Parks Family: The Journey to Parenthood

Sharadan Parks always want­ed a fam­i­ly of her own, but she knew her jour­ney to par­ent­hood would be a dif­fi­cult one. She, along with her hus­band, Sam, leaned on the team at Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) to help get them through what would be a dif­fi­cult road and depends on them now to care for their young family.

“While mis­car­riage is fair­ly com­mon, we knew ahead of time that there was a close fam­i­ly his­to­ry of fre­quent mis­car­riage,” Sharadan shared.

Dr. Deb­o­rah Woodard, QMG obste­tri­cian, was their first stop. Know­ing the chal­lenges they faced, the cou­ple put their trust in Dr. Woodard. Sharadan said she was key in help­ing her and Sam become parents.

“Dr. Woodard advo­cat­ed for us from the begin­ning. Rather than hav­ing to sit with the uncer­tain­ty of a wait and see approach, Dr. Woodard part­nered with us to be proac­tive in our jour­ney. We did a lot of test­ing and research to make sure that we could take an informed approach,” she said.

That approach includ­ed guid­ance from QMG Hema­tol­o­gist and Oncol­o­gist Dr. Ray­mond Smith. Sharadan was diag­nosed with MTH­FR muta­tion, a gene that means your body can­not absorb folic acid prop­er­ly, it strug­gles to metab­o­lize cer­tain hormones.

The months ahead would lead to many ups and downs, but Sam and Sharadan even­tu­al­ly wel­comed two healthy babies – daugh­ter, Ken­ley, age 7, and son, Elliot, age 4. Though their sto­ry had a hap­py end­ing, the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal impact took its toll. The cou­ple expe­ri­enced three miscarriages.

“Part of our fer­til­i­ty jour­ney involved genet­ic test­ing and inter­ven­tion with Dr. Smith. He is a won­der­ful­ly car­ing and com­pas­sion­ate doc­tor. He mourned and cel­e­brat­ed with us through­out all five of our pregnancies.”

They felt that same sup­port from Dr. Woodard and her team.

“Dr. Woodard and her nurs­ing staff were unbe­liev­ably car­ing and sup­port­ive through all of the test­ing, treat­ment, our three crush­ing loss­es, and with the births of our two per­fect babies. We are incred­i­bly grate­ful to each of them. Dr. Woodard is love per­son­i­fied and we are very for­tu­nate to have her in our lives.”

Now, with two active chil­dren, Sam and Sharadan sought a pedi­a­tri­cian who would take the best care of them. Find­ing the per­fect match in a pedi­a­tri­cian is impor­tant for fam­i­lies, and they found that with QMG Pedi­a­tri­cian Dr. Lind­say Brink. Their spe­cial con­nec­tion was evi­dent from their very first visit.

“I imme­di­ate­ly took heart when I noticed that Dr. Brink was talk­ing to my chil­dren as much as Sam and me the first time we saw her for well checks,” Sharadan recalled. ​“She makes sure that she engages with the whole fam­i­ly. Chat­ting with par­ents helps chil­dren learn who can be trust­ed but engag­ing the kids them­selves makes them feel seen and heard. That’s just every­thing when a child is in a new sit­u­a­tion or isn’t feel­ing well.”

Sharadan said she enjoys her vis­its with Dr. Brink and so do her chil­dren. She recalls one spe­cial moment, when Dr. Brink con­firmed her mom’s instincts. As a mom her­self, Dr. Brink con­nects with her families.

“As mom­mies, there are cer­tain things that we instinc­tive­ly know about our chil­dren. Our Ken­ley was real­ly sick with influen­za. I instinc­tive­ly knew that’s what it was based on how she smelled. While that seems a bit sil­ly and anec­do­tal, Dr. Brink imme­di­ate­ly con­firmed that she knew exact­ly what I meant,” she shared. ​“Of course, we test­ed her to be sure but to have your instincts acknowl­edged in those moments when your child is very sick does won­ders for build­ing trust. It was a small moment but it meant so much to me. She has mas­tered the bal­ance between the clin­i­cal and personal.

QMG has been part of many impor­tant moments in the Parks fam­i­ly and that com­fort and trust means a lot to them.

Sharadan shared, ​“We are a hap­py QMG family.”