Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 03, 2026


Ep 1379 ｜ Her Husband Poisoned Her & Their Baby. Now Her Story Is Saving Lives ｜ Catherine Herring


Episode Stats


Length

57 minutes

Words per minute

139.15

Word count

8,011

Sentence count

494


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.240 When Katherine Herring found out she was pregnant with her third child, her husband's reaction
00:00:04.700 was strange and negative.
00:00:07.460 Suddenly, he began behaving erratically, exhibiting an obsession with ensuring she was hydrated.
00:00:14.300 After a near-death experience in the ER, Katherine hired a private investigator to look into
00:00:18.600 her husband.
00:00:19.660 What they found out changed their lives forever.
00:00:22.980 Katherine's here with her jarring but ultimately redemptive story on today's episode of Relatable.
00:00:30.000 Catherine, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.
00:00:41.260 I want to start with your story.
00:00:43.360 You have been talking about the danger of the abortion pill.
00:00:48.220 What have you experienced that has inspired you to start talking about this?
00:00:54.440 Absolutely.
00:00:55.460 Thanks so much for having me.
00:00:56.840 Um, my story began on March 17th, 2022, when my husband of 11 years brought me breakfast
00:01:05.960 in bed, that was not part of our normal routine.
00:01:09.880 And it felt kind of weird.
00:01:12.060 Um, but he had been acting strangely in the weeks prior, actually asking for a separation.
00:01:19.280 Um, when I caught him in a lie about his whereabouts.
00:01:22.740 Um, and so a week after he asked for a separation, I found out I was pregnant
00:01:28.700 and then fast forward just one more week and he was bringing me breakfast in bed.
00:01:35.560 Wow. Okay. And then just tell us what happened from there.
00:01:40.220 Yeah. So on that morning, um, he brought me a plastic cup of water and a biscuit
00:01:47.460 and said that he had noticed I wasn't drinking enough water and for the sake of my pregnancy,
00:01:54.900 he wanted me to stay hydrated. And then he added that he was not going to leave
00:02:01.260 until I had finished the entire glass of water. So it was very strange just right from the
00:02:09.280 beginning. I had been woken up by him. Everything was a little foggy. And we just sat and talked
00:02:20.480 about our day. We had a six-year-old and a two-year-old at the time, talked about the plans
00:02:25.120 for them. And as time progressed and I drank more of the water and ate more of the biscuit,
00:02:31.700 he started urging me to drink faster. And he ultimately was standing over me, urging me to
00:02:38.400 chug the water. And when he did that, that was the first time I actually looked down into the cup
00:02:45.180 and I realized that the water was not clear. It was kind of creamy, almost milky. And I immediately
00:02:52.140 asked, what is this? And he grabbed the cup from my hands, looked down into it himself and said,
00:03:00.440 oh, weird, I must have grabbed a dirty cup. And then he left the house with the cup.
00:03:06.140 so it was a, it was a pretty wild morning to say the least.
00:03:12.540 Oh my goodness. And at what point did you realize, obviously you thought that the whole thing was
00:03:18.900 weird. It sounds really weird, especially him getting more and more agitated, but at what
00:03:23.340 point did you realize something's gone really wrong? Yeah. So it was about 30 minutes later.
00:03:30.860 I started violently cramping and I suddenly and urgently needed to go to the bathroom and I did
00:03:38.700 not make it from my bed to the bathroom that was adjoined to my room. I ended up getting sick in my
00:03:45.800 clothes and I hopped into the shower. And the wild thing about domestic violence is your head and
00:03:53.520 your heart are really playing against each other. So I knew things were weird. It felt off. But I
00:04:00.380 still my initial thoughts were maybe I had food poisoning. I started racking my brain. What did
00:04:06.380 I have for dinner? And I got out of the shower, changed into fresh pajamas. I got in my bed
00:04:14.360 and it happened a second time. And when I got sick the second time, I knew that this was not
00:04:22.920 food poisoning, that something had been in that cup. And what made you realize that the second
00:04:29.480 time? Yeah, it was just unlike anything I had ever experienced. I really started losing just
00:04:37.120 all bodily control, just constant diarrhea, severe cramping. And I immediately started
00:04:47.220 wondering, you know, what could have been in that cup? Was he trying to harm me? Or was he trying to
00:04:55.040 harm the baby. And I had seen just a few weeks before this happened, an article
00:05:02.480 about Google and the backlash that Google was facing with blocking abortion pill reversal ads.
00:05:14.800 And in those frantic moments, as I was trying to just absorb what was going on and try to
00:05:20.820 gained some kind of control over the situation. I thought about that article and I ended up
00:05:27.420 Googling abortion pill reversals and a pregnancy hotline number came up. And so I called the nurse
00:05:36.420 on that hotline and I said, this is going to be the craziest thing you've ever heard.
00:05:43.200 But I think my husband put something in my drink this morning and she was very calm. So incredibly
00:05:50.620 supportive. She immediately prayed over me, which was just such a blessing in that moment of chaos
00:06:00.100 to really have some peace and calm and try to grasp what was going on. And she guided me through
00:06:09.540 what an abortion pill reversal was, which is to add progesterone back into your system. And so
00:06:18.000 I don't know if you know, but the way that chemical abortion pills work is by cutting
00:06:23.400 hormone production. And so progesterone just simply adds the hormones back in. And so she
00:06:31.080 frantically was trying to get me a prescription for progesterone, which I always find so ironic
00:06:38.500 now, you don't have to have a prescription to obtain chemical abortion pills at this moment
00:06:44.700 in the United States of America, but you do need a prescription for progesterone to counteract the
00:06:50.840 abortion pills, um, to do the reversal. Um, so as she was trying to obtain a prescription for
00:06:57.400 progesterone, I started digging in my medicine cabinet and I actually had been prescribed
00:07:03.440 progesterone in a previous pregnancy and still had the pills in my medicine. And so I was able
00:07:10.400 to take the necessary dosage within an hour of being poisoned. And that's why they think
00:07:17.100 my daughter is alive today. Wow. Okay. I want to back up a little bit before we
00:07:24.360 continue on, you know, how you handled this situation. You said that the second time you
00:07:29.800 got sick, you knew that it was different than you had ever had before. Every part of you basically
00:07:35.720 was losing control. Still, it seems like the idea of being poisoned with the abortion pill
00:07:43.220 would feel far-fetched. It's almost kind of strange that that came into your head,
00:07:50.200 that you knew somewhere deep down that it was a possibility that your husband was trying to harm
00:07:55.780 you or trying to harm the baby. And so I'm wondering if you feel like that was kind of
00:08:01.660 like the Holy Spirit giving you wisdom, the wisdom that you needed in that moment to make
00:08:06.520 the call that you needed to save your baby? Or was there anything else that had happened that
00:08:11.680 your husband had said to you, his reaction when you first got pregnant, in addition to just the
00:08:17.200 general disagreement and his bringing up of separation that had happened in the previous
00:08:23.300 weeks that made you think that the abortion pill was a possibility? Yeah, absolutely. I would say
00:08:31.400 both. Um, I have never felt the presence of God. Um, like I have felt these past few years and
00:08:38.500 especially in those moment moments, I really felt kind of that again, mama bear instinct,
00:08:45.800 you're on high alert, you know, this person is acting strangely. Um, and so it just, you know,
00:08:53.300 gave me a lot of pause. Like why, why are we acting so strangely? And I didn't have a lot of
00:08:59.460 answers. Um, in that moment, I had no idea, um, what was in the cup. It could have been lighter
00:09:05.800 fluid. I have no, I had no idea, um, as the event was occurring. Um, but the, the hotline nurse was
00:09:16.100 actually really helpful in that moment because, um, even if it had not been an abortion pill
00:09:24.260 poisoning, progesterone would not have hurt me. It would not have hurt the baby. And so it was a
00:09:30.240 really smart, smart recommendation on her end, that if this was in fact our worst fears,
00:09:40.380 that it would be helpful. And if it was something completely different,
00:09:45.160 that it wouldn't be harmful to the pregnancy.
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00:11:14.680 Okay. So after you took the progesterone, tell me what happened from there.
00:11:19.840 Yeah. And actually, um, I realized I had not answered the second half of your question. If
00:11:25.120 there were additional kind of signs, um, that something else was going on. And, um, when I
00:11:32.360 found out I was pregnant a week after, um, my now ex has been asked for a separation. Um,
00:11:39.840 I actually told him the news in front of our marriage counselor. So he was actively telling
00:11:47.580 me that he wanted to work on our marriage. He still loved me. I kept asking, are you wanting
00:11:55.660 a divorce? What does this look like? The world was spinning to say the least. And he kept assuring
00:12:04.440 me, no, I'm just unhappy with myself. I want to work on myself. Everything's fine. Everything's
00:12:11.560 going to work out. But I had enough hesitation to know that I needed to have a witness to this
00:12:21.980 news. This was a lot to take in, in the midst of a separation. And so when I told him I was
00:12:31.160 pregnant, the news did not go over well at all. Um, he kind of shut down. Um, and
00:12:40.800 interestingly, the marriage counselor suggested that we, um, spend spring break together. So
00:12:49.040 the very next day, um, spring break was starting. And she said, I think with so much in flux with
00:12:56.520 your family that maybe you all should spend some time together. And so we did. And so that's where
00:13:04.380 he was picking up these comments that I needed to stay hydrated, that he noticed I wasn't drinking
00:13:10.840 enough on our trip. And so there were a few red flags leading up to this moment. I knew he
00:13:19.040 was acting erratic. I had, you know, again, caught him in a lie about his whereabouts. I didn't know
00:13:26.100 what that meant in the moment. I wasn't gaining a lot of information from him during marriage
00:13:31.440 counseling. And then he did not receive the pregnancy news well. Okay. So all of that adding
00:13:40.960 up in your mind in the moment, in addition to, I believe God just giving you the insight that you
00:13:46.400 needed made you think of those Google ads or made you think of those ads. And then you made the call
00:13:52.820 to the abortion pill reversal hotline. And so after you took the progesterone, what went on
00:14:00.260 from there? Yeah. So actually the symptoms kept going. I kept getting sick throughout the day
00:14:08.240 and then I started bleeding heavily and I was still in touch with the hotline nurse.
00:14:15.980 Um, and she, she urged me to go to the emergency room once I started bleeding.
00:14:23.640 Um, and so I had a friend come over.
00:14:26.720 One of the wild things looking back is, um, not only was I poisoned, but then I was left,
00:14:33.060 um, alone to deal with these horrific symptoms, um, with two very young children.
00:14:40.760 Um, and thankfully a friend came over.
00:14:43.280 Um, she, I, I did share what had happened and, um, you know, she found it, uh, very
00:14:51.740 confusing and odd also, um, she was actually a nurse.
00:14:56.060 And so, um, you know, I really, I believe God sent the right people at the right moment.
00:15:02.980 She was able to guide me.
00:15:06.140 Um, I always share with domestic violence victims.
00:15:09.440 I say, you know, the best advice I can give is to surround yourself with sound minded people, because as you are encountering this abuse, it's it's very confusing.
00:15:23.560 And there's a lot of cognitive dissonance and brain fog and you just you can't believe what your eyes are seeing.
00:15:32.660 And so I'm very grateful for the people that were with me in these scary, scary moments.
00:15:41.060 And ultimately, I ended up in the emergency room and they asked for a urine sample at
00:15:47.340 check in.
00:15:49.000 And my urine sample was actually black in color.
00:15:55.000 The nurses, I'll never forget that it was a male nurse.
00:16:00.240 and I walked out of the bathroom with this cup that was solid black liquid. And he said,
00:16:08.280 what is that? I said, that's my urine sample. And I could just see the sheer panic on everyone's
00:16:16.220 face. They ran and got a doctor out of surgery to come evaluate the situation. And they ultimately
00:16:24.920 believed I was going into kidney failure. Um, and so they, uh, started an IV, started me on
00:16:33.060 antibiotics, and then they also conducted an ultrasound. And that was the first time that I
00:16:41.220 saw my daughter's heartbeat. Wow. Oh my goodness. And how did they, how did they help you from
00:16:49.340 there? I'm guessing there had to be more done than the addition of progesterone because it
00:16:53.440 wasn't just your baby that was being harmed, it was you. So what did they do and what did they
00:17:00.260 find out too? I know I'm asking you a lot of questions, but how did they help you? What did
00:17:04.420 they find out that he actually put in your water? Well, that's what's pretty scary about abortion
00:17:13.020 pill poisonings. You can't find out a lot of information. At the hospital, they cannot test
00:17:20.180 for prescription drug poisonings. They can test for recreational drugs in your blood and urine.
00:17:27.360 But at that point, we knew that we couldn't really prove anything. And so there was a lot
00:17:33.480 of discussion of, should we call the police from the emergency room? Should I go to the police
00:17:40.160 station? Social workers came in. There was a lot of confusion. No one knew what to do with this
00:17:47.900 situation. And when did you officially find out like what he had tried, what he tried to do to
00:17:58.040 you and what he put in the water? It was a very long road. Um, he ultimately, um, attempted to
00:18:06.660 poison me six more times over the course of 39 days. During that time, I was partnering with
00:18:15.860 a private investigator and again, a team of sound minded people to help me prove what was being
00:18:25.920 done. It took weeks for us to really discover what it was in these drinks. We knew that he was
00:18:35.400 trying different, different substances. So he tried cranberry juice, he would try orange juice,
00:18:43.180 one of the attempted poisonings, the little simply orange juice bottles that come from
00:18:50.820 fast food restaurants. He gave one to me with the outer and inner seal broken. And then I could see
00:18:58.480 the powder through the clear plastic packaging. Were you saying, I'm trying to kind of picture
00:19:09.440 what's going on here. And like you said, domestic violence is just, there's so many layers and so
00:19:14.260 many complications. You have kids and all of these things that you're trying to figure out and
00:19:18.220 manage. But after the initial poisoning, did you say something to him? He knew you went to the
00:19:25.320 hospital. He knew that you were in kidney failure. Did y'all have a conversation about this or were
00:19:30.580 you scared out of your wits and you didn't say anything? Yeah, all great questions. I was scared
00:19:38.960 out of my wits, without a doubt, and walking, tiptoeing on eggshells. The private investigator
00:19:48.440 was guiding me every step of the way on what to do and how to do it. And we decided together that
00:20:02.000 it would be best for me to just pretend I was taking the cup. Again, he was not living at my
00:20:09.660 house. So he was very in and out. He never stayed to watch me drink another drink. He would kind of
00:20:16.020 hand it to me and run off. And so I would just take the cup and say, thank you. And then immediately
00:20:25.200 get it to the private investigator. And we would take the liquids and send them off to a lab.
00:20:33.460 But liquids are actually extremely hard to test. Blood and urine are easier. Now I know all these
00:20:42.840 details of what to do in a poisoning, which is really wild. But I had no handbook for this
00:20:51.220 situation. My now ex-husband was a very successful trial attorney, and we all knew that without hard
00:21:02.040 evidence, it would be very hard for me to prove that this had happened. So we actively worked
00:21:09.840 together to collect evidence. We ended up finding two sets of abortion pill packaging
00:21:17.340 in my trash. And he, one of the poisoning attempts he did in front of two eyewitnesses
00:21:27.620 and then the seventh and final drink, we caught him making it on hidden camera
00:21:34.460 that we had placed into my kitchen air vents. Okay. So I think I might've missed the detail that
00:21:44.200 you were in a sense separated he was not living there and so he would give you the drink he would
00:21:51.380 just kind of show up at your house to give you drinks and he did not know that you knew what
00:21:58.180 was going on you were trying to in conjunction with the private investigator play it cool
00:22:02.680 to collect as much evidence as possible is that right that's correct yeah
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00:23:34.440 And you said that he made the drink in front of two eyewitnesses. Are you able to say what
00:23:41.320 situation that would have been? Yeah, yeah. It was part of just the team effort. He indicated
00:23:50.420 that he was going to bring me breakfast in bed again. And I called my private investigator and
00:23:57.500 I said, I think he's going to try again, um, and gave them, um, the date and these poisoning,
00:24:04.280 the poisoning attempts happened in two kind of batches. So, um, there were four right at the
00:24:12.140 beginning straight in a row, which is also terrifying. Um, if you've been in the emergency
00:24:18.320 room going into kidney failure, the fact that he would try again in 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours,
00:24:26.200 that it was very, very dangerous. And I'm just so grateful that I was on high alert,
00:24:33.820 even though we didn't know in those early moments what exactly it was. I knew enough that it had
00:24:41.480 made me deathly ill and I never wanted to feel that way again. And so that batch, after that
00:24:50.380 first set of four, there was a couple of weeks where there were not any poisoning attempts.
00:24:57.140 And so that's when we were really trying to get everything to the laboratory to try to prove
00:25:04.120 and discover exactly what was in the drinks. And then when my two friends came to my house
00:25:16.640 and witnessed the poisoning attempt, that was kind of the second round. And he had
00:25:25.500 let me know in advance that he would be coming to bring me breakfast in bed. And so that's when I
00:25:32.880 really thought, I really feel like he's going to try it again. And sure enough, he did.
00:25:38.220 that is incredible that you were able to have the awareness and the self-control
00:25:46.520 to be able to go through with that and that you didn't immediately just say i know exactly what
00:25:52.700 you're doing and you're going to get caught i wonder if your knowledge that you had gained from
00:25:57.900 him being a trial lawyer kind of actually helped you because you knew the process you knew the
00:26:05.140 evidence that was needed to actually pin him on this. And I wonder if that's what helped you
00:26:12.240 kind of like gain your composure and your self-control during this time. I just think
00:26:16.880 most people after that first hospital stay would have showed up at his house and been like, I know
00:26:22.080 what you did. And, you know, I mean, I can't believe that you were able to hold it in that
00:26:26.920 reaction, but also the Lord helping you, I'm sure. Absolutely. I mean, I have chills when you're
00:26:34.680 talking about this because it really was such an out of body experience you had to um control your
00:26:43.520 reaction and it was so terrifying because he was still to my face saying that he loved me that he
00:26:50.300 cared about me um that we were going to work this out where you know we were attending marriage
00:26:57.140 counseling, trying to go with the flow. And it was such a balancing act. But absolutely, I truly
00:27:07.200 felt the presence of the Lord, I felt, I felt clarity of mind in the area of knowing he was
00:27:18.220 being erratic. And that was the that was the one just foundational rock that I was working with
00:27:27.520 that I loved him. He was my husband of 11 years. He's the father of my children. But this did not
00:27:35.120 feel safe. And that's part of my advocacy work with other domestic violence victims. You know,
00:27:43.180 it's so um this is all so dysregulating um and so to surround yourself with others um that can
00:27:52.000 keep you calm um and and keep you safe first and foremost we all were concerned the most about my
00:28:01.320 safety um and so that's why i brought others around me um but i think in particular with
00:28:08.660 abortion pill poisonings, um, it's, it's nearly impossible to prove. Um, and, and that's,
00:28:17.220 what's really scary, um, as this crime, crime trend continues to grow, um, is I, I think the,
00:28:25.860 um, the cases that are able to prove that this happened are actually few and far between.
00:28:32.040 mm-hmm so you said it was 39 days after your initial hospital stay six separate attempts
00:28:41.760 that you were able to track with a private investigator what happened at the end of
00:28:46.260 those 39 days yeah so um on day 40 um can you imagine uh it was a very long process it was
00:28:56.940 terrifying. But on day 40, I finally had enough evidence in my hand to go make a statement to
00:29:06.260 the Houston Police Department. I brought two of the drinks with me. I had the packaging. I had
00:29:16.220 video surveillance of my now ex-husband putting the packaging into the trash can outside of our
00:29:24.920 house. I had the surveillance video from the kitchen of him making the drink. And the Houston
00:29:34.460 Police Department is actually the one that was able to get the liquid tested. And it came back
00:29:45.460 positive. Wow. Okay. And then what went on from there? Yeah. So wildly, it took another month
00:29:57.920 for him to be arrested. Again, you can imagine the fear. So the first poisoning was on March 17th
00:30:08.300 and he was finally arrested at the end of May. All this time, I had to pretend that I didn't
00:30:17.360 know this was going on. And he was arrested and then released on bond 24 hours later.
00:30:29.060 Wow. I just want to pause and say there are a couple of things that... There's one thing that
00:30:35.400 you said that reminds me of a couple of things in the Bible. When you said it had been 39 days
00:30:40.780 after that first hospital stay, and then on day 40 is when you were able to kind of gather all
00:30:48.680 of the evidence, I just think that there's biblical significance to the number 40. I think
00:30:53.560 about it rained for 40 days and 40 nights when Noah was in his boat with his family, and then
00:31:00.680 of course the temptation of jesus he was in the wilderness fasting for 40 days and i don't you
00:31:06.020 know i don't know if there's a parallel there but i do think it's interesting that you were made to
00:31:10.800 like suffer and go through a wilderness and wait and wait and wait on the lord and then exactly on
00:31:16.200 40 days is when you were able to like bring together the culmination of that evidence um i
00:31:22.500 just see in so many parts of your story like the lord gathering all of these different things from
00:31:27.700 your past, from your community, your life that helped deliver you in this moment, and then use
00:31:34.200 such a terrifying thing to then become a testimony later. I know that you wouldn't have chosen that,
00:31:40.000 and I would not have chosen that for you. I'm so sorry that you went through that, but wow,
00:31:44.980 how significant that he has been using you and your story like this.
00:31:50.020 Absolutely. I know that is not lost on me that this was seven attempts. I know seven is
00:31:55.480 repeatedly in the Bible, 40 days, as you said. Um, and those are the little God winks that have
00:32:02.020 given me so much strength. Um, I'm incredibly grateful. So many people say, how, how can you
00:32:09.160 smile? How can you, you know, put one foot in the other? Um, and there is a deep sense of faith and
00:32:17.800 resolve, um, throughout this entire experience. And, um, one of the things that was simultaneously
00:32:24.760 going on, which I feel like I could share with you as a fellow believer, I had felt
00:32:31.820 just the Lord putting on my heart to start a girl's Bible study right before this happened.
00:32:40.880 And I had a group of eight girls meeting in my house weekly, studying the Purpose Driven
00:32:49.920 life book. I don't know if you've ever read that one. And I don't think that that was just by
00:32:56.160 happenstance either. Those girls were my absolute rock through this whole process. And just staying
00:33:03.920 in the word and staying centered on the truth of the Lord really helped me overcome these
00:33:13.920 incredibly scary and horrific moments.
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00:34:36.820 So your husband was arrested and what was he, and he was let out on bond,
00:34:40.620 but what was he charged with? What was he ultimately convicted of?
00:34:44.160 Um, he was originally charged with, um, three felony assaults, um, felony assault to induce
00:34:53.820 abortion, felony assault of a pregnant person, and then felony assault, um, injury to a child.
00:35:02.060 Um, ultimately he took a plea deal. Um, the felony assault to induce abortion was dropped.
00:35:09.460 Um, and his plea deal was for 180 days in jail plus probation for the attempted murder,
00:35:18.780 um, of our daughter seven separate times.
00:35:22.240 Wow.
00:35:23.040 That doesn't seem like anywhere close to proportionate, um, to what he did.
00:35:28.720 And so now he is out of jail and how, how do you feel?
00:35:33.880 I mean, I can imagine there's something inside of you that is fearful.
00:35:37.660 Yeah.
00:35:39.460 Absolutely. It's terrifying. I think these plea deals and weak sentences, they only embolden abusers. And so it's been really scary. I felt like it was a slap on the wrist. This was, you know, we had worked so hard and for so long to obtain all of this evidence.
00:36:01.020 And it was just heartbreaking because I truly believed in that moment that we were doing
00:36:08.080 the right thing.
00:36:08.840 We were gathering the correct evidence.
00:36:11.060 And I do believe it would have been enough if this had gone to trial.
00:36:16.180 But the plea deal offering was pitiful.
00:36:20.380 And it was just such a shock to be in the state of Texas that's very vocal about being
00:36:28.800 tough, um, tough on criminals and, um, being huge advocates for life. And this just did not align
00:36:39.020 with those values. Um, so I was, I was very frustrated, um, with, with the lack of justice
00:36:46.840 in my case. Totally. It is a lack of justice. Did you ever figure out why besides him,
00:36:55.040 apparently just being unhappy, not wanting to be married anymore. Why did he decide to go to this
00:37:01.000 length to kill your daughter and possibly kill you too?
00:37:06.060 I don't know that I'll ever know the full answer. Um, we, he pled the fifth, so we don't have a lot
00:37:13.040 of extra information. Um, but I do know through the divorce process, um, we discovered that he
00:37:20.920 had been living a double life. Um, and so we, we do know that he was, um, having an affair for a
00:37:28.600 long, a long time before this even happened. Um, so it's just, it's heartbreaking. It's so
00:37:35.320 heartbreaking for our family and for my beautiful children. Um, and, um, we just, we, we take one
00:37:44.740 day at a time. Um, my, um, now ex-husband is actually serving a prison sentence currently,
00:37:53.500 um, for breaking his probation, um, from, uh, the initial charges. Um, and so, um, you know,
00:38:04.420 we're just, we're trying to just get through this new normal. Um, my kids are doing remarkably well,
00:38:12.560 all things considered. And we just really try to stay focused on the positive.
00:38:19.760 And do you know when he's going to get out of prison?
00:38:23.920 He was sentenced in, let's see, October of 2025 for eight years for the assaults on me and then
00:38:33.400 eight years for the assault on my daughter. But it will be served concurrently. Is that,
00:38:41.820 is that right? Concurrently at the same time. Um, and so, yeah, there's, you know, there's a
00:38:48.300 little bit, um, of relief, um, for our safety. Um, you know, uh, with, with that case, he had
00:39:00.580 broken the protective order. Um, and so I was grateful, um, to Harris County, um, for standing
00:39:09.040 strong and standing up for our protective order to be in place. So he's in prison for eight years
00:39:19.820 right now, but I know just a couple minutes ago, we were talking about the injustice of the plea
00:39:23.840 deal and him only serving 180 days. So tell us how he landed in prison now. Yeah, the 180 day
00:39:34.220 plea deal. It was 180 days plus 10 years of probation. So there were all kinds of stipulations
00:39:41.880 with that probation, one of which was to follow our 19 year protective order. And just six months
00:39:54.160 after being released from jail, he started breaking the protective order. And so he was
00:40:01.440 sentenced, um, sentenced through that for eight years. And since this happened, well, first I want
00:40:11.300 to hear about the birth of your daughter in the midst of all of this still happening. Um, tell us
00:40:18.620 about meeting her. Yeah. Um, well, her name is Josephine Grace and she is just the biggest
00:40:29.520 miracle. I am so grateful every day for her. Um, she is, um, doing well now. Um, but it was a long
00:40:39.980 road. My water broke at 28 weeks. Um, I had an emergency C-section at 30 weeks. Um, they had put
00:40:51.460 me on hospital bedrest trying to keep me, keep her cooking after my water broke. Um, which for any of
00:40:58.680 your listeners who've ever done that before, it was quite an experience. You know, they lay you
00:41:06.220 up in the hospital bed and, you know, try your best to not move. And anyways, we kept her cooking
00:41:14.400 to 30 weeks. And she was born at three pounds, six ounces, teeny tiny. And I couldn't hold her
00:41:27.340 at first. She was too small. But we got her settled in the NICU. She was there for about
00:41:37.160 seven weeks. But she's had a long road in the hospital. She spent over 160 days in and
00:41:49.040 out of ICUs. At 14 months, she was non-mobile, non-verbal, and did not eat or drink by mouth.
00:41:57.340 um but we got her into intensive therapy um at one point she was doing um eight classes a week
00:42:07.740 of physical therapy occupational therapy and speech um but today if she walked in the room
00:42:15.320 um you would have no idea that she had overcome so much in four short years she is a true
00:42:24.680 inspiration and I'm so grateful to be her mom. Yeah. And are the challenges that she faced at
00:42:33.040 the beginning of her life, are they mostly due to the premature birth or are they due to what
00:42:39.260 she had to overcome inside the womb or both? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm not able to speak very much,
00:42:47.220 about that. But, you know, we have ongoing litigation. I think it will never end. So I'm
00:42:59.840 not able to get into the details of it. But I will say the level of stress that both of us
00:43:09.880 have gone through, um, undoubtedly, um, has impacted us both. Um, I've been diagnosed with
00:43:18.360 complex PTSD, um, and that involved a lot of, um, severe insomnia, um, cognitive dissonance,
00:43:29.020 brain fog, um, as you can imagine, um, distrust in people, right? Um, even to this day, like when
00:43:39.580 somebody gives me a drink that I haven't seen, um, them make it, it gives me pause. Um, and I
00:43:47.820 think I will, I will certainly live with the effects of, um, this horrific crime, uh, for
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00:44:59.360 shopify.com slash Allie today. You have used your story though, by partnering with multiple
00:45:10.660 organizations to help advocate for women going through similar things. Um, you've also advocated
00:45:16.760 for some legislative changes. So can you talk about that? Talk about what you're trying to
00:45:21.280 change, how you're trying to help moms and young wives in the same situation.
00:45:25.760 Absolutely. Um, the thought that young girls, um, especially college age, 20 year olds might be going through this all alone in their dorm rooms, facing the side effects of these drugs, um, whether they've taken it themselves or they've been coerced or forced into an abortion.
00:45:52.080 Um, you know, these, the bodily effects of these drugs are just horrific. I have never experienced
00:46:03.020 anything like that. It is a next level sickness. Um, you truly have no bodily control and, and you
00:46:12.300 need medical attention desperately. Um, I'm so thankful, um, that I went to the emergency room
00:46:18.920 when I did. I'm also thankful for progesterone, obviously, that saved Josephine's life.
00:46:26.900 But my advocacy work is to protect women from ever facing forced and coerced abortion.
00:46:34.780 I hope it's a deterrent to any men considering this egregious crime, but that also women wouldn't
00:46:44.100 have to face their abusers only receiving light sentences like 180 days. That's just not justice
00:46:53.220 in our country. So I've been working, I worked with my brother, actually, who is a state senator
00:47:01.200 from Louisiana, Thomas Presley, on the Catherine and Josephine Herring Act in Louisiana, and
00:47:09.420 proudly got that legislation signed by Governor Landry, and then went over to Arkansas and did
00:47:18.000 a similar bill with them that was passed unanimously. And I'm really proud of that
00:47:23.880 because this is not a party issue. This is truly common sense. Women should not be poisoned with
00:47:31.520 abortion pills. So that advocacy work has also led to the founding of a nonprofit organization.
00:47:39.420 that I started called the Stay at Your Home Mom Foundation, and we are working towards helping
00:47:49.200 women stay in their home after horrific domestic violence acts like this. So there's a lot of
00:47:57.300 support out there for women who live in apartments or who choose to go to a domestic violence
00:48:05.040 shelter, but there's very few resources for homeowners.
00:48:09.600 Um, any women who own their own home, they just don't qualify for state or
00:48:14.320 federal funding.
00:48:15.420 And so my nonprofit, um, is working towards supporting them so that women and
00:48:20.980 children can stay, um, in their homes during, um, during this very, uh, you
00:48:27.860 know, this emotional rollercoaster, um, that you go through, um, with the court
00:48:33.800 system.
00:48:35.040 Hmm. And you've also worked with Alliance Defending Freedom, correct?
00:48:41.340 Correct. Yeah.
00:48:43.620 Yes. And so important for people to know, as you were telling your story,
00:48:48.340 people just don't realize the effect that the abortion pill has on the woman taking it. Like
00:48:55.220 you said, you need medical help right away. And so many of these women are receiving mail order
00:49:01.700 abortion pills by way of an FDA regulation that happened under the last president has continued
00:49:09.080 to be allowed under this president where women can just order these dangerous abortion pills
00:49:14.080 and they don't have to be under the under the supervision of any medical provider at all.
00:49:20.860 And so, yes, the poisoning that is a huge, huge tragedy and crime that is ongoing.
00:49:27.200 and also even the women who are taking it themselves, they are not being told up front
00:49:33.980 the potential consequences to their own life and bodies. It's such a dangerous thing. As you said
00:49:40.060 in the beginning, how sadly ironic is it that you have to have a prescription to take progesterone,
00:49:44.700 but you don't have to have a prescription to be able to take these pills that can kill you,
00:49:50.160 can put you into kidney failure. Right. And I would add that you don't even have to be a woman
00:49:55.900 to order the pills. You can be a man. You don't have to prove your gender. You don't even have
00:50:02.100 to prove your age. Teenagers can order this without their parents' knowledge. You know,
00:50:09.700 bad actors can easily obtain these drugs. And so that's one of the reasons I'm working with
00:50:16.980 the Alliance Defending Freedom is to reinstate the safeguards of this drug. I don't think that's
00:50:23.700 asking a lot for the FDA to simply have oversight over the drug distribution going on in this
00:50:31.460 country. Totally. This is like a big ask that we should have of the Trump administration. It's
00:50:37.980 something that I asked the vice president about directly when I was interviewing him a couple
00:50:41.880 weeks ago. I'm like, where are we on this? And also it's even if you want to see it from like
00:50:48.060 an rfk perspective you could argue it's an environmental issue as well with poisoning
00:50:53.520 the water systems there's nothing there's nothing good that is coming out of this especially at the
00:50:59.180 level of dysregulation and unregulation that we have today and of course it allows tragic cases
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00:52:15.480 well what else do you want people to know if there's a woman out there maybe she's in a
00:52:23.900 similar situation or she's in a domestic violence situation i'm sure you've learned a lot of lessons
00:52:28.800 that you did not want to learn but now you're imparting on others like what would you tell her
00:52:35.000 right now? Yeah. It gets me choked up. I would really just encourage women facing
00:52:50.420 pregnancies under difficult circumstances to keep going, just one foot in front of the other,
00:52:59.300 one day at a time um it's hard when you're going through that people say it will work out um but
00:53:08.440 I'm four and a half years out of this and I am so grateful to have Josephine with me it has not been
00:53:17.740 easy to have a c-section by yourself not easy um I truly believe this is not the divine design
00:53:28.780 um but it's the card that that we have been dealt and um my three kids are such a blessing
00:53:37.820 um and and as long as you um you know you you keep your faith first um and you ensure that you
00:53:49.940 are in a safe place um I think domestic violence can be so scary um because you are willing to
00:53:58.440 put yourself in harm's way, um, to continue that relationship or, or, um, you're, you're clinging
00:54:06.040 to the hope of that relationship. And one of the blessings that I've been able to see now in
00:54:13.040 hindsight is I was able, um, I was able to keep myself safe because of my child. I actually,
00:54:22.720 um, I believed wholeheartedly and I still do in marriage for life. Um, but in domestic violence
00:54:31.140 situations, um, that can be a really dangerous, uh, concept. And so, um, protecting Josephine's
00:54:41.100 life ended up protecting my own life. Um, and I'm just eternally grateful that we are both okay.
00:54:48.560 yeah me too and just my final question um how do you plan to talk to josephine about
00:54:57.300 her story and the plan that god played out for her yeah i don't know i don't know um
00:55:07.040 it's amazing that she's already about to turn four um it's gone it's gone faster than i would
00:55:14.120 have imagined. But she has a strong head on her shoulders. She is small, but mighty. And I know
00:55:25.360 that her ability to overcome all of these hurdles from her gestational time during pregnancy to her
00:55:35.320 delivery to her first two years, the developmental delays, she has been so strong. And so I know
00:55:44.040 that this will be heartbreaking, but that she will be able to overcome it.
00:55:49.360 And I did want to add one thing. Normally I try to say this and I just realized I have not, but
00:55:54.300 Josephine is actually the one known surviving baby from an abortion pill poisoning. And so that's one
00:56:03.960 of the reasons that I can't help but scream it from the mountaintops because she is truly such
00:56:09.820 a miracle. So Heartbeat International is the hotline number that I called. And I believe
00:56:16.900 their number is 8,000 babies have been saved after the mom chose to take an abortion pill
00:56:25.020 and then did a reversal. But I am the only known case where I was poisoned and then the baby
00:56:35.420 survived. So sadly, I know you've probably heard like there's a case in Dallas, there's a case in
00:56:41.200 Houston right now. Both of those cases, the babies passed away. Wow. Well, thank you so much.
00:56:51.480 You certainly could have chosen a life of privacy and no one would have blamed you for that.
00:56:57.960 You could have stayed silent about this and only had your closest friends know about it. And you
00:57:02.140 have chosen to allow God to redeem this and possibly save the lives of other people. And
00:57:06.780 I'm just so grateful for that. So I encourage everyone to check out your foundation, stay at
00:57:11.520 your home foundation, really important issue that probably a lot of people haven't thought about.
00:57:15.280 And thank you again for sharing your testimony, Catherine. Thanks so much for your time.
00:57:32.140 You