Texas Woman Induced Labor for Dying Husband to Hold Baby

Savannah Aulger will never have snapshots with her father on her first birthday, on Christmas or at a school event.

The only picture she will ever have of them is the one as sweet as it is heartbreaking. Hooked up to an oxygen mask at the hospital, the man she would call dad cradled her in his arms for 45 minutes.

He sobbed. He smiled. And there was no doubt that he loved her.

"He would talk to my stomach when I was pregnant," Diane Aulger said of her husband. "He was so excited for her."

The next day, Mark Aulger slipped into a coma.

The Aulger family of The Colony, Texas, had a lot to rejoice about in the weeks before Savannah's Jan. 18 birth, which was induced two weeks early so her father could hold her.

A home movie on Christmas showed a pregnant Diane Aulger, 31, handing out gifts to the couple's four children, the oldest of whom is 15. Mark, 52, who had just received the news that he had beaten cancer, played the guitar, providing a soundtrack for the Christmas morning festivities.

On Jan. 3, life threw a curveball.

Mark Aulger was admitted to the hospital, unable to breathe.

Doctors told him that eight months of chemotherapy had ravaged his lungs and diagnosed him with pulmonary fibrosis. "We thought he could get on steroid treatment and oxygen and live for years," Diane Aulger said.

But on Jan. 16, Mark Aulger found out those treatments would be fruitless. He had one week left to live.

"He was awake and alert, himself. I really didn't believe the doctor [at first]," Diane Aulger said. "The next day his doctor came in and said: 'When are you going to have this baby?'"

On Jan. 18, in a larger-than-normal delivery room, Mark rested in his bed, a supportive presence for Diane as their baby girl entered the world.

"The day she was born his oxygen levels were really high," Aulger said. "He held her for 45 minutes. Him and I just cried that whole time."

As Diane was recovering, Mark tried holding his daughter again the next day, but was only able to last one minute. "He just couldn't take it," Diane Aulger said.

The devoted husband and father of five slipped into a coma. "If she cried, he would shake his head and moan. I put her on him when he was in the coma a few times and his hand would move toward her," Aulger said.

On January 23rd, with his family by his side, Mark Aulger died in his hospital bed.

"The kids go on as if dad is really still here," Diane Aulger said. "Mark was a very funny guy. My kids still tell jokes how they would when he was around. He would have been a wonderful daddy to Savannah."

 

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A Mother's Sacrifice: A VERY TOUCHING STORY!

My mom only had one eye. I hated her... she was such an embarrassment. My mom ran a small shop at a flea market. She collected little weeds and such to sell... anything for the money we needed she was such an embarrassment. There was this one day during elementary school.
I remember that it was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed.
How could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school..."Your mom only has one eye?!" and they taunted me.

I wished that my mom would just disappear from this world so I said to my mom, "Mom, why don't you have the other eye?! You're only going to make me a laughingstock. Why don't you just die?" My mom did not respond. I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to think that I had said what I'd wanted to say all this time.

Maybe it was because my mom hadn't punished me, but I didn't think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

That night...I woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake me. I took a look at her, and then turned away. Because of the thing I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my mother who was crying out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would grow up and become successful, because I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty.

Then I studied really hard. I left my mother and came to Seoul and studied, and got accepted in the Seoul University with all the confidence I had. Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I'm living happily as a successful man. I like it here because it's a place that doesn't remind me of my mom.

This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when someone unexpected came to see me "What?! Who's this?!" ...It was my mother...Still with her one eye. It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom's eye.

And I asked her, "Who are you? I don't know you!!!" as if I tried to make that real. I screamed at her "How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!" And to this, my mother quietly answered, "oh, I'm so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address," and she disappeared. Thank good ness... she doesn't recognize me. I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn't going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life.

Then a wave of relief came upon me...one day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. I lied to my wife saying that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack, that I used to call a house...just out of curiosity there, I found my mother fallen on the cold ground. But I did not shed a single tear. She had a piece of paper in her hand.... it was a letter to me.

She wrote:
My son...
I think my life has been long enough now. And... I won't visit Seoul anymore... but would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come visit me once in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school.... For you... I'm sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you.

You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn't stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye... so I gave you mine...I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. The couple times that you were angry with me. I thought to myself, 'it's because he loves me.' I miss the times when you were still young around me.

I miss you so much. I love you. You mean the world to me.
My world shattered!!!

Then I cried for the person who lived for me... My Mother

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