Who we Are
Catherine Lake
“Are you seeing your doctor after this?” are the most frightening words that a mother can hear during an ultrasound. At 10 weeks pregnant during her third pregnancy, Catherine trusted her intuition and convinced her OB to order an ultrasound since she had experienced a missed miscarriage in a previous pregnancy at the same gestational week. During the ultrasound and the subsequent appointment with maternal fetal medicine, Catherine and her husband, Hunter, were told that their child had a condition called anencephaly which meant they had a 0% chance of living after birth. Catherine and Hunter left the hospital with very little information on the condition and a complete void of information about Catherine’s options. Over the next couple of days, Catherine was told her options which were to: 1) have the baby’s heart injected with KCl-40 for immediate cardiac arrest then have D&C at a later date at her current hospital 2) Either move hospitals, but more than likely out of state, to terminate 3) carry to term to have their child live for a couple of hours, if they were ‘lucky’. Discussions with Catherine’s doctors ranged from biased and condescending to unclear and rigid but after nearly two weeks of being suspended in the chaotic chasm of the US healthcare system, Catherine made the best decision for herself and for her family which was to have an abortion at 12 weeks. After several months of reflecting on the loneliness and confusion that enveloped her after her diagnosis of a non-viable pregnancy, Catherine felt called to not let another woman be left where she was during the weeks and months after hearing such devastating news and is now devoted, along side her co-founder, Augusta, to make a positive change.
Augusta Cole
After becoming pregnant with her second child in 2019, Augusta went in for a routine ultrasound at 18 weeks, to learn that their daughter had a rare and non-viable fetal condition called “anencephaly.” Following this diagnosis, Augusta, and her husband, Jordan, endured multiple appointments with high risk obstetricians and specialists in order to find out what this meant for her and their daughter. Different doctors offered different options, but the information being shared was unclear and painfully difficult to process, and there was little support to be found. At the end of the day, their daughter wouldn’t survive after being born, but Augusta was determined to deliver and hold her baby girl. Due to the heavy circumstances that came with their daughter’s diagnosis and the physical/mental/emotional effects this would have on the mother, Augusta and Jordan made the counseled decision to deliver their daughter early, at 20 weeks. Darcy was born on March 24th, 2020, and Augusta and Jordan were able to hold and honor their daughter’s short and precious life. During this timeframe, they began to ask the question, “why isn’t their more support for the mother?” After connecting with a few women who had endured similar non-viable conditions, and hearing that each woman was faced with equally difficult challenges, it became clear that things must change. Augusta and Jordan reside in Birmingham with their six year old daughter, and 18 month old son, and the photo of Darcy’s tiny feet are framed at the entrance of their home.
How We Began
After both experiencing infant loss due to a fetal anomaly, Worthy Within began with the hopes of offering support to other families that was not available for the founders of Worthy Within.