get pregnant again naturally. But when they tried again, nothing happened. So they kept trying. Again, and again, and again, and again, to no avail.

Finally, Kelly says a friend (Bachelor Alumna 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 became pregnant. They are now overjoyed with the new bundle of joy, but the process eventually made Kelly doubt herself.

“I just feel like it’s a relief because as a woman you think, ‘This is my destiny, I’m destined to carry a child,'” she tells ET. “For so long I’ve been able to tell my body to do something and it will do it. And I feel so helpless in that moment that I couldn’t control that, and it was so frustrating.”

When making the decision to undergo IVF, Kelly and Coba leaned on a close family member who had gone through the same process, but in the end they knew they had to support each other. But Kelly wanted to go one step further. She wanted to be as open as possible about the process.

“When I started my IVF journey, I thought, ‘I want to be open about this because I feel like women can relate,'” Kelly says. “Women often don’t talk about it. And they’re looked down upon, like, ‘Oh dear, 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 thought, ‘Let me take women on this journey with me.'”

Kelly remembers the day they planned to implant the embryos, and as luck would have it, that day fell 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 he’s with me in those little moments,” she says. “And it’s really meaningful that it was his birthday and my babies were supposed to be born on that day.”

“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 that everything we’ve been through was meant to happen.”

Joe has also lost his father, and Kelly is well aware that her children will not have a grandfather.

“We both talk about how our kids don’t have grandfathers, but Joe has an amazing stepdad who’s going to be the greatest grandpa,” Kelly says. “And then we have our moms. Everything’s going to be great. But you still think, ‘What if our dads were still here? And what great grandparents they’d be as grandpas?’ He would be so proud.”

Kelly is 16 weeks pregnant, but the feeling that she is pregnant and expecting twins has not yet fully sunk in.

“I think the nervousness isn’t that bad yet,” says Kelly, whose pregnancy has included Taco Bell (chicken is a must, though). “I think when we get to about eight months, we’ll be like, ‘Oh my God, this is real.'”

What felt very real, however, was the moment she learned she was having twins. Kelly and Joe flew 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 look at her and she looks at the screen and smiles,” Kelly says. “And she looks up and says, ‘Two.’ And we thought, ‘Ah!’ I get goosebumps talking about it, but it was just the most surreal moment.”

Although Joe was happy, he also felt relieved.

“Just relief. I mean, the journey was what it was and there were a lot of ups and downs,” says Joe. “And watching Barbie as a woman in that situation go through the fertility process was just so exciting and also very relieving.”

IVF treatment brought the couple closer together. Sure, says Joe, IVF wasn’t their “ideal method,” but because they were so supportive of each other, the decision to go through with the IVF process was much easier.

“In a sense, it probably brought us closer together,” he says.

“He was just my rock,” Kelly adds. “I don’t know what I would do without him.”

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