2022 Parker-McCray Family
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Parker-McCray story—full version
No heartbeat
A year after Dorothy Parker-McCray and her husband, Cameron, had their first child, they found out they were pregnant again. “I was excited, yet nervous because we had a toddler who had just learned to walk,” Dorothy says. But her excitement soon turned into morning sickness, and then into every parent’s nightmare.
At their 12-week appointment, the doctor couldn't hear the baby’s heartbeat but told them not to worry, it was still early in the pregnancy. Then at their checkup a month later, she still couldn’t get a heartbeat. Dorothy went for a more in-depth ultrasound and that’s when doctors discovered that there was something wrong with the baby’s heart.
“We didn't know what to expect, but we were hopeful that things would be okay,” Dorothy says. “And while we were there, they told us that we were having a girl but that she had hydrops, which is fluid in her abdomen, and that her heart was severely malformed and that we would need to prepare to lose our baby girl. They didn’t expect her to survive the weekend.”
Dorothy had a lot of fear and anxiety, but then two days later, Easter morning, she was woken up by very hard kick from her daughter. “It was as if she was letting me know that she was still here and she was okay,” she says. “The next few weeks we went to the doctor every Friday, and they checked her heartbeat, checked her vitals, made sure I was still doing okay.”
Things were looking hopeful. Kylah’s heartbeat was up, and doctors were excited. A couple days before their next appointment, Dorothy felt like something was wrong, but “thought it was just the normal pains of pregnancy.” Then at their 22-week appointment, Dorothy and Cameron got the news: Kylah had passed away.
“We went through a whirlwind of emotions,” Dorothy recalls. “And en route to the hospital, I was called and told that there were no beds available so that we would have to come the next day. So, I went home and had to process the reality that our baby girl was gone.”
The next morning, Dorothy and Cameron went to the hospital to do the unthinkable. “There's a moment where you go through phantom kicks, so when I woke up that morning, I thought I kept feeling kicks, but they were not,” Dorothy says. “So, I had one final ultrasound to confirm that there was no heartbeat.”
Nearly 20 hours after being induced, Dorothy gave birth to Kylah. “They provided a small outfit for us to put her in,” she recalls. “They did her footprints and her handprints, and I got to hold her.”
Dorothy and Cameron went on to have two healthy children, Korinne and Klayton, after their tragic loss. Dorothy honors Kylah to this day by being involved with March of Dimes. “Part of it is a way to honor our daughter Kylah's legacy, to hand my grief to a good cause, to help other women that have gone through what I've gone through,” Dorothy says.
Each year, she raises money for March for Babies with Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, one of March of Dimes’ National Service Partners. “It's one of our important principles to give back to our community and local chapter, and we’re very active with the March for Babies walks. Helping our youth, helping moms and babies, and making sure women have access to the care that they need during pregnancy and after is very important for our sorority.”
While most of us will never experience the tragedy of a stillbirth, we all know someone impacted by childbirth complications. We live in the U.S., after all—one of the most dangerous developed nations to give birth. What’s worse, women of color are up to 50 percent more likely to give birth preterm and their children can face a 130 percent higher infant death rate. March of Dimes is fighting to turn this maternal and infant health crisis around. “It's time for everybody to really acknowledge the work that March of Dime does,” Dorothy adds.
Parker-McCray story—short version
No heartbeat
A year after Dorothy Parker-McCray and her husband, Cameron, had their first child, they found out they were pregnant again. But the excitement soon turned into morning sickness, and then into every parent’s nightmare.
At their 12-week appointment, the doctor couldn't hear the baby’s heartbeat but told them not to worry, it was still early in the pregnancy. Then at their 16-week checkup, she still couldn’t get a heartbeat, and Dorothy went for a more in-depth ultrasound.
“They told us that we were having a girl but that she had hydrops, which is fluid in her abdomen, and that her heart was severely malformed and that we would need to prepare to lose our baby girl,” Dorothy says. “They didn’t expect her to survive the weekend.”
But things started looking hopeful—over the next few weeks, Dorothy went to the doctor every Friday. Kylah’s heartbeat was up, and doctors were excited.
Then at their 22-week appointment, Dorothy and Cameron got the news: Kylah had passed away. The next day, nearly 20 hours after being induced, Dorothy gave birth to Kylah. “They provided a small outfit for us to put her in,” she recalls. “They did her footprints and her handprints, and I got to hold her.”
Dorothy and Cameron went on to have two healthy children, Korinne and Klayton, after their tragic loss. Dorothy honors Kylah to this day by raising money for March for Babies with Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, one of March of Dimes’ National Service Partners. “Part of it is a way to honor our daughter Kylah's legacy, to hand my grief to a good cause, to help other women that have gone through what I've gone through,” Dorothy says.
While most of us will never experience the tragedy of a stillbirth, we all know someone impacted by childbirth complications. We live in the U.S., after all—one of the most dangerous developed nations to give birth. What’s worse, women of color are up to 50 percent more likely to give birth preterm and their children can face a 130 percent higher infant death rate. March of Dimes is fighting to turn this maternal and infant health crisis around. “It's time for everybody to really acknowledge the work that March of Dime does,” Dorothy adds.
2022 Rexroad Family
Family Story Assets (Word Document, Photos)
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REXROAD — FULL VERSION
Headline:
They say you can work remotely anywhere these days—but for most of us, the NICU isn’t the first place that comes to mind
When Clare and Ian Rexroad went in for an ultrasound at 13 weeks, they got shocking news: triplets. “I think in the first few minutes I was laughing hysterically and crying back and forth,” Clare recalls. “It was a very surreal experience. Triplets never cross your mind—ever.”
For a triplet pregnancy, it was relatively uneventful. She had weekly doctor appointments because of the risks that can come with having triplets, but by week 19, things were good, and the couple prepared for what lay ahead (for Ian that meant selling his beloved car to buy a minivan).
Then, around 24 weeks, Clare woke in the middle of the night with unusual pain. She knew something was wrong and rushed to the hospital. “Especially with a triplet pregnancy, they say, don't take any chances: call, go to the hospital, do what you need to be seen,” she says.
She was kept overnight for observation, and after about a day and a half—Thanksgiving Day—Ian was able to go home for a shower and nap. Clare’s mom, dad, and sister were there to keep her company. But while he was gone, Clare’s pain increased: “My doctor came in to do one last check before she left to go have Thanksgiving with her family. And she checked my cervix and said: ‘These babies are coming out.’”
Clare’s dad called Ian, and he rushed back just in time. Eliza was born first via emergency Cesarean birth with Ruth and Henry shortly after. Henry weight 2 pounds, 1 ounce. Eliza and Ruth weighted 1 pound, 14 ounces.
“A lot of people can say that the day their kids were born was the best day of their lives—but for me it was one of the scariest,” Clare says. Despite the risks that come with an early birth, all three babies had remarkably few complications, other than being incredibly small and needing oxygen support.
In the NICU, the girls were in one room and Henry in another because three babies couldn’t fit together with all the equipment that was needed. And so began the family’s NICU journey.
A major stressor for Clare during and after her pregnancy (on top of worrying about her babies’ survival) was maternity leave. In 2018, only four states offered paid maternity leave, and Ohio wasn’t one of them—“so that made it feel like you had to save every hour,” Clare says. “Every doctor's appointment was hard because I was like, ‘oh, this is an hour that I won't get of maternity leave later on.’ So that was stressful and emotional.”
Clare and Ian both worked from the NICU. They’d bring their computers in every day and set up telework stations on their little tables. “I worked almost as soon as they were born for two months because I knew I wanted to have time with them when they came home,” she says. “I didn't really have a choice.”
It’s unacceptable that the U.S. is still the only industrialized nation with no paid family leave. That’s why March of Dimes advocates for paid leave for all families across the country. Moms like Clare deserve better.
“It’s so important that March of Dimes advocates for maternity leave, as well for fathers, to ease that burden,” Clare says. “So that you can spend the critical, important time with your kids when they come home from the hospital. And work shouldn't interfere with that.”
But the Rexroad family story doesn’t end there.
In January 2018, Eliza and Henry successfully weaned to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP), which delivers constant air pressure into a baby's nose through a set of nasal prongs or through a small mask that fits snugly over a baby’s nose. However, Ruth started requiring more oxygen. Then an X-ray showed that she had developed pneumonia.
On February 1, Clare and Ian received the worst phone call of their lives: they needed to get to the hospital immediately because things weren’t looking good for Ruth. “[The doctor] had determined that she wasn’t going to make it, and so we sat with her and held her together,” Clare says. “It was the worst day of my life.”
Henry and Eliza continued to battle in the NICU while their parents grieved the loss of their sister. “We'd started to identify as triplet parents, getting used to what it was going to be when they were two, when they're five, when they're going off to college and then all those plans just suddenly changed,” Ian adds. “And it was hard.”
On March 16 they brought Eliza home, and Henry came home a week later on March 23. “It was incredible, that feeling of taking them home and walking out of the hospital with them and their little bucket seats was like walking on air,” Clare says.
Fast forward to 2020: Clare and Ian were excited to find out that they were pregnant again. But unfortunately, Clare had a miscarriage at six weeks. They kept trying, and in the summer of 2021, were pregnant again. This time, Clare had a placental abruption and their daughter, Maggie, was born via emergency Cesarean birth at 32 weeks. She weighed 4 pounds, 4 ounces—"so still small and still scary but compared to last time it was a vastly different experience,” Clare says. Maggie spent two months in the NICU.
Today, Clare and Ian have three very healthy kids running around the house. “The mission of March of Dimes is so critical,” Clare emphasizes. “Our family has received direct benefit from the research that March of Dimes has done with the use of surfactant on all our children that was lifesaving for them in the NICU. Also being able to spend time home with my kids after they were born was so important and especially when you go through something like we’ve been through you need that time to heal, to grieve, to spend time with your family. Everyone deserves to be able to spend that time with their kids.”
REXROAD — SHORT VERSION
Headline:
They say you can work remotely anywhere these days—but for most of us, the NICU isn’t the first place that comes to mind
When Clare and Ian Rexroad went in for an ultrasound at 13 weeks, they got shocking news: triplets. For a triplet pregnancy, it was relatively uneventful. Clare had weekly doctor appointments because of the risks that can come with having triplets, but by week 19, things were good, and the couple prepared for what lay ahead.
Then, around 24 weeks, Clare woke in the middle of the night with unusual pain. She knew something was wrong and rushed to the hospital. She was kept overnight for observation, and after about a day and a half—Thanksgiving Day—Clare’s pain increased: “My doctor came in to do one last check before she left to go have Thanksgiving with her family. And she checked my cervix and said: ‘These babies are coming out.’”
Eliza was born first via emergency Cesarean birth with Ruth and Henry shortly after. Henry weight 2 pounds, 1 ounce. Eliza and Ruth weighed 1 pound, 14 ounces. And so began the family’s NICU journey. “A lot of people can say that the day their kids were born was the best day of their lives—but for me it was one of the scariest,” Clare says.
A major stressor for Clare during and after her pregnancy (on top of worrying about her babies’ survival) was maternity leave. Since the state of Ohio didn’t offer paid maternity leave, she and Ian both worked from the NICU. “I worked almost as soon as they were born for two months because I knew I wanted to have time with them when they came home,” Clare recalls.
It’s unacceptable that the U.S. is still the only industrialized nation with no paid family leave. That’s why March of Dimes advocates for paid leave for all families across the country. Moms like Clare deserve better. “It’s so important that March of Dimes advocates for maternity leave, as well for fathers, to ease that burden,” she says. “So that you can spend the critical, important time with your kids when they come home from the hospital.”
But the Rexroad family story doesn’t end there.
In January 2018, Eliza and Henry successfully weaned to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP), which delivers constant air pressure into a baby's nose through a set of nasal prongs or through a small mask that fits snugly over a baby’s nose. However, Ruth started requiring more oxygen. Then an X-ray showed that she had developed pneumonia.
Sadly, Ruth passed away on February 1. Meanwhile, Henry and Eliza continued to battle in the NICU while their parents grieved the loss of their sister.
Both Eliza and Henry were finally able to go home the following month.
Fast forward to 2020: Clare and Ian were excited to find out that they were pregnant again. But unfortunately, Clare had a miscarriage at six weeks. They kept trying, and in the summer of 2021, were pregnant again. This time, Clare had a placental abruption and their daughter, Maggie, was born via emergency Cesarean birth at 32 weeks. She weighed 4 pounds, 4 ounces, and spent two months in the NICU.
Today, Clare and Ian have three very healthy kids running around the house and are grateful for the support they received from March of Dimes before, during, and after their pregnancies.
2022 The Waits Family
2022 Rowen Family
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Rowen family — full version
Pregnancy and childbirth complications: an outdated trend
Azizah Rowen, like most moms-to-be, was excited when she found out she was pregnant with her second son, Wilder. But sadly, like too many moms, she was also scared. “I was really nervous because I had had a lot of complications in my first pregnancy with Dash, my older son,” she says.
Azizah never had easy pregnancies. While Dash was born healthy and on time, she had two miscarriages prior to having him. In addition, she experienced gestational diabetes, placenta previa, and autoimmune complications, making her at high risk. “I was nervous and on edge the entire time I was pregnant,” she adds. But she was also confused—she and her husband, Craig, had never had any prior health complications. They were young and healthy.
Even still, she couldn’t anticipate what happened: waking up in the middle of the night and seeing that something was terribly wrong. She took an Uber by herself to the hospital so that Craig could stay home with Dash, who was two years old. Doctors didn't know why she was having such terrible complications and kept her overnight for monitoring, where she stayed for a couple of days. She thought “it was just a fluke.” But then it happened again.
31 weeks into her pregnancy, Azizah’s complications became worse. Doctors told her she needed to stay in the hospital until the baby was born. A week into her hospital stay, things took a turn for the worse. “I was having terrible complications where I was bleeding through the bedsheets,” she says. “And the doctors kept coming in and checking my vitals and at some point, said: ‘This is not safe anymore, we have to get your OB on the phone.’”
After evaluating her, Azizah’s obstetrician told her she needed a Cesarean delivery immediately. “You’re never prepared for being told that the situation is becoming dire,” Craig says. Wilder was born nearly two months early and weighed just 4 pounds. “I didn't hear a cry, so then I totally panicked, and I looked at Craig and was like, ‘Is he alive? Is he okay?’ And he just looked at me and he said, ‘I don't know.’” While Azizah stayed in recovery, Craig stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with Wilder.
“I had a baby, and I didn't even get to hold him or meet him for two or three days, which was really hard,” Azizah remembers. “And I got to hold him for the first time, and I was just terrified when I walked in there. It was so much worse than I had expected it to be. The sounds of the beeping and all those little babies in incubators, and tubes everywhere. It was really scary.”
Once discharged, Azizah spent mornings at home with Dash and then would go to the hospital and hold Wilder all day. She and Craig took comfort in the fact that he was surrounded by an amazing team of nurses. “That was the only sort of consolation when he was in the NICU—knowing that how great the women were,” Craig recalls. “It was the only way we could get any rest.”
After a 49-day battle in the NICU, Wilder was finally able to go home. “To this day, they still can't tell me why I had my baby early, and I think that's just a question that sort of haunted me,” Azizah says. “And March of Dimes is the organization that’s continuing to look into answers to those questions. It’s a special organization and we're just honored to have been a part of it for the last five years.”
Until the day comes when pregnancy and childbirth in the U.S. is safe for every mom and baby, March of Dimes will be in NICUs across the country, helping families like the Rowens. “Sharing our story’s healing for us and we’re hoping impactful and healing for others,” Craig adds.
Rowen family - short version
Pregnancy and childbirth complications: an outdated trend
Azizah Rowen was excited when she found out she was pregnant with her second son, Wilder. But sadly, she was also scared because she never had easy pregnancies. While her first son, Dash, was born healthy and on time, she had two miscarriages prior. In addition, she experienced “pretty much every complication in the book,” making her at high risk. “I was nervous and on edge the entire time I was pregnant,” she says. But she was also confused—she and her husband, Craig, had never had any prior health complications.
After an initial scare that led her to being monitored in the hospital for a few nights, 31 weeks into her pregnancy with Wilder, Azizah’s complications became worse. Doctors told her she needed to stay in the hospital until the baby was born. A week later, things took a turn for the worse—she needed a Caesarean delivery immediately. “You’re never prepared for being told that the situation is becoming dire,” Craig says. Wilder was born nearly two months early and weighed just 4 pounds.
Once out of recovery, Azizah spent mornings at home with Dash and then would go to the hospital and hold Wilder all day. She and Craig took comfort in the fact that he was surrounded by an amazing team of nurses. “That was the only sort of consolation when he was in the NICU—knowing that how great the women were,” Craig recalls. “It was the only way we could get any rest.”
After a 49-day battle in the NICU, Wilder was finally able to go home. “To this day, they still can't tell me why I had my baby early, and I think that's just a question that sort of haunted me,” Azizah says. “And March of Dimes is the organization that’s continuing to look into answers to those questions. It’s a special organization and we're just honored to have been a part of it for the last five years.” Until the day comes when pregnancy and childbirth in the U.S. is safe for every mom and baby, March of Dimes will be in NICUs across the country, helping families like the Rowens.
2022 Kinling Family
Family Story Assets (Word Document, Photos)
word doc and photos
The worst possible start: symptom-dismissal among pregnant women
After struggling with infertility for several years, Sarah and Chris Kinling were finally successful after a round of IVF. At their 20-week ultrasound they found out they were having a girl—but also that Sarah had a shortened cervix, which increases the risk of preterm birth. She had to go on bedrest immediately.
After an unexpected Cesarean birth, Anna was born healthy at 40 weeks. But in the following hours Sarah experienced troubling symptoms, including a headache, nausea, double vision, and high blood pressure. “I kept saying I really don’t think this is normal, but none of it was concerning to them,” Sarah recalls. “They just said it was all a physical manifestation of my postpartum anxiety, and as soon as I was discharged that I should see a psychiatrist to get some medication to help with that.”
Sarah was discharged, and two days later she had a seizure at home. “Driving her to the hospital with a newborn baby, I was terrified because I didn’t know what was going to come next,” Chris says. “You’re tired, and you’re scared, and you don’t know who to turn to because the doctors that you relied on to take care of you completely let you down.”
Instead of bonding with her new baby, Sarah spent the next three days in the hospital under observation for what she would later learn was eclampsia—"postpartum preeclampsia that progressed to eclampsia because it was untreated and led to seizures,” she says. The experience of being dismissed by doctors, coupled with learning more about the maternal mortality crisis in the U.S., Sarah and Chris decided it was too risky to have more children.
But the universe had other plans, and five months later Sarah and Chris were surprised that they were expecting another baby. Once again, Sarah had a shortened cervix and needed to go on bedrest. “It was rough because now, not only am I limited to being in the bed the majority of my day, but I couldn't pick up my daughter,” she says. “She was starting to crawl—I couldn't crawl after her, couldn't pick her up when she was crying or, or get her out of the crib.”
With a different provider at a different hospital, who was aware of Sarah’s recent postpartum experience, the couple initially felt comforted—but then were shocked when Sarah’s symptoms were again dismissed after the birth of their son, Casey. “On day five, the day I was going to be discharged, I woke up with a terrible headache, the same worst headache of your life feeling that I had after my first pregnancy,” Sarah recalls. “And I immediately knew something wasn't right.” But instead of checking her out, they ordered her a psych evaluation.
Sarah couldn’t believe it. “I was like…it's happening all over again,” she says. “And if I appear that I'm not in my right mind, it's because I'm absolutely livid that no one is listening to me. That I know my body better than the doctors do. And if I think something is wrong that needs a second look, that doesn't need a psych evaluation.”
Sarah’s pleas to the medical staff were once again ignored, and she was discharged.
“I remember just breaking down into tears, and I was like, ‘I'm going to die if you send me home.’”
Upon returning home, Sarah took a nap for about three hours. “I remember sitting up and feeling like I had a weight on my chest, like something was keeping me laying down,” she says, “And then I remember breathing in, it was like I couldn't get air.” Terrified, Chris packed everybody up in the car—the two newborns in the back seat —and drove to the hospital that they had just been sent home from.
“We were in the emergency room for about four or five hours until I was brought back,” Sarah says. “And then I learned I was in congestive heart failure—because my symptoms were dismissed and I progressed to congestive heart failure due to untreated preeclampsia. And there's lasting effects to that.”
Sarah’s experience is what’s called a near-miss: obstetric cases where moms ultimately survive after experiencing life-threatening, life-altering medical conditions during their pregnancy or childbirth. Sarah spent 10 days in the hospital and another month recovering. “Having to take care of her and the two kids, and just worrying about will she make it, I just felt awful and powerless,” says Chris.
Unfortunately, Sarah’s story is all too familiar. We’re experiencing a maternal and infant health crisis in the U.S., with over 800 women dying every year from pregnancy-related causes—just like the complications Sarah experienced. But their story also highlights our opportunity for impact. March of Dimes is working to ensure that pregnant women are heard and that their providers have the training and support to listen and engage, without bias or stigma.
Today the Kinling Family is thriving, despite the trauma that surrounds the happiest days of their lives.
SHORT VERSION
The worst possible start: symptom-dismissal among pregnant women
After struggling with infertility for several years, Sarah and Chris Kinling were finally successful after a round of IVF. They were thrilled to deliver a healthy baby girl. But shortly after delivery Sarah experienced troubling symptoms, including a headache, nausea, double vision, and high blood pressure. Doctors assured her this was normal, that it was just postpartum anxiety, and she was discharged.
Once home, Sarah had two seizures. Instead of bonding with her daughter, she spent the next three days and the following month recovering. The experience of being dismissed by doctors, coupled with learning more about the maternal mortality crisis in the U.S., Sarah and Chris decided it was too risky to have more children. But the universe had other plans, and five months later they found out they were expecting another baby.
After the birth of their son, Casey, the couple was shocked when Sarah’s symptoms were again dismissed, and her pleas ignored. She was sent home, where she soon experienced trouble breathing. It was only when her symptoms progressed to congestive heart failure that she was taken seriously.
Unfortunately, Sarah’s story is not unfamiliar. We’re experiencing a maternal and infant health crisis in the U.S., with over 800 women dying every year from pregnancy-related causes. March of Dimes is working to ensure that pregnant women are heard and that their providers have the training and support to listen and engage, without bias or stigma.
Today the Kinling Family is thriving, despite the trauma that surrounds the happiest days of their lives.