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32
SHINE
Winter 2015–2016
COMMUNITY
TAGLINE HERE
WOMEN’S HEALTH
Mothers
Jennifer Tiner and
Detra Chappell still marvel at
the experience of first meeting
last August.
For Jennifer, it was the next leg
in a journey of healing. After losing
her 13-month-old daughter a year
earlier, she donated her breast milk
to the Mothers’ Milk Bank of North
Texas (MMBNT).
For Detra, it was an opportunity
to express gratitude. Her then-11-
month-old son, Dekevyon Payne,
thrived after his premature birth
because of donor breast milk from
moms like Jennifer.
“The moment I saw her, I started
crying,” Detra says.
The MMBNT is located in Fort
Worth, but to help make stories like
Jennifer and Detra’s more common,
Linda Jackson, MA, IBCLC, LCCE,
founded a breast milk collection site
at Methodist Richardson Medical
Center in 2004. To this day, it’s
How breast milk donation saved one child’s
life — and helped another live on
the only 24/7 milk drop-off site in
the Dallas area.
Saying goodbye
Bella Boo, Angel Baby, and
Heartbreaker were just a few of the
nicknames Jennifer and Bobby Tiner
had given their second daughter,
Isabella. The one they used most was
simply Bella.
Late in Jennifer’s pregnancy, doctors
discovered that the ventricles in Bella’s
brain were enlarged. From the moment
of her birth, complications plagued the
little girl’s life.
“My husband and I turned to
prayer,” Jennifer says. “Recently, I felt
God telling me, ‘My plans are greater
than yours.’”
Another bundle of joy
You’d never know that now-1-year-old
Dekevyon was born premature. He’s
all pudge, personality, and curls.
He was Detra’s first pregnancy,
and nothing went according to
plan. Thirteen weeks before Detra’s
due date, her water broke, but
it was misdiagnosed as pressure
on her bladder.
A week later, she found herself at a
hospital ill-equipped for her and her
baby’s needs.
“They told me, ‘We don’t have a
NICU here. You can’t deliver your
baby here,’” says Detra, who was
transferred to Methodist Richardson,
home to a Level III Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
gift
AMOTHER’S