Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Well, hello, Arkansas. I'm so thankful that you chose to spend this time with us today here at Small Town Girl. I'm very excited about our next guest, Danielle Williamson. She actually contacted me after hearing the interview with Dr. Emily Waldorf. And Danielle has a story to tell that we need to hear here in Arkansas. It has some similarities to Emily's and some differences, but it's how all of our lives are affected by a bad law that needs to be changed. And so I want to give our full attention and time to you, Danielle. So let's just jump right in.
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So, Danielle, tell us a little bit about yourself. We're on ZOOM because you have moved from Arkansas, but tell us a little bit about your background. You did live in Arkansas up until fairly recently.
So tell us a little bit about yourself, your life, and then we'll kind of get into why you're here.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Sure. So my husband and I moved around a few times because he was doing his medical training at different locations throughout the country. And when he was finally finished up with all of his training, he got offered his dream job at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah. In 2021, we packed up our lives from Pennsylvania and we moved to Little Rock.
And we were just so excited to finally be starting this next chapter in our lives, at least for him, as far as not working 60, 70 plus hours a week and being on the other side and having his first attending physician job.
For us, too, it was finally a time. We had just gotten engaged.
His last nurse in Pennsylvania was bugging him every week saying, you're going to make her move to Arkansas and not put a ring on her finger and heading in this next direction of our lives. And we, In June of 2022, we got married. We purchased our first home in Little Rock in the Heights, which is a really beautiful area.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Love it.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: And we decided we were going to try to have a baby. And after a year of not getting pregnant, we realized that we needed fertility help.
And we were told that the only way we could have a baby was to do ivf.
And then we quickly realized that the kind of specialists for the type of IVF we needed did not exist in the state of Arkansas. And so we decided that we would seek help from experts. And that was in Dallas, Texas.
And so we did our first round in Dallas, and Christmas of 2023, we finally got to tell our families that we were expecting our first baby.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Okay, so your husband is a pediatrician, and they're loving his work at Children's Hospital, and you guys are going through IVF to start your family.
And I know, and we can talk about this a little bit, but I know IVF can be very emotional experience and just kind of grueling, very expensive.
I've had friends who've had to go that route. And so you kind of have that leading up to this wonderful news that you're gonna have a baby and you share this with your family and then what happens?
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I would definitely say that after going through that experience, finding out you're finally pregnant is like an accomplishment in and of itself, you know? Yes. We just felt like we had climbed this mountain and we were so exc.
We told all of our neighbors when we were 12 weeks pregnant, everything was going great with the pregnancy. I mean, I'll admit I was a little nervous because after going through such a grueling process medically, physically, financially, you know, I felt like there was a lot riding on it. But every appointment, we were told fantastic news and that everything looked perfect. And so we traveled in my second trimester, went overseas, and came back and went to my 18 week appointment. And we were told again, everything looked great. And my doctor said, let me just do a quick bedside ultrasound and you guys are free to go.
And that is the moment everything changed for us. She started scanning me and saw there was no fluid surrounding the baby.
And she quickly knew something was seriously the matter and that we needed to see an mfm.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Okay, so for our readers, I mean, and listeners, what is. What is an mfm and what was that like?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: So an MFM is a maternal fetal medicine doctor. There are people that specialize in high risk pregnancies.
And thankfully, since we were at UAMS, they had MFMs on staff.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: She hurried upstairs, quickly got us in to be seen the same day, and we went upstairs and they said, we're going to do a detailed ultrasound on you. And in my mind, I couldn't fully believe that something was a matter yet. I was like, oh, don't let me look, because I don't Want to know the gender of the baby? Because I was just, you know, in my mind, it was the last surprise that we could possibly have, because nothing is a surprise in an IVF pregnancy.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Right?
[00:06:27] Speaker B: But I. I said, oh, don't let me look at the screen, because I don't want to know if it's a boy or a girl. And they started scanning me, and I could quickly tell by the tone of the voice of the sonographer that something was the matter. And they told us that the baby had no kidneys, no bladder, and had no lung development at all because of the lack of amniotic fluid.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: So how.
How did everything look good up until this point?
How did they miss this, or.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So in your first trimester, your body itself makes amniotic fluid because the lungs don't start. Practice breathing yet.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: But start second trimester, your baby actually swallows the amniotic fluid. It's what builds their lung tissue, and then they actually excrete it. They urinate it.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Amniotic fluid. Since my baby did not have kidneys, my baby swallowed up all the fluid and then did not urinate. And so there was none left. And so my baby was just lacking any cushion inside of me.
And they could tell already that the baby was suffering because of that. The MFM pointed out that the baby's skull was already misshapen eventually, that all the other bones in the baby's body would be misshapen because of that lack of fluid.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: That's just a nightmare.
I can only imagine how you felt.
Try to describe that, how you and your. You know, how you felt in that moment and what that was like.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: It was devastating because soon after, the MFM came in, sat us down with a box of tissues, told us what the prognosis would be, and I quickly knew that the MFM was going to be no help for us either.
So you feel completely helpless, and you also are suddenly thinking, what are we going to do? We're very trapped.
So he said that the baby would either be a stillbirth or immediately upon delivery, the baby would suffocate and die. And I thought, Sorry, I thought,
[00:09:08] Speaker A: I
[00:09:09] Speaker B: cannot go 20 more weeks.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Knowing, of course,
[00:09:22] Speaker B: That that was going to be the outcome.
I could not stand knowing that that was going to be the ultimate fate and that in the meantime, there was nothing that they could do to help me if anything bad were to happen to me in those next 20 weeks.
And I wasn't even emotional when they were telling me this.
They got up and left, and I picked up the tissue box and put it back on the office desk.
And I looked at my husband. I said, I'm ready to go.
Unfortunately, he had come straight from work, so we'd driven separately to this appointment and we each drove home, met each other at home. And that's when I finally broke down and cried because I was so sad that, you know, all I had wanted, been wanting for the past years was, yes, have a healthy baby.
And my dreams were shattered.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: I'm so sorry. I just.
I just cannot wrap my head around going from the grief of that news to in the same moment, being alone in it as far as having help or knowing what, what you, you know, what. What to do with the situation other than this completely nightmarish, barbaric, horrific situation. They've just told, you know, the baby's suffering already.
And it's so. That's cruel. And it's. It's cruel to the. So cruel to you to expect you to, well, to do that to your baby, to carry this, this child knowing that it is suffering and then the danger that that poses to you and the, you know, it's this.
It's not the same as Emily's story, but it is. Sitting here with you and hearing this story gives me the same feelings of just. It is almost like you cannot believe it.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Like.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Like I totally do believe you. I know that you're telling me the truth. I knew Emily was telling me the truth, but it was just like.
And I feel like this is. This is why it is so important for normal people to, you know, just out there who aren't, you know, politically involved or anything to hear this story.
Because the issue of abortion gets so politicized, the waters get so muddy, and then the people in this situation like this are lost and no one thinks about this story happening.
And then it's someone you love or someone you know or you. And you're in this situation and the law, you know, to me this feels like medieval times or something. It's like a.
It's just a law that you can't even imagine that modern day Arkansan would be faced with this kind of situation. It is so shameful. It's so embarrassing. And it's. To me, it's just wrong. It's a criminally wrong thing to do to people.
So it enrages me at the same time as just making me feel so desperately sad and sorry. So sorry for you that you went through this and, you know, as a woman, but. And a mother and someone who's carried four babies and then also, just as a human being, I just wish that.
Wish that I could have, you know, been there to hug you and help you just to do something, you know, to. And I can only imagine how your husband must have felt in this situation. You know, he's moved you to this state, and you guys have all these dreams in your life, and then all of a sudden, so what, after you picked your head up from this devastating news, what did you do?
[00:14:42] Speaker B: So when we got home, I decided that night I couldn't do anything yet, because I think I was just in such a great amount of shock that we only made three phone calls that first night. We called my mom to ask her to book a flight last minute to come down.
We called my husband's boss and told her what was going on because my husband needed time off of work immediately.
And then we called our IVF doctor in Texas, Texas, of all places, and we said, just shoot it to us straight. What would you do if you were in the situation?
And he said that he would have a termination for medical reasons.
And he told me, in the meantime, he said, if you carry this pregnancy, you are still just as likely to have preeclampsia or any of the other complications that can happen to any woman when they're pregnant.
And that also if I needed a C section with this baby, that he would make me wait longer to do IVF again.
And so our decision had already been made, but giving him a phone call was just very validating to hear that we were definitely making the right decision.
The next day, we started calling clinics.
UAMs could only give us two pieces of paper stapled together with a name, few clinic names on it, but they couldn't tell us anything else.
And so the next morning, we sat down, we started calling every clinic on the list to see where we could get help and where we would need to go.
That was everywhere, from New Mexico to Kansas. And ultimately we ended up deciding to travel to Illinois, because that day I turned 18 weeks. And so there were limits based off of my gestational age. And there were also limits based on appointment availability. The next available appointment was in Kansas, and it was not for another seven days. And I couldn't. I couldn't bear to even wait seven more days thinking about what could happen in the meantime. And so we took the appointment in Illinois, which was already two days later on Friday. And so that day, we started packing up our lives, booked our dogs for doggy daycare, and the next morning, we left town.
It was like under 48 hours. It was probably 36 hours. We did all of this and left.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: And you flew to Illinois?
[00:17:17] Speaker B: We drove, actually. So we dropped our doggies off. My husband took off the tag that he has of his favorite baseball team on the car so no one would follow us. And we drove to Illinois, which was about a seven hour drive, checked into a hotel, and then my first appointment was the next morning, Friday morning.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: And what happened at that appointment?
[00:17:44] Speaker B: So one of the reasons we ended up choosing the clinic in Illinois is because my husband could actually come into the clinic physically with me, which was very important to me because this baby was just as much his and all of the work that we had put in with IVF than it was mine. And so we did all of the consents and everyone at the clinic was just so incredibly kind and told us how sorry we were. They had received the facts that had the diagnosis for the baby, and they confirmed it yet again that that's what the diagnosis was on an ultrasound.
And then they dilated me and I went back to the hotel and dilated overnight in the hotel room.
And then the following day.
Went back to the clinic and said goodbye to our baby.
And the staff was so kind. They did.
They took ink cards and made footprints of our baby and these beautiful clay impressions of our baby's feet and made me a whole little memory box with a blanket and took amazing care of me both days. And of course, the second day of my procedure was on a Saturday. So of course there were an insane amount of protesters outside that day. And they even had escorts to get me in and out of my husband's car safely and shielded me and just took the most amazing care of me. And I'm so thankful for them.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: You know, Emily said that too. Just how healing. I mean, that's my word. Not. I don't think she used that word, but it was the word that came to my mind, she felt when she got to the place in Kansas City and the people were kind to her.
And even that is.
That is just a dagger in my heart as an Arkansan, you know, because to think that you had to leave Arkansas to find that.
I think we're dehumanizing ourselves. We're dehumanizing our, you know, our most vulnerable.
We are.
We're dehumanizing you, you know, and Emily, all of our mothers and babies by doing this where, like, it's dystopian to me that you would.
You would get this news from your ob gyn, you would go to this maternal mother, maternal fetal Medicine, fetal medicine, doctor.
And it would be this sort of sterile code, like, situation where it's like, here's what's happening, and here I cannot do anything about it. Like, your. Your options are that your baby's going to suffer, you're going to suffer, your baby's going to die. There are all these risks involved, and that's all I have to say. Like, I cannot imagine trying to work in that environment as a doctor, you know, as someone who's supposed to help people and save lives. And, you know, I'm a teacher, and I'm really big on, you know, like, bedside manner and, like, don't be in a profession where people are vulnerable and their lives are in your hands. If you. If you don't love people and you don't have empathy and you don't. You know, you're not.
Because as a teacher, that's.
That's your job. Your job is to, you know, you're loving the children, you're loving the human. You know, mine are college students, and they're humans who are coming to spend time with you, and you're teaching them, like, material, you know, but you're also.
It's a formative experience. It's an intimate experience to be in a classroom with. With minds, engaging in ideas. And so, you know, a doctor is.
It's a similar scenario, but even more so because you're so much more vulnerable.
Your life is literally in their hands.
And to imagine you going, I feel like it's like you're in this, like, steel sterile box with these sharp edges, and it's hard and, you know, gray, and you're, like, shoved in there.
And then you finally, you know, with the worst news of your life on the worst days of your life.
And then when you finally make it to this clinic in Illinois, it's like someone wraps a blanket around you and hugs you, you know, and I'm so thankful for that. And I'm so thankful you were able to go there and you had that kind of access.
And I'm just so sickened, you know, at the idea that our people were not able to take care of you and that our state is a place who shoves someone in your situation into that hard, cold space.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Say that, too. Even if it forces us to travel and make these choices. But, yeah, if you really think about it, like, wouldn't you want to be home and recover in your own bed? Wouldn't you want to see your own baby? Wouldn't you want to be doing that in your house and not in a hotel room that's hundreds of miles away. It makes.
It makes no sense to treat women in the same.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: It's so wrong.
It's so wrong.
And it.
I mean, it's like my mind is just, like, splintering off in all these directions right now because I'm thinking about how horrific this experience was for you. And yet you are one of the lucky ones, really.
You know, how many women in Arkansas face this kind of situation? And then there's not an option, you know, for their mom to get on a plane to come help them. There's not an option for them to get on a plane and go somewhere and get help.
They don't have the resources or the network. They don't have a husband who's a medical professional. You know, they don't.
And they're told this news, and what do they do?
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: And it's a nightmare for you. It's an absolute nightmare for someone who does have that, you know, opportunity. And then you just think, I don't know again, you know, with that metaphor. I just picture them shoved in that. In that box, and the door is just, like, slammed shut and locked, and they're just in the corner. You know, what happens next?
What happens next? What happened next in your story?
You go back.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Yeah. As soon as we were able to be released, I was in recovery, and my husband was texting and asking me, do you want to stay one more night? I said, no, check us out of the hotel. Like, just take me home. I'm ready to be home.
And I'm leaving the clinic, and there's a man screaming in my face saying, there's a pill you can take to reverse everything that you did. Like, it's not too late. And I remember thinking, oh, my goodness.
Truly have no idea what we've been through in the past months, even leading up to this moment. And believe me, if there was anything I could. If there was a pill I could take that could change and we could be having a baby right now, I would do it in the second because there's nothing more than I want, that I want than that.
But we drove home, and I physically. I had my milk come in in the coming days. And, you know, my body thought I had a baby that I didn't. And we just started actually having the chance to grieve because I did not allow myself to grieve in those first days because I was just. I had my head too wrapped up in everything else that needed to happen.
And we also quickly realized, too, that it was likely something genetic that caused this first baby to be missing kidneys. And so we, two days after the abortion, were back at uims, not admitting what had happened with terminating the pregnancy, but demanding genetic testing for each of us.
And sure enough, a few weeks later, we were told that it was, in fact, a genetic cause for babies missing kidneys.
And so we found ourselves in the situation of not knowing what steps to take next with IVF, because we were told there's a 50, 50 chance that each of our embryos had what our first baby had. And I certainly knew I was not going to be able to just blindly transfer an embryo and have a 50, 50 chance of what had happened to me.
And I saw on Nextdoor, you know, that app that someone was doing a canvassing event for the abortion amendment ballot initiative. And so I went and signed it, and they were looking for volunteers.
And three weeks after my abortion, I was training to be a canvasser for the Arkansas abortion amendment.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: So in a way, you were able to sort of channel some of your grief into action.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: I have found that to be powerful in my own life. In fact, some of this podcasting and writing and stuff that I do is that is taking, you know, things that are inside that hurt or that are hard or that, you know, make me angsty and trying to do something about them by putting them out into the world and, you know, cultivating conversations or just letting people know that they're not alone.
And so I, of course, really commend you for that and think it's. It's very healthy. That must have been another heartbreak when the.
The signatures were not accepted on it on a technicality.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that was, that was very disappointing.
I essentially had made collecting signatures my full time job that summer because I thought that summer I was going to be seven, eight, and nine months pregnant, laying at the pool, trying to, like, stay cool in the Arkansas heat in the later months of pregnancy. And instead I was going door to door canvassing at all different kinds of events. And I started realizing that the best places to canvass were places actually where moms were alone without their husbands.
So I would canvass outside of the Little Rock Zoo a lot, and I would canvass at different places like that because I quickly realized that there are a lot of women that actually wanted to sign the petition, but their husbands weren't allowing them. And so I was starting to meet people in secret, and I collected thousands of signatures. And so when it was thrown out on a technicality, it was kind of the nail in the coffin that I did not want to live in the state of Arkansas anymore.
Especially when Sarah Huckabee Sanders put out a tweet afterwards saying the people that had worked on the initiative were immoral and incompetent. I thought, okay, well, if that's what you think about me, then we don't need to be contributing to this state any longer.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yes.
Yes. That breaks my heart and disappoints me and again, just makes me feel so ashamed, because that's certainly not the Arkansas that I believe in and want or that I know as a lifetime Arkansan, you know, but it's certainly a.
It's a reality for us right now. And I'm so sorry that we lost, you know, you and your husband and the. The talents and heart that you were able to bring to.
To the state.
You're exactly the kind of people that we need.
And I'm just. I'm just really sad that we let you down like that, but I get it, and I don't blame you. And I hope that you are carving out a life for yourself in a much happier, safer place.
Tell us a little bit about the decision to move and what has happened since.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So after we found out that it wasn't going to make it on the ballot, we went to Oyster Bar that weekend, which is, like, our favorite local.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: I love it, too.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Yeah, the place.
And we sat at the bar, and we were having some champagne and some raw oysters, and we had a very long conversation, the two of us, and we decided, you know, maybe it could be our next baby's fun fact that they were born in Arkansas, but we should move as soon as humanly possible.
We were about to do IVF again. We found out that because we had traveled out of state, we didn't have access to genetic material of our first baby.
And if we had had access to genetic material, we could have had testing covered by insurance to test our remaining embryos to see which ones were sick.
But because we had to travel out of state, we had no access to the material and therefore had no way covered by insurance. And so we paid tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket to test our remaining embryos.
And we had two that were healthy that didn't have it. And so we decided we were transferring one of those and that we were moving as soon as possible.
And when I was just five weeks pregnant with one of our healthy embryos, we found out that my husband could switch jobs.
And funny enough, that day when I was five weeks pregnant was actually the Due date of our first baby. And so I took it as a sign for us to take the next steps. And he flew and interviewed. I went along with him, flew to interview when I was 10 weeks pregnant and bought a house sight unseen when I was like 15 weeks pregnant.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: We moved when I was like 23 weeks pregnant. So we were out of Arkansas by, by the winter time.
And it's a shame because I truly, I made fantastic friends in the three and a half years we were there.
I loved Little Rock as the city that it was. And I really thought we were going to have a different experience when we had moved there three years ago. And I was very sad to say goodbye to a lot of people, but I also felt like long term, how could I raise knowing we were, knowing we were going to have a daughter? How could I raise a daughter in a state where
[00:35:35] Speaker A: I was a felon,
[00:35:37] Speaker B: essentially, and that her own body and rights would not be respected?
And so I have no regrets with leaving, but I'm sad we left.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: I am too.
But I see why you felt like you had no choice.
You know, it's one of the aspects I think of this law is so many of us just don't even think about it in terms of, well, the reality that it places on all women.
You know, I had all my children before this was a law.
And so, you know, I never thought about if I had something go wrong with my baby and needed, you know, it had the same kind of need that you had. I wouldn't have even ever called that an abortion. You know, I think probably, you know, thousands of women have had procedures when they found out similar news that they never thought of as abortions. You know, we don't speak about or think about.
You don't hear about, you know, in political ads or at church abortions in this kind of context. You hear about them in, you know, in conversations about, you know, killing babies, babies who are, who are unwanted, who are surprised, who are, you know, a woman who is promiscuous or, you know, all these sort of tropes that are harmful that color that story and make that concept something really that does not describe reality or encompass very real human experiences like yours.
And you know, my, I have a daughter and a daughter in law.
My daughter's turning 26 this summer. My daughter in law is a couple months behind that.
And, you know, we were talking about this situation and they were saying, what will we do if we have a problem? You know, they're starting to think about having a family and, and it has that, you know, dawned on me. Oh my gosh. You know, I never thought about it being unsafe or dangerous, but that's the reality. That's what you were living.
I wanted to ask you, you know, How many, do you have any idea.
For people who would say, well, this is just a tiny percentage of the women, you know, who are facing abortion and we do need to make some kind of tiny little loophole here to correct this situation.
You know, I've known just personally, this just anecdotally, but I've known a surprising number of people who are in, have been in similar situations to you.
What would you say to those, those people who, you know, who just think your story is just, you know, very unfortunate, but it's a one off, right?
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I didn't know a whole lot of people in Little Rock. I'd only lived there three years. I'm not a lifelong Arkansan. And in just my three years, I personally know two other people that had to leave the state for terminations. And that's just in Little Rock, just in my little circle.
And those are people that don't necessarily want to be public. And that's totally understandable.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: But I, I would one, say it's not as rare as you would think.
And two would be, just because it's rare, do those people not deserve the health care and the help that they need?
Like, I don't think something being rare makes it okay to be treated like that.
And I will say, truly, like, there are a lot of women out there who even, you know, there's only one center I was told to trust when all this was going on, which was the U center, Y ou center in Little Rock, which is wild because it's right next to a crisis pregnancy center, physically next door to one.
And I think everyone would be quite surprised to realize like, how much resources they're pulling and how much they're doing to try and help people in just Little Rock alone at Penn State.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Well, and you know, I think your friends who don't want to be public, I think that raises a good point of just how many of these stories we don't hear.
And so there again, I just appreciate you so much being willing to, to go there with us, you know, to tell this story.
It's a, it's a, it's a very private, sensitive, gut wrenching, you know, story and it just shows how important it is to you, you know, and how life changing that you're willing to go, go through the process of telling the story in order to try to help people.
So thank you so much for that.
Is there, you know, as a conclusion or a wrap up?
Is there anything else that you want to share, maybe to women who are in Arkansas, to people listening?
I thought it was so interesting that you said there were women who wanted to sign but their husbands didn't allow them.
Why do you think that is and what is going on there?
[00:42:50] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting.
Just like a little anecdote. I felt almost like this sneaky kind of thing that I was doing. I was getting put in contact with women who didn't want to tell their husbands that they were signing. And this one instance really sticks out in my mind. This woman who had a disability herself and also had a disabled child reached out to me via text saying she really wanted to sign, but her husband could not find out that she was signing the petition.
And I actually, I met her in the parking lot of Arkansas Children's, the same area I would drop Starbucks off to my husband when he was working overnight.
I met her there and she like tapped on my window. I rolled down the window of my car and she could, she quick signed it and she was like, thank you so much for doing this. I think, I think there's a lot of women either in the state that maybe don't feel like they have the voice and so or their voice is being suppressed by someone else, but they actually do believe in this.
And so that's why I do truly think it's so important to somehow get it on the ballot in the state, because I do believe if it made it all the way to the ballot box, the law would actually change.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: I do too.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: It's the fight to actually get it on the ballot in the first place.
And so if you can't personally do that, I think the other big call to help would be donating to funds like what the youth center is doing or places that are either mailing medications to women or helping them get out of the state like I needed to do in order to receive the help that, that they need. Because they're not getting it at home, they're not going to. And I know that.
And so if you feel called to help in any other way, there are funds, specifically the Arkansas Abortion Fund, that you can donate to to help women like me in all corners of the state get outside of the state lines to get help.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Well, thank you for that. We should definitely highlight that and make that easily accessible and available to our listeners. And I will as well. To those who read my column in The Democrat Gazette.
Can we know a little bit about what life is like for you now a few years out from this?
I'm so grateful you're still actively working to help others who face this situation.
What's good going on in your life now?
Yeah.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: So I have a 15 month old daughter now.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Congratulations.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm truly enjoying my life with her
[00:46:05] Speaker A: and
[00:46:08] Speaker B: traveling a lot and enjoying all the little things that we have, whether it be going to baby story time or swimming in our pool in the backyard or visiting friends that we haven't seen in years.
I unfortunately could not be a part of the legal case that was filed in January in Arkansas because I'm not a resident anymore and I don't have standing. But I'm a good example of what people are going to start doing if there's not change being made. And that's leaving.
But we've also gone back to visit our friends and I finally, you know, got to have them meet the baby that they, they helped me support through the start of my pregnancy with her. And so that has been really special as well to go back and visit.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Good.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: Well, you are a warrior and I feel so honored and grateful that I got to meet you and that I get to just in a small way magnify your story.
You're a hero for me and you will be, I know for many more who hear your story.
And I'm so sorry, so sorry for what happened to you.
And I'm also very inspired and very grateful that you have chosen not to let it defeat you or to suck you under, but to go forward making a difference and carving out the life that you want. You want it for yourself.
So I hope you'll keep in touch and I know that you'll be watching as the fight goes on in Arkansas. And when we are able to get this ban overturned, it'll be because of work and because of the overcoming of hardships by women like you. So thank you, Danielle Williamson, so much for being here with us.
Thank you.
[00:48:22] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
