Marci Caryer, speech language pathologist with Eskenazi Health, was nervous, as any woman would be in the hospital, facing childbirth for the first time.

For Caryer, however, the worries were intensified by years of disappointed hopes. She and her husband Trent had been struggling with infertility “just shy of a decade,” she says. That “very long process” of failed attempts and IVF treatments had left both of them fearful.

“We would get a little further with each one, and then something would happen,” says Caryer. “I told people, ‘I’m not going to breathe until she’s here.’”

At home Caryer had stored the pregnancy tests and an ultrasound from previous tries. She’d been saving such records again for her new pregnancy, hoping this time they wouldn’t be reminders of loss.

Choosing Eskenazi Health for her maternal care made sense to Caryer after working here for the past eight years: “I knew I would have exceptional care. Everyone took good care of me. This is very much a family. Even when you don’t work in that department, just knowing that you work here, I feel like we really take care of each other.”

Right away, she was grateful to her medical team at Eskenazi Health Obstetrics & Gynecology. “They knew my story,” she says. She appreciated how quickly Elizabeth Anne Ferries-Rowe, M.D., addressed her concerns.

Admitted for labor during the night shift in October 2024, Caryer couldn’t overcome the deep anxiety resulting from all those former losses. The arrival of Sarah Eversole, RN, staff nurse in the antenatal and post-partum unit at Eskenazi Health Family Beginnings, changed everything for Caryer, who would later describe her nurse as a “breath of fresh air.” Eversole’s presence, support and educational guidance made the speech pathologist finally feel some security.

Since Caryer’s husband of 10 years wouldn’t leave the room or eat in front of his wife, Eversole gave him crackers and water and calmed his nerves. “She was taking care of him too and not just me,” Caryer says. “She was so great with him.”

When Caryer started going into preeclampsia, Eversole walked her through options. The environment was stressful then, with a room full of people and a lot of pushing with nothing happening. “My child,” Caryer says, “wrapped herself really good with that umbilical cord.”

After deciding on a c-section, Caryer worried Eversole’s long shift meant she wouldn’t be there for it. Eversole, she says, reassured her: “‘Marci, I’ve been with you this whole time, I’m going to stick with you until that baby is here and in your arms.’” Later Caryer nominated Eversole for a DAISY Award, the prestigious nursing recognition, for the level of her support. In her nomination, Caryer noted Eversole’s “exceptional care” of first-time parents “who were scared beyond relief.”

Eversole, says Caryer, “was born to be a nurse.”

The couple’s new child, Lainey, “is a very smiley baby and a little feisty. She gets that honestly,” says her mom. Lainey enjoys walks in her wagon, books and the companionship of what Caryer calls her “favorite family member,” a shih tzu named Nash.

The new mother loves observing her child’s fascination with everything around her and the number of things that make her laugh. “I wish that more people could just have that view of the world,” she says.

Caryer never forgets what she’s gone through. The pregnancy tests, ultrasounds and hospital bracelets from this successful pregnancy attempt are “on display,” she says. “I just want to save everything about her,” she explains.

She also wants other couples to know that they aren’t alone in their infertility. Too many people going through that process, says Caryer, “suffer in silence.” She knows quite a bit about silence as a speech pathologist. In fact, she says a motivation for her work is to “give people their voice back.”

In fact, Caryer is so used to letting others speak in her job that she finds herself too quiet to serve as an example for Lainey. She keeps reminding herself to chat more when they’re together. Along with wanting her daughter to “know all the joys of the world,” Caryer “definitely would love for her to be a talker.”