KENTUCKY, USA — A Kentucky woman who was forced to make an impossible decision is now on a mission to let other women know they aren't alone.
Heather Maberry said she wanted a miracle, but that never came.
"Every time that I got confirmed that she did have anencephaly, it just it it was like a slap in the face," she said.
Heather, her husband Nick, and their three daughters were excited to welcome Willow -- the couple's would-be rainbow baby. The same as their youngest daughter, 6-year-old Hadley.
Willow had anencephaly, a serious birth defect in which the brain and skull do not fully develop. Babies with the condition are either stillborn or die within hours of being born.
Heather says though Willow had a heartbeat, doctors told her she was not alive because there was no brain activity.
"No mother wants to hear that," she said.
Despite the fatal diagnosis, under Kentucky's heartbeat law, Heather said doctors told her she couldn't induce labor or have an abortion in the state.
Her options were to carry a fetus declared dead for another 18 weeks or travel out of state. So, she and Nick chose the latter -- travelling from Stanton, Kentucky to a clinic in Chicago.
"It felt like this was what I had to do, and I didn't have a choice. We wanted nothing more than to be able to, like, either cremate or bury her. It doesn't feel like there was closure with losing her like, I'm grieving a picture," Heather said. "I'll never know what it's like to hold her in my arms. We've missed out on all that. All of that because Kentucky wouldn't let me be induced."
She said she's overwhelmed by the financial and emotional support she's received.
Though Maberry said she never believed in abortion for herself, she said women should be able to make their own choices about their own bodies. Now, she wants to be a voice for others faced with an impossible decision.
"We should not be having to go through this," Heather said.
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