GENETIC TESTING CAN REVEAL THE LIFE-SAVING SECRETS IN YOUR...
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These Fayetteville women wanted answers. By Melissa Goslin Collins
54|August/September • 2009
arah Walter thought she was just unlucky. But when two back-to-
back failed pregnancies gave way to a third, she stumbled across her
answer: mismatched genetic material, not luck, was to blame. The joke goes like this: if the Army
had wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one. Sarah and Russell Walter had postponed a family for years. Five moves in the first six years of marriage put such plans on hold. But when the Walters settled in Fayetteville in December 2006, and Russell had a year before he was eligible to deploy overseas, it seemed like the timing was finally right. Sarah discovered she was pregnant the next fall. Two months later, the couple was heartbroken to find out the baby had never been growing. “You have to shut off your emotions a
little bit,” Sarah said. “We tried to be so matter of fact.” Russell deployed to Iraq in May, and
four days later, a slightly more cautious Sarah found out she was pregnant again. At an early ultrasound, she was reassured enough by her baby’s heartbeat to start outfitting the nursery. Two weeks later, Sarah was in the
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