Everyone’s Baby – Community Mobilization in Action
Jan 25, 2026
We were just about to press record in The BeatiDudes studio with our guest, Kyle Washut, President of Wyoming Catholic College, when we asked him if there was a story he could share that would make for a powerful Friday episode. After a short pause, he said he wanted to share the inspiring and harrowing story of his daughter, Macrina.
What Kyle shared next is one of the most beautiful examples of God’s love shining through an entire community that I have ever heard.
It started when Kyle’s wife, Erin, went into early labor at around 19 weeks pregnant. Kyle, who was teaching at the college and not yet the President, was at work when he got the call and rushed home, only to find Erin being loaded onto a gurney for the hospital. At the hospital, they learned that Erin was experiencing a placental abruption, and the local doctors warned that if she began bleeding heavily, their small mountain town did not have the blood products or resources to respond. They needed to make a big move right away, so the couple boarded a flight to Denver, the nearest major hospital, racing the clock before the situation turned into a hemorrhage emergency. Erin said goodbye to the kids, fearing it might be the last time she saw them, and away they went.
In Denver, the pressure intensified. The doctors told them it was a matter of hours or days before labor resumed, that it was far too early for the baby to survive, and that when labor started, Erin would likely begin to hemorrhage again. Within roughly two hours of arriving, an OB recommended what Kyle described as a procedure “to end the pregnancy,” and Erin forced clarity by asking, “Do you mean an abortion?” The answer was yes.
This same conversation played out three additional times, with physicians repeatedly urging Kyle and Erin to end the pregnancy preemptively as “the safest” option. Kyle tried to explain a distinction that felt obvious to them: he and his wife would gladly accept an emergency C-section if tragedy became unavoidable, but they could not consent to intentionally ending their baby’s life in advance. One conversation crystallized the disconnect when a doctor compared their objection to the kind of “moral taboo” she associated with refusing blood transfusions, as if it were simply a strange religious preference rather than a fundamental moral line.
That fear, that if Kyle stepped away and Erin lost consciousness, there might be no one to advocate for their baby, is where the Wyoming Catholic College community enters the story. Kyle called the academic dean and explained he was afraid to leave his wife’s side. The official response was not some polite accommodation; rather, it was a full-blown communal mobilization.
Wyoming Catholic College held an all-school meeting. Students rearranged work schedules and class schedules, and faculty volunteered to cover Kyle’s classes. In Kyle’s words, the entire community reorganized their semester to protect his baby and support their family.
Then came the long grind. Despite the doctors’ expectation that labor would resume quickly, Erin remained pregnant for 10 more weeks. She was not allowed to leave the hospital during that stretch, living under the constant stress of waiting for the other shoe to drop while Kyle and the family tried to manage life back home with their other children. Finally, around the 30th week, there was enough stress on the baby that the doctors proceeded with a C-section.
Even that was not the end. Macrina’s birth led to a prolonged NICU battle where lasting roughly 120 days because her lungs had not developed, and she had multiple complications to navigate. The emotional and logistical strain was amplified by the fact that they had four other kids at the time, and they were living far from home, trying to piece together family life around hospital rules, uncertainty, and exhaustion.
Kyle felt the mercy and love of God through the embrace of family, friends, and especially the Wyoming Catholic College community. Through their convictions and collective sacrifices, Macrina became “everybody’s baby,” and she continues to thrive today. Literally hundreds of people in Lander, Wyoming, changed their semester plans to make this story possible.
But the goodness didn’t end with the recounting of this story for our podcast. I was scheduled to release the final version of this story on a Friday in early July 2024, but there was one problem. In the shuffle of transferring files, the videos of our interview with Kyle were erased, and I feared I’d never locate them. We finally invested in software and recovered the missing files. Two weeks later, on July 19, 2024, the episode recounting the story of baby Macrina was finally scheduled for release.
When I called Kyle to let him know the release date and explain the delay, he just laughed and praised God. He asked me if I knew whose feast day falls on July 19th each year and then paused. It was Saint Macrina.
The story of baby Macrina and the enduring love of the community that rallied together to save her was first released on the Feast Day of her namesake, Saint Macrina.
You can’t make this stuff up, but you can listen to Kyle recount this story for yourself by checking out the episode, released on July 19, 2024, at the link below.
