Health Care heroes
Corbyn Elizabeth Reign Colbert & HonorBridge By Dena Daw
ov. 26, 2019, was meant to be a routine anatomy scan, but Hillsborough resident Anna Flack – pregnant with her and husband Brandon Colbert’s seventh child – knew something was wrong. “I could tell by the faces the technician was making during the ultrasound,” she says. “My mom was like, ‘Oh, no, you’re just looking too much into it,’ but I knew.” A conversation with the doctor and a neonatologist confirmed her worst fears: Her daughter was given the fatal diagnosis of anencephaly. Anna was informed that she could induce termination the following week, but she wanted to know all her options if she carried to term. The neonatologist explained to Anna that depending on the level of severity, some babies with anencephaly could live up to a couple of hours. “And that’s when I asked about organ donation,” Anna says. “If I carried her to term, what would that look like? Could her organs be given to other babies or other adults?”
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chapelhillmagazine.com
November/December 2024
“I want people to know that while at the end of the day we lost our daughter, we were able to help somebody else’s child. [And] to know that her heart valves are beating in someone else’s baby’s heart and some mama got to hold her baby and be with her baby a little bit longer.” – anna flack
That conversation was shortlived. The doctor told Anna that her baby didn’t have a brain and that in North Carolina, if brain death is not able to be determined, then it makes them ineligible for organ donation. Devastated, Anna left the hospital. Then she received an unexpected call. “It was the neonatologist,” recalls Anna, tears flowing at the memory. “She was like, ‘I just want to let you know that it’s such a hard thing to think about what you’re going through, yet you’re willing to think about other people.’” The neonatologist gave Anna’s contact info to HonorBridge – a nonprofit organ donation organization. Christena Tozel, research coordinator for HonorBridge, contacted the family the next day. She told Anna that due to organ size and the law in North Carolina, most of the organs would be ineligible for transplant but eligible for donation to research, which was still equally as important to the family. “Anna chose to carry her baby as close to full term as she