by Rebecca Sanders
As Kara Story looks forward to celebrating Mother’s Day 2026 with her husband, Jonathan, and their one-year-old daughter, Aria Ann, she reflects on the incredible journey that led her to motherhood. She discussed her family, her music ministry, the birth of their daughter, and her life-changing experience that ultimately strengthened both her fighting spirit and her faith in God.
Music has been an essential part of Kara’s life since childhood. Growing up in Wister, Oklahoma, she took piano lessons from her grandmother and went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of Arkansas-Ft. Smith and her Master’s degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Arkansas–Fayetteville. While in Fayetteville, she met her husband, Jonathan, as they both prepared for their professional music careers. The couple performed together in a vocal jazz group in which Kara was a vocalist and Jonathan was the accompanist. Today, they are both on staff at Marvin Methodist Church in Tyler, where Kara serves as Director of Music & Fine Arts, and Jonathan serves as organist and Associate Director of Music & Fine Arts.
Soon after Kara and Jonathan married in August 2012, they decided they wanted to add to their family. Like most prospective parents, they knew having a child would require patience and sacrifice, but the extent to which their patience would be tested and the degree of sacrifice required were beyond any expectations they could imagine.
After years of unsuccessfully trying to have a baby, Kara and Jonathan sought help from a fertility specialist in February 2023 and ultimately decided to pursue in vitro fertilization (IVF). On the first attempt, Kara became pregnant, but after only a few weeks, a heartbreaking miscarriage followed. “We cried for weeks and held each other as fear crept into our souls,” Kara said. “What if all the tries failed?”
Kara and Jonathan did not give up, however, and after several months, Kara prepared for a second IVF implantation. “I had such a mixture of fear and excitement,” she said. “I never once questioned the goodness of God. After all, where else was I going to go? I had seen too much, heard too much, and experienced too much to question if God was real or if He loved me.”
Aria was implanted on August 1, 2024, and two weeks later, the happy couple learned they were expecting. “We had such joy, but it was tempered with fear,” Kara explained. “Four days after the doctor’s congratulatory phone call, I started bleeding. I called my doctor in complete terror, and he told me to come in first thing on Monday. We did, and Aria was still there. For the next six weeks, I bled randomly one day a week. Each time I thought that was the end of our precious girl’s life, but she hung on, we hung on, and God hung on to us.”
In October 2024, Kara had passed the first trimester, so they felt confident sharing the news with their church. The congregation’s response was overwhelming. “Their joy made us less fearful,” Kara explained. “As the months passed, we had several scares, during which I passed out or felt like I was going to pass out, that resulted in several ER visits, and we limped along to the finish line in April.”
Several days before Easter Sunday 2025, Kara went to an appointment with her obstetrician. “I was severely swollen, I had developed carpal tunnel in both wrists, it was painful to walk, and I just felt horrible,” she said. On Holy Wednesday, four days before Easter Sunday, Kara’s labor was induced, and by 3 a.m. Thursday, her water broke. After laboring all day and pushing for almost three hours, Kara’s doctor determined a Cesarean section was necessary. Then on Maundy Thursday, April 17, at 8:53 p.m., Aria Ann Story was born weighing eight pounds, one ounce and measuring 19.5 inches long. “My first thoughts seeing her were, ‘Wow, she is a big baby!’” Kara exclaimed.
“We had a few hours of peace as a family before the darkest time of my life began,” Kara recalled. “As I lay there during the wee hours of Good Friday morning, I felt myself becoming progressively weaker. By 3 a.m., my face had been drained of all its color, I could barely speak due to weakness, and the labor and delivery nurses were starting to get very concerned. All I could say to Jonathan was that I felt funny, which has always been my way of saying I’m going to pass out. The nurses determined that my uterus was not contracting as it should and that I was bleeding to death, so they called my doctor and whisked me off to the OR.”
Kara was given six units of blood, and a Jada device was inserted into her uterus to control the bleeding. “Once all those procedures were completed, they took me back to my room to monitor me, but within 15 minutes I was gasping for breath, coughing up fluid, and my lips were turning purple,” Kara explained. “An advanced assessment team hooked me up to a ventilator and rushed me to the ICU, where they found I was in complete kidney failure due to the amount of blood I received from the transfusion. The fluid also triggered acute congestive heart failure.”
As Kara recalled the actions taken by her healthcare providers, she praised them for their outstanding dedication. “I had an incredible team of doctors in the UT Health ICU, and my nurses were top-notch, too. Some of the most brilliant and compassionate people I have ever come across were by my bedside day and night.”
As the doctors determined treatment options, Jonathan faced many urgent decisions, including the choice of transferring Kara to a hospital in Dallas. After a lengthy discussion, doctors determined Kara would likely not survive the flight, and the Dallas hospital would not be able to do more than what UT Health East Texas was already doing. At this point, Kara was experiencing kidney failure, respiratory failure, and congestive heart failure, and her body was consuming her platelets. “My hematologist was worried I had a rare autoimmune disorder called TTP,” Kara said. “He recommended a procedure called plasmapheresis.”
The treatment would require inserting a PICC line in Kara’s neck so doctors could remove her plasma. The plasma would then be spun in a machine to filter out harmful substances before being returned to her body through another transfusion.
“The procedure would cure TTP if I had it and could also restore my platelets,” Kara said. “But it also risked flooding me with fluid and further compromising my lungs.” Despite the risks, doctors decided to move forward with the treatment. On Saturday, they began plasmapheresis and planned to perform three rounds. After the second round, Kara’s condition suddenly worsened. Fluid rapidly filled her lungs again, and her heart began to fail.
“I had another flash pulmonary edema, and they had to work to keep me from totally crashing again,” Kara said. “By this point, I was ready to give up, and I started saying my goodbyes to Jonathan. I remember writing ‘I love you, Aria, and Jesus.’ Jonathan asked if I would fight for Aria, and I nodded. As I thrashed, gasped, and clung to life, Jonathan called three friends who prayed over me while he put his phone on speaker. During the last prayer by one of our choir members, Jonathan said I lifted my hands while she prayed. He also told me that during this last brush with death, I never displayed any fear of dying.”
“The doctors were at a standstill until they could get the fluid off my body,” Kara continued. “The skin on my hand started to break open, trying to empty my body of fluid any way it could. Nothing could be done for me until my kidneys started working, and that’s when the miracle happened. On Easter Sunday morning, as the Church gathered worldwide in celebration of the Resurrection and as Marvin Church lifted me up in prayer, my kidneys suddenly started working. Fluid poured from my body. My lungs started draining, and the fluid around my heart was dissipating. Everyone was overjoyed and knew that only God could do this.”
“On Good Friday, I almost bled to death. Holy Saturday was the darkest day, when it looked like I wasn’t going to make it. Then on Easter Sunday, my miraculous healing began,” Kara said.
As Kara’s condition improved, the doctors began to reduce her medications. “The first thing I consciously remember is asking if I was dead,” Kara said. “The answer I got shook me. I was told that I had died days ago and that the machines were keeping me alive. I had a lot to ponder at that point.”
“A prayer of Jonathan’s that was answered was that he had read that seven or more days on the ventilator causes permanent damage to the vocal cords,” Kara said, “and I was taken off the vent on the sixth day of being on it.”
Kara recalled one night during her hospitalization that she had an MRI to rule out a stroke or seizure, and she welcomed the test. “I had convinced myself I was going crazy,” she said. “I had kept to myself that I was seeing evil spirits all around. I would close my eyes, and untold horrors were before me. This is where I really felt the prayers. While the Lord ultimately answered prayers for healing, it was the prayers of God’s people that guarded my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Thousands across the world prayed for me.”
“I believe that Satan used those days to torture me psychologically,” Kara said. “At one point, I was convinced that I had died and was in hell. That prompted yet another internal struggle, because I knew I believed in Jesus, but the demonic things I was seeing all around me made me feel far away from Him. I started questioning where I had gone wrong in my doctrine to separate me from the love of Christ. After what seemed like an eternity, I determined that I didn’t know where I was or why I was surrounded by horrible evil, but that I knew I loved Jesus and that He would deliver me. The drugs kept me in this state for over a week. It was during this mental struggle that I was wheeled off for an MRI. When I was about to be put into the machine, the tech gave me earplugs and then said they were going to give me earphones on top of it. She asked what I wanted to listen to, and I said, ‘Christian.’”
During the MRI, Kara said, “I felt as though I would never be well, physically or mentally.” The music began playing, and Kara said, “The lyrics gripped my soul in a way I have never felt.” The song by the Christian band Casting Crowns encouraged believers to point others to Jesus rather than to oneself and reminded listeners that it is imperative that the world remembers the name of Jesus rather than our own name.
“In that cold metal tube, with tears streaming down the sides of my face, the only thing I could think of was Jesus. Only Jesus,” Kara continued. “When I got back to my ICU room, Jonathan was there waiting for me. I immediately pulled up the song for him to listen to and told him I had just had a major God moment inside the MRI machine. He agreed that it can be so easy to get caught up in doing your job for the praise of man or to prove a point, but ultimately, we should do everything as unto the Lord. My life changed that night. I was awakened to deep hurt. I was made aware of skewed priorities. And I had a sense of renewal to the calling of lifting high the name of Jesus.”
After nine days, Kara was moved out of the ICU and into a regular hospital room. During her time in the ICU, she had only been able to see photos of Aria. For much of that time, Kara was unaware of where she was, what was happening, or even that she had given birth. While Kara fought for her life, friends and relatives cared for Aria.
Now, Kara was finally able to spend time with her baby, but she was not physically strong enough to hold her at first. Instead, nurses gently positioned little Aria in the hospital bed beside her so that mother and daughter could be next to each other.
“Physical therapy helped me learn to walk again,” she said. “Jonathan helped me learn to feed myself and write, as I had lost most of my fine motor skills, and the long journey to wellness began.”
During the last year, Kara’s health has steadily improved. A few months after being released from the hospital, Kara saw an otolaryngologist (a physician specializing in ear, nose, and throat). As a vocalist and a music professional, she needed to assess the damage caused by the breathing tube. Miraculously, her vocal cords were perfect and not even scratched. She also has one more evaluation in April with her cardiologist but feels sure that she will receive a clean bill of health, verifying her complete recovery.
Kara continues to “build bridges back to her memories” as she recalls events prior to her experience. She still ponders all the stories she was told of her near-death experience while she was heavily sedated and on a ventilator.
When asked what she will tell Aria about this experience in years to come, Kara quietly glanced down at her hands, which were scarred from multiple IVs, and touched her neck where a PICC line had been inserted. “I’m sure she’ll ask, ‘What did you do to yourself?’” She imagines she will frame it carefully, like, “I almost died when you were born, and I love you so much that I would do it all again. We are so happy and so thankful for you.” Kara also emphasized the importance of making sure Aria does not feel any fault for the trauma her mother endured.
Kara may never understand why she went through this experience, but she trusts there is a reason. “It opened a window to create some empathy in me,” Kara said. “I live every day in so much thankfulness. When I hold my precious daughter or see her do something, I say, ‘Thank you, Jesus, that I get to see this.’”
As Aria’s first birthday approaches, the Story family is planning a large gathering. They want to bring family and friends together to celebrate Aria as well as the many individuals who helped and encouraged them during their difficult time.
For Mother’s Day, Kara said they will most likely have a quiet family celebration. Kara no doubt recalls the difficult but rewarding journey that led her to motherhood as she stated, “Jesus really did walk with me through the valley of the shadow of death, and I humbly give Him back the life I owe.”