Editor’s Note: This is the last in a four-part series
MARINETTE — She walked into the office and sat in the chair for her first pregnancy appointment, avoiding eye contact.
Twenty minutes went by without a word. Autumn Bushmaker had a decision to make.
“I couldn’t even believe I was sitting in the chair that I was sitting in,” Bushmaker said. “I was truly in a mindset of, I don’t know if I’m going to keep this baby.”
She had just been married over a year when she said she knew something was up. A positive test revealed she was pregnant.
“When I found out, I was like, really, really upset,” Bushmaker said. “I was scared. I mean, every negative emotion that I probably could have felt, I felt.”
The appointment was with Lacey Wendt, a registered nurse at Aurora Medical Center — Bay Area.
And that one appointment changed everything.
“She reassured me and, you know, told me everything was going to be OK and that I was going to be a great mom if that’s what I decided to do,” Bushmaker said.
Baby steps.
Flash forward to her delivery day. She went in for a routine 40-week checkup, but was admitted for high blood pressure.
“I remember sitting on the bed or whatever, and she’s like, ‘You’re not going home today.’ And she says, ‘The next time you’re going home, you’re going to have a baby,’” Bushmaker said.
Different day and an entirely different perspective.
“I think at that point, I just gave up all control,” Bushmaker said. “I thought, ‘I’m in their hands now.’”
She spent four days at Aurora Bay Area, located in Marinette, designated a “Maternity Care Access Hospital” in late 2023.
The hospital is located in Marinette County, which is surrounded on almost all sides by maternity deserts — counties without hospitals or birth centers and where no obstetricians work.
Bushmaker said she knew 22 other pregnant moms, most of whom went to Green Bay to deliver. She is from Coleman, a 30 to 35-minute commute to the hospital, but she decided to deliver in Marinette.
“And I felt like, ‘Am I doing something wrong?’ But thankfully, like I said, I didn’t have a high-risk pregnancy,” Bushmaker said.
Mothers who are high-risk may be directed to deliver in Green Bay, as the Marinette hospital does not have a neonatal intensive care unit or NICU.
“I think Marinette is so great because they’re so ‘small town,’” Bushmaker said. “They were just all attention, all eyes on us. And I felt it.”
The designation of “Maternity Care Access Hospital” required specific quality criteria, along with geographic need, to receive recognition.
All 73 hospitals in the U.S. that were awarded had significantly lower rates of cesarean section (C-section) in low-risk pregnancies (23.1% vs. 25.4%) and of unexpected newborn complications (27.3 vs. 31.8 complications per 1,000 births) than hospitals that did not get the award.
Not only was the family getting high-quality care, but it was in an area with high need.
Bushmaker’s experience rang true with Kane Rasner and his family, too. In the past year, he recently welcomed a second child with his wife, Lexi. They had a five-minute drive to the hospital.
“We need things like this — we need a hospital that is trustworthy, that has high-quality care,” Rasner said. “If we’re going to want this area to continue on this path of growth, we’re going to make sure we have those pieces in place. This hospital was a huge first step in making this happen.”
As the president of Advanced Blending Solutions in Wallace, he knows that having a good team of family care providers in the area makes all the difference in retaining high-quality talent.
A woman’s hospital experience can be the groundwork that determines how they recover from delivery, which can be a traumatic experience.
“I don’t think you truly understand it until you have gone through it, or your wife has gone through it,” Rasner said.
If a woman receives quality care, including from an employer, the family may be more likely to stay in the area. Rasner said ABS tries to accommodate families in the best way they can.
“We want our people to know their job is safe, and we encourage them to spend time with their families,” Rasner said.
They recently shifted to a nine-hour workday, four days a week, with a four-hour workday on Friday, with production teams starting at 5 a.m. and leaving at 2:30 p.m. to better accommodate child pickup.
Rasner said his role as a dad has affected his position in the company.
“It makes me lean strong on being flexible and adding benefits for our employees,” Rasner said.
He said he and his wife’s experience in Marinette with the doctors was excellent.
“It felt like when we were there, the entire staff in that wing was there just for us,” Rasner said.
Kiersten Dubois, who delivered her third and fourth child in Marinette, said she wished she wouldn’t have gone elsewhere for her first two children. She lives in Stephenson, Michigan, and had a 30-minute drive.
“I wish I could’ve delivered all of my children there,” Dubois said.
The friendly staff made a significant impact on her.
“Everyone is always excited for you there — they treat you like they’re your friend,” Dubois said. “They say hi to your kid when you bring them in.”
Her youngest child, Brynn, was recently diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, something she will have for the rest of her life.
Something she will lean on the hospital for support.
“I was obviously scared, but they reassured me,” Dubois said. “It’s a lot — we’ve adjusted, and she’s doing really good with it.”
Her first meeting differed from Bushmaker’s, but both women left with the same feelings. The Marinette staff gave them hope that there was a trusted group of providers to care for them and their families.
“From the first time meeting her, I knew this was this was where I was going to stay,” Dubois said, after meeting OB-GYN Kristin Kniech, D.O., at the hospital.
Bushmaker thinks back to that first day and how different she felt now, posting endless pictures of her newborn on social media and doting on being a first-time mother.
She was seated in a rocking chair, cradling her sleeping two-month-old girl, Lainey. Behind her were family photos of a life well-lived.
“It literally eats me alive to think that that was a thought in my head,” Bushmaker said, reflecting on that silent appointment with Wendt, the nurse. “I always say, if it wasn’t for her that I met with that day, I don’t know if I’d be sitting here.”
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