Holding fast through a high-risk pregnancy, Part 2

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 5th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a high-risk pregnancy, part two.

Yesterday, we brought you the story of a mom who faced a serious diagnosis during her pregnancy last year. A doctor said her condition made an abortion medically necessary, but she refused. WORLD’s Life Beat reporter Leah Savas picks up the story with her visit to the family’s home in Chattanooga this summer.

LEAH SAVAS, REPORTER: July sunshine glows through two tall windows in the Gillmore family room. Ashley Gillmore pulls up a video on the widescreen TV. It’s a slideshow of videos and pictures she’s put together of her last pregnancy.

ASHLEY: Hopefully avoid any tears because it was a little bit, like, emotional going way back to the beginning.

As the video plays, her three-year-old daughter reacts to a clip of Ashley’s belly moving under her shirt.

DAUGHTER: I saw Isaiah kicking!

ASHELY: I know, he’s kicking in there!

During Ashley’s pregnancy, doctors were continually surprised by how healthy she and the baby were—even with multiple serious complications. But if anything went wrong, they worried they might lose Ashley…or the baby…or both.

When her water broke in January, Ashley was just 29 weeks pregnant. She went straight to the hospital and stayed there for 25 days as the medical staff did everything they could to give the baby a better chance of survival. They administered medicine to help his brain develop quicker. Steroids to boost lung development. The staff also monitored Ashley closely in case her condition changed, requiring immediate delivery.

ASHLEY: Each day was a victory because of his growth, the, you know, just trying to get him as much time inside to just continue to grow.

They scheduled her C-section and hysterectomy for early February, at 32 weeks. The room was cold, and Ashley remembers her husband Steve holding her hand and brushing tears from her cheeks—even though she wasn’t crying. But her baby boy did, right away when he came out. Ashley was awake and heard him.

SOUND: [Isaiah crying after birth]

She got to see him—a little four-pound preemie—before they whisked him away to the neonatal intensive care unit. Then, before the hysterectomy, the staff asked what she wanted to listen to.

MUSIC: [“God is in this Story”]

The last thing she remembers hearing before they put her under was a song by Katy Nichole.

MUSIC: [“God is in this Story”]

After Ashley woke up, she got some scary news about the baby.

ASHLEY: He had taken a bad turn and had a lung infection. And then four days into the NICU, he ended up having to have a blood infusion because of how much, how sick he was.

Meanwhile, Ashley had lost a lot of blood. She was in pain, and her mind was foggy.

She took her first visits to the NICU in a wheelchair with Steve.

SOUND: [NICU activity]

Their baby looked sick the first few days. They could only touch him through the openings in the side of his isolette. But one day, the baby surprised his doctors and turned a corner.

Six days after the delivery, the hospital discharged Ashley. And three weeks after his birthday, Isaiah Bear Gillmore left the hospital. It was more than a month earlier than the doctors expected.

ASHLEY: So this is the boy's room technically, Isaiah’s crib will go here, but he's still sleeping in a bassinet in our bedroom because he's still so tiny. But he's got all his little bear stuff over here.

During my visit in July, Ashley showed me around the kids’ bedrooms.

In a corner of the boys’ room by the window, there’s a little shelf with bear-themed memorabilia: A floppy teddy bear, slippers that say “baby bear,” a headband with bear ears.

ASHLEY: We wanted something to like represent strength along with the name Isaiah because that means God's promise so it was like, what else could represent strength?

Isaiah is mostly bald with beautiful big eyes. He’s small for his age. When I met him in July, he was almost six months old. Ashley said he wasn’t even measuring like a four-month-old. But his personality was already starting to come out.

ASHLEY: He really loves to just like look out and kind of observe. Like he's very facially expressive with his eyebrows, little eyebrows move around.

Looking back, Ashley’s husband Steve said the whole experience was eye-opening, especially when the doctor mentioned abortion.

STEVE: You read in the news, and all these things, these types of things happen. But then when it's like, offered to you, from someone who's a medical professional—for me, it really opened my eyes up to the fact that like, these medical professionals are recommending these things. For the doctor, it was just so natural for her to just, ‘Well, I think you need to consider doing this.

The Gillmores showed me some trinkets they’ve kept from the pregnancy.

The tiny blood pressure cuff Isaiah wore in the NICU. The little knit beanie he wore to stay warm. Ultrasound pictures.

STEVE: He's just as much as him outside as he was inside, just at a different stage of growth, like, where do you where do you draw that line? And so the conviction was just like. Okay, we, we know what we say we believe. Are we going to live out our faith in this way?

Ashley had been preparing to die if that’s what it took to give her baby a chance at life. But even with a happier ending than Steve and Ashley had prepared for, things haven’t been easy.

ASHLEY: I still have a lot of mental health struggles. I've struggled more, I think, with postpartum stuff than I ever have had. And then just, I think the stress of being worried about his weight.

She said the experience taught her how hard it is to put your faith in God into action. Every day, Ashley had to make that difficult choice to trust in God even with such a bleak diagnosis. But God gave her frequent reminders. Including that song she heard while drifting off before her hysterectomy.

ASHLEY: It was just like the words of it—like, “God is in this story, even in the highs and lows.” I remember, like, thinking the words of that song.

MUSIC: [“God is in this Story” ]

ASHLEY: God is good and has a plan. Whether we can see it right now or not, God already knows the ending of this. So, no matter what we're going through right now, God has a bigger picture in mind.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

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