Editor’s Note: October 15 is a special day for many mothers and fathers as they remember the little ones that are gone too soon. It is known as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the entire month of October as National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.
“When a child loses his parent, they are called an orphan. When a spouse loses her or his partner, they are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, there isn’t a word to describe them,” Reagan said. “This month recognizes the loss of so many parents experience across the United States and around the world. It is also meant to inform and provide resources across the United States and around the world. It is also meant to inform and provide resources for parents who have lost children due to miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, stillbirths, birth defects, SIDS, and other causes.”
Please join us tonight at 7 p.m. as we light a candle in honor of those precious lives that were taken to soon.
Laura Lockhart nurses her eight-week-old baby, Everly Grace, on a weekday morning as she talks about the long road she has walked to get where she is today – a new mother, who lacks sleep, but is incredibly in love with her new daughter.
“It was rough,” Laura said as she recalled life almost two years ago – January 2015.
It didn’t start out rough though, when she received a plus sign on a pregnancy test taken at home in the beginning of that New Year. With excitement, Laura called her husband, John, who was interning in Austin, and showed him the positive test. He closed work for the day and made the five hour drive to Silsbee, so they could tell family the happy news that weekend.
“The moment I saw the plus sign I started bawling,” she said. “I was almost in disbelief and kept looking back and forth on the instructions and stick to make sure I was reading it correctly.”
Less than 10 days later that excitement would soon grow into unknown as Laura noticed brown spotting while getting ready one morning. Concerned, she called her two sisters, Kim and Lydia, who are both nurses, for advice. Lydia convinced her younger sister to come stay the weekend with her in Lufkin so she wouldn’t have to be alone, as her husband was still away.
Monday morning came and Laura completed blood work at her obstetrician Dr. Sheila Hill’s office in Lufkin, but by that point she stopped spotting and said she “didn’t think much about it” since it was only a small amount. She then drove back to Jasper to her mother’s when she received a call from her doctor’s office. They noted her progesterone level was low and sent a subscription for progesterone in for Laura to start right away. She was to return the next day for more blood work. So, she did just that.
“I’ve been pretty emotional the last few days. I think it’s a combo of missing John, being pregnant and hormonal, and now worrying about miscarriage,” Laura wrote in her journal at the time. “But I will try to keep my spirits up and not freak out anymore, until I know what could really be going on.”
Her mother drove her to college class in Beaumont that evening due to the effects of progesterone making Laura lightheaded. As she opened the door to exit the car, at that very moment she received a call from her doctor telling her the results from her blood test.
[pullquote]“She was telling me in the sweetest, monotone voice that it wasn’t looking good,”
-Laura Lockhart[/pullquote]
“She was telling me in the sweetest, monotone voice that it wasn’t looking good,” she said. “My numbers weren’t going up; this doesn’t look like it’s a good pregnancy, that most likely I will miscarry. She even made mentioned that it could be an ectopic, too…. I just sat there and the tears were just rolling.”
The next morning, Laura woke up to cramping and pain, thinking she was miscarrying. She noticed it was only hurting on one side, but didn’t pay too much attention to it.
The doctor told Laura to come in immediately.
“They took me straight back to the Ultra Center, and I remember when the tech was doing the ultrasound it hurt so bad when she was putting it in certain positions,” Laura recalled. “I remember lying there in pain and tears. I was not wanting to look up at that monitor; I wasn’t wanting to see anything myself to notice if something was up.”
[pullquote]“I remember lying there in pain and tears. I was not wanting to look up at that monitor; I wasn’t wanting to see anything myself to notice if something was up.”
-Laura Lockhart[/pullquote]
Soon Dr. Hill came into look at the ultrasound, and with a sigh, she told Laura the pregnancy was an ectopic pregnancy, meaning the embryo implanted in a Fallopian tube. She also said there was fluid in Laura’s abdomen. Normally, they would give a shot in the case of an ectopic pregnancy to kill the cells that are growing or multiplying too quickly. However, Laura’s pregnancy had ruptured and she was hemorrhaging. She would need surgery immediately.
“I started bawling my eyes out at that point,” Laura said. “I have never had surgery or a hospital procedure before, and I was so scared.”
I remember at that point, you kind of get in this zone to where you know what’s going on around you but at the same time it just flies by,” she continued. “I remember signing the paperwork, my mom driving me across the street to the hospital, and she bought me in. …I remember I was getting in the bed, I was shaking. It was cold, but you don’t know if you’re shaking from cold or from being nervous. I remember lying there, nurses, people coming in and out doing the vitals, charting, questions, and confirming I was the correct patient for the correct procedure. I remembering feeling my body stopped shaking. I remember them pushing me through the hallway, getting to the operating room. I remember them lifting me and transferring to the bed, and I remember the lady telling me to scoot down, and after that I was out.”
The surgery went well. The pregnancy was at the end of the Fallopian tube, so Dr. Hill was able to do laparoscopic surgery. But the hard part was waking up and realizing the reality of the situation.
“After the surgery, you can’t really put into words exactly how you feel, waking up, and having on my very mind everything that just happened, and that void and loss you feel,” Laura said.
[pullquote]“After the surgery, you can’t really put into words exactly how you feel, waking up, and having on my very mind everything that just happened, and that void and loss you feel,”
-Laura Lockhart[/pullquote]
The weeks that followed were filled with rest and coming to terms with her loss. Laura said the only time she left was to teach dance, and through it all her husband would make the drive from Austin every weekend to be with her. She recalled the moments she was angry at God and “being completely puzzled at the whole circumstance.”
“I didn’t have high risk pregnancy factors for it to become tubal,” she said. “So, my thoughts were, ‘How did this occur? What in the world happened?’ I thought my body was supposed to be the safest place for my baby, and my body is what killed my baby.”
However, it was through prayer that allowed Laura to return to a regular lifestyle. She said having the love and support of friends and family helped, and not feeling forced to get back into the swing of things allowed her to heal and return to a routine.
“Nothing anyone tells you in that moment will help,” Laura said. “Don’t feel bad for being angry. Don’t feel bad for the emotions you’re feeling, it is perfectly normal. I think our Heavenly Father would want us to be comfortable and open with him with how we feel. …It’s just good to be honest with yourself with that and through that you will get real healing. Just try to take your time, and push forward, and take it day by day. The healing will come.”
Laura and John took the rest of the year to heal and focus on their lives before trying again for a baby.
“I just remember going that whole year, at times I would want to try again, but I didn’t. I was scared, I was worried,” she said.
Then towards the end of 2015, the couple decided to try again. Just a couple of months later she took a pregnancy test and it was a positive sign.
“For that moment I just lit up and felt peace. I didn’t worry in the moment if it was ectopic or not. Granted until later I got to my doctor’s appointment, I was thinking ‘I wonder if this is a good one,’” she said. “I went in and I did blood work; the blood work was looking good. They did an ultrasound at six weeks; she was placed in the uterus and not the tube.”
On Aug. 16, 2016, Everly was born with a head full of hair and captured the hearts of her two parents.
“I think as hard as that experience was for me, it makes me more grateful to be a mother,” she said “Being a mother, especially the first month or so is rough, because you’re adjusting to this new lifestyle, this complete lack of sleep, all of that. In the past, if I had lacked sleep for anything, I was grouchy, I was grumpy, I couldn’t deal, but because I lack sleep with her, it’s actually not as rough as I thought it would be. I smile at four o’clock in the morning when I am feeding her, when I see her little smile. The lack of sleep is just totally worth it, and I like I said, going through the rough time like that and getting to the point to be able to have a baby, it is worth it. You know you will never take these moments for granted, even when its rough, you’re still grateful for those moments to have.”
