A few months ago, Aaron and Natalie Martin were busy assembling a nursery for their first child.<\/p>\n
After eight years prioritizing her students as a Plano ISD second-grade teacher, Aaron said 30-year-old Natalie was excited to welcome her own child into the world. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond excited. She loved it. Just memories and memories and memories I have of the excitement and the way she just lit up talking about Parker,\u201d said Aaron Martin.<\/p>\n
No one imagined she wouldn\u2019t get the chance. Natalie died a few hours after Parker arrived four weeks early.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went in for some lower back pain and just for precautionary and then things sort of decreased from there into an emergency C-section and then some complications is what sort of triggered everything there after,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While the family awaits an autopsy for answers about what went wrong, Natalie\u2019s death comes as several recent studies have highlighted a rise in Texas\u2019s maternal mortality rate. According to a 2025 March of Dimes report, it includes 29.3 deaths for every 100,000 live births.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of the highest rates in the country, though the state says its reporting method differs from others.<\/p>\n
Worldwide, the U.S. rate is higher than that of many other high-income nations. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been lots of tears and people there just to offer a hug or offer some words or just pray over the situation or pray over us, so it\u2019s just been an overwhelming support,\u201d said Martin.<\/p>\n
For now, Aaron said family, friends and community are making sure every need is met.<\/p>\n
Their world is no doubt dimmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was spunky, adventurous, loved to just laugh, full of joy, always had a smile on her face. Just truly caring,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, memories pouring in from far and wide are helping to keep Natalie\u2019s memory alive now and for Parker in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt defines how she\u2019ll continue to be just a beaming light of joy and her joy just radiates throughout the community of just who she was, and I think that she\u2019ll be remembered for a very, very long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A vigil for Natalie will be held Friday night at 5:30 p.m. in the parking lot of Citizens Church in Plano.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few months ago, Aaron and Natalie Martin were busy assembling a nursery for their first child. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-202376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}