Armed with Faith, a Woman Fights for a Family
By Karen Sanborn
Vytas Navickas says his wife, Jurate, has a Type A personality. In the morning, she can't linger in bed. Seven years ago, she got sick and called her bed rest the longest day of her life. In May, at age 38, she earned her bachelor of fine arts degree, graduating summa cum laude.
The woman knows what she wants.
So, when four years ago doctors closed the curtains on the Navickases' hope to have a baby, Jurate threw them back open using one of her greatest strengths: belief.
They told her the problem was endometriosis. The lining of the womb is found in locations outside the uterus, complicating other functions and leaving the egg without a harbor. Their discouragement echoed the drum of Jurate's biological clock. She was 34, practically "a grandma" in her native Lithuania. Even Vytas, her adoring husband of 13 years, cowed under the menacing odds and "honestly believed it wouldn't happen."
Type A's are not known for accepting defeat. Jurate Navickas was not about to.
"Somehow I always knew I could have [a baby]," Jurate said. "I knew it inside. There was no reason to panic."
Call it mother's instinct. Four years ago, when the Navickases saw that their insurance rates were slated to skyrocket, they decided Jurate should go in for a check-up before the price increase. Jurate, an avid exerciser who doesn't drink, smoke or eat meat, felt no reason to be alarmed. The routine appointment was the first tremor in a series of disheartening events.
An X-ray showing a cyst on one of Jurate's ovaries prompted doctors to operate. The two fallopian tubes were in trouble. The egg uses these tunnels to travel from its birthplace in the ovary to the uterus, its ultimate destination. One tube, fused by a cyst, had to be sealed; the other was successfully unwrapped and repaired.
With one connector shut down for good, the Navickases cradled the grave news. Vytas comforted his wife, but that's not what she was looking for. She valued her beliefs more than the science. Vytas, whose own mother wasn't supposed to bear children, humored Jurate and began researching alternatives.
During the next three years, the Navickases looked for options. Vytas continued work as a real estate agent in the meantime. Jurate, who moved to the United States from Lithuania 14 years ago, took trips back. She also began her studies for a bachelor's degree in studio arts at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg.
Then, in 2003, they could wait no longer. Vytas was now nearing 50 and, at 38, Juarte's internal clock ticked ominously.
A friend's advice led Jurate into an unusual approach using, of all things, her birth control pills. By skipping over sets of sugar placebos, Jurate delayed her period for six months. While most women use this tactic to better enjoy their vacation, Jurate used it in hopes of boosting her fertility.
If it didn't work, Vytas had vowed to "sell the house and buy a much smaller one" to pay for expensive in vitro fertilization.
Though a doctor supported them, the Navickases worried about the effects of Jurate's regimen. When she stopped taking the pills, they immediately started trying again, pulling at the cords of the curtains closed on them four years before.
Just a week later, Jurate knew it was time for the pregnancy test. Vytas couldn't hide his gentle skepticism; they had been through this before. His surprise at the positive result, however, didn't match Jurate's elation at what she had always believed.
"She looked like a little kid with the biggest ball of candy you've ever seen," Vytas said.
Her pregnancy was book-ended in seasonal change. A Labor Day conception marked the unofficial beginning of autumn, and the birth of the Navickases long-awaited child on June 20 marked not only a triumph, but the eve of summer.
After 24 hours of natural labor, Ruta Laima wriggled out like most babies do, with lungs full throttle and "so full of life," Jurate said. They call her their "opera singer," a little soprano who has taken center stage in room 366 of Bayfront Medical Center.
The Navickases named her "Ruta" for a traditional healing herb used in Lithuanian medicine (the Navickases grow it in their yard) and "Laima" after a folklorian goddess of good fortune.
Vytas himself experienced a bit of that fortune during the final moments of Jurate's labor. If he hadn't been sitting down, Vytas said he would have fainted as the doctor cut Jurate to help deliver his daughter.
"I thought, 'What a dweeb—you're fainting and your daughter's being born!'" Vytas said. He recovered, snapped about 14 pictures and spoke his first words to Ruta.
"Oh, you poor girl," he remembers saying. "You look like your father and not your beautiful mother."
Now, almost a whole day after her arrival, Ruta is tuckered out. Jurate watches her husband knowingly as he adjusts Ruta's blankets. Vytas leans over his daughter, a special gift delivered to him on this Father's Day.
While Jurate rests, Vytas speaks to his daughter in soft strokes of Lithuanian, the language she will grow up speaking "to keep the culture alive," her parents say. Though he tells a visitor he's just explaining to Ruta the art of swaddling, there's a feeling that the tenderness of his words is lost in translation. There's a secret there, shared between a father and his newborn daughter.
One day, Vytas says, he will tell Ruta about the day of her birth, the day her daddy nearly fainted and her mommy proved her strength.
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