Lisa Swinton McLaughlin always yearned to be a mother. In-vitro fertilization finally worked, but medical complications took a fatal twist.
By all accounts, Lisa Swinton McLaughlin was blessed with brains, drive and loving family and friends.
The Creighton University law school graduate spent 13 years as a Nebraska special assistant attorney general prosecuting child abuse and neglect cases. Then she graduated from medical school to lead the American Red Cross in Baltimore.
Beyond her professional success, she had a husband she adored. Swinton McLaughlin also had close family and friends, both on the East Coast and in her home state of Nebraska, where she met her husband, Mike McLaughlin, 67.
But the 56-year-old had one goal that hadn’t been met, and that she couldn’t let go of: to be a mom, her husband said. For years – even before the couple met and married – Lisa had longed to have children. Round after round of fertility treatments were fruitless, or ended with a miscarriage.
Last year, an in-vitro fertilization procedure using a younger woman’s donated eggs and donor sperm resulted in the Dec. 27 premature birth of sons Jordan, 3 pounds and 3 ounces, and Dylan, 3 pounds.
“She was so happy,” her husband told The Baltimore Sun. “She was just touching the babies like they were the most precious things in the world.”
A week later -- on Jan. 4, Lisa died of a bowel obstruction, leaving her infants sons and a retired husband to care for them when they come home from the hospital with the help of a nanny.
Mike has two grown sons and his mother living in the Omaha area, where he says he will likely move with the boys. Extended family and lifelong friends will pitch in to help care for the boys Lisa knew only briefly.
“She held the babies and was able to stroke them and love them,” Mike told the Omaha World-Herald.
What Went Wrong?
While the babies were born early, they were healthy, her husband said. Lisa developed gestational diabetes during the pregnancy, but took care to follow all doctor orders.
The babies were delivered by Caesarian section and Lisa was kept at a Montgomery County hospital – which hasn’t been named -- because the doctors wanted her to have a bowel movement before she went home, reports the New York Daily News. After a liquid bowel movement she was considered ready to be discharged despite severe stomach pain and a loss of appetite.
Medicine didn’t help, Lisa’s belly remained swollen, and the pain persisted. Doctors said she should walk more and drink more water; later that same day, she died in the bathroom from what was later determined to be a bowel obstruction.
The nausea and pain that are signs of a blockage can be symptoms of other diseases, the Sun reports. An X-ray or C-scan is required to determine if there is an obstruction. The cause is not known her husband says, while a doctor told the newspaper that hernias and scar tissue from previous surgeries are the most common cause of intestinal blockages.
Second-guessing the medical decisions isn’t what Mike is focused on these days. He’s caring for his sons, and remembering the bubbly personality and energy his wife had, the memories he’ll share with the boys she loved so much.
“She was just on cloud nine,” Mike said of the few days she had with Dylan and Jordan. “That’s the happiest I’ve probably seen her in my life.”