Flourish Soundbytes: Surviving a High Risk Pregnancy and Finding Purpose With Ashley Jester

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Flourish Soundbytes: Surviving a High Risk Pregnancy and Finding Purpose With Ashley Jester

[00:00:06] I'm Sarah Richardson, a principal here at This Week Health, where our mission is healthcare transformation powered by community. This is Flourish Soundbites, unfiltered conversations with healthcare leaders. Let's get real. Welcome back to Flourish. I am Sarah Richardson, and today's soundbite is deeply personal for me because I'm joined by longtime friend, an incredible leader, and author, Ashley Lester. Ashley's built a
[00:00:27] meaningful career rooted in healthcare leadership and service. But today's conversation centers on something even more profound, her journey as a mother. In her book, Poppy's Story, she shares the raw, emotional, and ultimately hopeful experience of a pregnancy that turned from joyful expectation into a fight for life. Ashley, I am so honored to have you here.
[00:00:48] Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. Yes, and I'm have to just show, like, you know, public service announcement for the book. We did a book review last week on this. Great traction and feedback from people.
[00:00:59] And really before we dive into the book, though, I want to start with you because you've built a career centered around healthcare and people. And I want our listeners to know what has shaped your path and your passion for this type of I mean, healthcare affects all of us, whether you support it directly or indirectly through care or those that deliver it. That work is very mean- meaningful, and
[00:01:25] finding work that is purposeful, that isn't just beyond you, but it impacts other people around you, it keeps things moving forward and not going backwards, is very meaningful to me.
[00:01:37] Um I love connecting with people, too, and healthcare, you know, you hear so many different stories, whether it's personal, whether it's professional, whether it's sad, whether it's helpful. And just hearing those stories and learning and being able to grow from those and grow from challenges that, you know, we're we're dealing with every day, especially in a field where innovation and change and growth are constant and essential, that really
[00:02:03] resonates with me and that really energizes me and kind of led me to where I am today. Well, and you have such a knack for really bringing people together and letting them share honest stories with you. I mean, you've had years and years and years of the highest level of technology professionals in your purview and working with them in vulnerable moments and they share their stories with you. And now we have the ability
[00:02:26] for you to share your story. And this book is a big deal. It stays with you. And you read through it and you're like, "Wow." throughout the entire journey. What was that moment when your pregnancy shifted from what you expected, and this was your fourth child, to something much more uncertain?
[00:02:48] Yes, this was definitely a different pregnancy than I experienced with the other three. This one definitely early changed from hopeful and constant, the the typical, I guess, standard, to a fight for life. And I would say there were actually probably three moments. The first one was when I was 16 weeks pregnant, I was immediately rushed to the hospital. I thought I was losing
[00:03:14] And that's when they did some more ultrasounds and discovered some findings within the baby that led them to potentially a trisomy 21 diagnosis. And once I heard that, that kind of just stopped me. That wasn't something that I've ever experienced before. I've always had healthy pregnancies. I've always been healthy. And that was something that was very unexpected. I
[00:03:39] wasn't even home to receive that news. I was actually in Nashville. When I had my main ultrasound, they found more fluid build-up around the right lung.
[00:03:49] And they were talking about all the different things, if we don't treat it, if we do treat it, kind of what the side effects were for everything. And as I'm trying to process everything, I said, "Okay, let me talk to my husband about it. We'll We'll figure it out." And she said, "Okay, you can call him, but I have a specialist coming from another hospital to do the pleural effusion on And that's when I looked at her and
[00:04:12] said, "Oh, you mean like now? Like this is happening now?" And that's when I knew I didn't have the luxury of sleeping on decisions or, you know, going through the moment, but I had to make abrupt decisions, life and death decisions sometimes, when I wasn't even ready for it. And that was probably more of, yes, I found out about the diagnosis early on, but once everything became more serious, I think it was the
[00:04:38] critical turning point was kind of at that halfway mark. And you write so openly about denial, fear, and even What was happening internally for you when these first diagnoses were were Everything was happening.
[00:04:56] The world was upside down for me. Expressing the fear and depression came easily cuz that's what I was living in. It was just a constant consuming of all of my thoughts. And really kind of driving me backwards sometimes. And that's when I really had to put them down on paper so that I can just release them and then move on. Move on, you know, move move forward and
[00:05:21] what we needed to do, what we needed to accomplish next, asking questions. I didn't know what I didn't know at the time. And so, I couldn't really be caught up in too much of those emotions. I had to keep an open line. I had to keep understanding what the process was, what the symptoms were, what the opportunities and the options were. And so, those emotions kind of drove me further, but then they also
[00:05:46] helped me to kind of breathe a little bit more and focus on what was really important. You channeled the fear into determination. What was that catalyst for you?
[00:05:59] I was consumed with saving her life. That was my driving point. I'm I would say it was kind of a point where I needed to go beyond myself and focus on her. My husband was always in the background saying, "I will fight for you, but you have to fight for her cuz you're the only one that knows, you know, her best." And so, really being able to focus that energy, that
[00:06:23] purpose on driving that forward really helped, I think helped both of us to kind of come out of it just because we were one voice, we were, you know, moving in the same direction. It took that pressure off of me to, you know, what am I going to do with a child that has a condition that I'm not used to?
[00:06:42] What am I, you know, what are the complications? What kind of people are going to be entering our lives? Like that was not a part of the conversation anymore. It was focused on every day getting her through one more day and that was the driving point. How did you find the strength to keep moving forward even with this new view on how to tackle when sometimes the news you kept getting
[00:07:06] was tougher and tougher? Yeah, it wasn't necessarily the good, the bad, the bad, the ugly. It was the bad, the ugly, the worst. I'm kind of a competitive person, so I don't really accept defeat very easily.
[00:07:19] And I kind of channeled that, I think, to really fighting for her. Like I didn't give in to this was the outcome. This was the determination or we can just stop at any point. I'm not going to accept that. I'm going to continue to fight for that. What is our next option?
[00:07:37] What is the next opportunity? What do I need to do to help this effort forward. Like I said, asking questions that I didn't necessarily know, understanding what kind of medication is going through me, what kind of medication is going to go through her, where does this leave us a day from now, an hour from now, being able to really just be present in the moment. I think But yeah, I had I have a little bit of the competitive edge to
[00:08:02] me. So, I just think that was probably more of a you know, death doesn't have the final say. I'm going to keep pushing forward. My big thing was looking back with no regrets. Regardless of the outcome, I wanted to know that I laid everything out on the table. And, you know, we we gave everything that we could, and that was probably a big motivating factor.
[00:08:27] The thing that people, and they won't know this by even watching our conversation or listening to it, is I always think I thought of you as tiny and mighty. Like when you meet people meet you, you're tiny. And for all the right reasons, I'm like, "How do you have four kids? How are you like?" And you are, you are so competitive and so fierce. When you realize that yes, this traumatic event is going to have purpose in our lives, and you were going to
[00:08:50] write a book, and you wrote the book. And it did require revisiting a lot of those moments. What made you decide to tell her story? So, my mom actually really encouraged me to write down my journey throughout the process. So, some of the book is very detailed just because I wrote it while I was in the hospital. I wrote down what I was experiencing in the moment. But I wrote not only to remember it by, as she
[00:09:17] kind of recommended, but also we're big believers and, you know, sometimes you go through things to learn a lesson, and sometimes you also go things through things to help others.
[00:09:28] And that was kind of the turning point from me saying, "Is this just my story, or should this story be shared with others? And that's when I started to think, you know, it's it's more than just me, but if this book is some of these words, some of these emotions really strike people or mothers that are going through their same battles, and that saves a life, if that saves, you
[00:09:52] know, someone making a different a difficult decision, I want that to be their moment. And so, that's what really led me to, even though it was difficult, to kind of be vulnerable and put myself out there. The hope and inspiration was to really get this into the hands of those that are facing their own battles and discover their own strength through it. Yeah, and it taught you a lot about resilience,
[00:10:16] which I mean, you've exhibited in the past, but this isn't as conceptual as some may think about in terms of resilience. This is a lived experience. What did it teach you about that?
[00:10:29] Well, resilience is not always pretty, and sometimes it's not even recognizable. Mine was, I guess, painful and silent. I I didn't really feel resilient in the moment.
[00:10:42] I've just felt like a mother trying to do her job and trying to be the voice of my child. But yeah, I feel like sometimes it's it's those unsung moments and the voices that you really have to to listen to to in order to move forward. And so, I think that journey has really taught me a lot about not only giving up, but really discovering different paths and the opportunity to
[00:11:07] really connect with people and moments that aren't necessarily always shiny and loud, but that are often soft-spoken. You used the phrase purpose over pain.
[00:11:20] What does that mean to you today? once I kind of had that phrase really click with me, I mean, that's how I approached every failure, every upset, every why me moment was really looking beyond the pain. Was really looking into why am I here in the first place? What was my ultimate goal? What am I going towards? Pain is not the final say. It's
[00:11:44] merely a symptom of the greatness that is to come. And so, that perspective really shifts your mind into focusing on not the immediate, not what you're seeing, but really where is your ultimate and goal and what do you need to get there? So, look beyond the symptoms of the pain.
[00:12:04] What is the purpose in everything that you're actually going? people are listening to this and they're like, "What happened?" Okay, so this is where you can exhale a little bit everybody because Poppy's almost 3 years old. I want to talk about her and how she's doing today.
[00:12:23] She is amazing. She is your your typical >> Yeah. has her brother's can-do attitude. She's definitely got a sassy personality. But yeah, she's she's doing awesome. She is impressing a lot of her therapists as far as how much growth she's gone through, especially, you know, with having that diagnosis.
[00:12:43] There's a lot of sometimes complications that come early on and she was born prematurely, so the odds were really against her and she never had to have heart surgery. She was never put on a ventilator. You know, she was off oxygen just under a year after she was discharged from the hospital.
[00:13:02] And she's walking. She's almost running nowadays. We're even starting to talk and have the conversation of entering preschool soon. So, that's been a very exciting journey.
[00:13:14] Absolutely. What are some of those moments? You shared a couple, but when you watch her and you realize what it took for her to be here and the things you've gone through now even in the toddler phase, what are some of those moments that just leave you all So, she's very soft-spoken and when I listen to her when she's really, you know, trying to have a a serious conversation with you,
[00:13:39] you have to really be intentful to avoid and disregard the noise and the the distractions and the boys break things in the house and just really focus on and and be intentful to really listening to what she's saying. And it just reminds me to to slow down and to understand and take purpose and value in the soft-spoken things in our life.
[00:14:05] You know, there's moments where I'll just stare into her eyes sometimes, especially if she's just really tired or and just think, you're here. Like, just those words still give me chills. Just to understand everything that we went through for days and weeks and months to get her to where she is and just to know she's here, you know, I can hold her, we can share life
[00:14:30] together and her brothers were so excited to have a girl finally in the house. I think I was more excited. But, yeah, just to be able to to understand what we went through and again, living with no regret, knowing I asked the questions I needed to ask, I pushed through what I needed to push, I expressed what I needed to express and move on. You know, it's just a constant
[00:14:54] reminder that battles are just battles, but there's still life beyond them. experience, all those aspects that we talk so much about in in healthcare are so important. And that was not an easy space to cover for you either. From your experiences as a mom and going through a high-risk
[00:15:20] pregnancy, special needs child, and you knew all these pieces going in. What do you wish had been more true during that journey in terms of the type of care you were receiving? What do moms who get that kind of news need to know? I would almost say connection. When I first got the news, you feel so alone. You used to feel so isolated. And
[00:15:46] if I would have had maybe someone there that experienced something similar, maybe not identical. Every journey's different. But just knew the struggles, the internal struggles, you know, there's we we put on a pretty good act as moms, I think, and as as females to make, you know, each day move forward, regardless of how we're feeling. But I think when someone's able to maybe step in the weeds with you and say, "You're
[00:16:11] not alone. Like this feeling, this emotion is natural. It's not bad. It's It's part of the experience. But to know there's hope and to just say, "Don't give up." It's so easy to give up, but don't give up. I think that would really make an impact in the health care that we provide to moms that are really struggling through these battles. I was basically bedridden, so I couldn't really move anywhere. I just
[00:16:38] remember there were moments where I would hear kids footsteps in the hallway and, you know, moms and dads kind of talking and I missed my family because they were in a different state at that point. I mean, we were close close border from our our states, but you know, I didn't have them by my side and it was kind of like I was fighting for one life, but I was losing out on the
[00:17:03] lives of the other kids. And I think being able to find that balance as moms, too, is is really important to make sure that you get that that care and you get that focus and you get that kind of, you know, refresh and filling your cup up for the next round of tests and and shots or whatever might come. I think it's really critical to find and and to
[00:17:28] make sure that you you build those in to that schedule. And then, last question, I promise, on just some of the perspectives, which I thought it's an overused word since the pandemic, of families who, now you have a child who has different needs than the other three, which would be true regardless, is and you've done such a good job of this, this is why I'm comfortable asking the question, is how has the family come together as a
[00:17:52] unit for the boys realizing their sister, not as she's special just cuz she's a girl, she has different than needs than they did. And so, how does a family create a new sense of normalcy when there are unexpected changes in the lives of the of the dynamic? And from an early on stage, when when she was home, we were always kind of talking to the boys about different things. Like, not necessarily
[00:18:17] having sit-down conversations, but just sneaking things in every once in a while. We got them connected to we would go into, you know, different uh events or group outings with families with similar kind of backgrounds or children with special needs, so they knew that they also were not alone, that there were other siblings out there that had siblings that were different. And I think that really helps them to kind of
[00:18:44] grow and understand, you know, this isn't weird, this isn't abnormal, we're we're still a loving family, and even though everyone's abilities, disabilities might be a little bit different, or or not necessarily misunderstood, but just vocalized and perceived differently, I think is really helpful as a family, especially for young kids, to just get them acclimated to that, having friends
[00:19:10] over, and kind of almost talking to the friends, making sure that you know, the whole family is kind of together, that that conversation is open to anyone, so that they can also feel supported at school, that that their friends kind of maybe know some things, but I think it's it's just building that seed, planting that seed at a time, so that we can continue to to expand and and grow as a
[00:19:36] family. We have a really great community where I live right now, and that really does a lot for children, or shouldn't say children, you know, people with Trisomy 21 of all ages.
[00:19:48] And so it's really easy for us to get connect connected, but I think again, you have to be intentional to make sure that you're making that a priority, not only for your child that might need that, but also your family to feel still that cohesive unit.
[00:20:04] And I do love the stories of the antics at your household because there are four kids, there is a dog, there are parents that are working. I mean, it's a it's a typical four-kid household with, you know, throwing some pets to make it make it full. Ashley, your story is one of such unimaginable strength, but also love, faith, resilience in its purest form. What stands out the most isn't just what you endured, it's what you
[00:20:28] created from it, and that is hope for others walking a similar path. For our listeners, if this conversation moved you, I encourage you to read Poppy's story and share it with someone who may need it. Ashley, thank you for your friendship, your courage, and for trusting us with your story. Thank you so much. For everybody listening, sometimes flourishing isn't about perfection, it's about perseverance.
[00:20:51] Until next time, keep flourishing. That's Flore Sound Bites. Find your community at Every healthcare leader needs a community to learn from and lean on.
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