Welcome Home, part 2: An Unusual Birth Story

Warning: I am about to recount the story of how our fourth child was born, too early to survive, in detail. I want to honor him as our child in sharing it, to bring personal healing to myself by speaking about it and to bring to light something that is so often unspoken. Losing a child in the first trimester is devastating. And, I know I had no idea. So, if sharing my story helps others heal by it's rawness and still others understand what those going through such things experienced, then it serves good purpose.

After the Great Bed Bug Incident of 2011, I spent Saturday morning on July 23rd vacuuming and sweeping up the remnants of unpacking our entire lives. At about 11am I felt totally wiped out. Apparently, a summer full of sight-seeing in Europe weakened me so much I couldn't do normal housework, or so I thought. I wasn't sure I was going to make it until naptime to take a rest. A routine trip to the restroom revealed the reason for the tiredness: bleeding at 10 weeks pregnant. Surges of fear and sadness coursed through my limbs. I found Trey and numbly told him before bursting into tears. I pulled myself together and leafed through the pages of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" to see how concerned we should be. After all, I didn't want to overreact. 

I was reassured that light bleeding unaccompanied by severe cramping or other more serious symptoms like fever, dizzyness, etc could be "normal." And, could wait until a visit to see the doctor; no need for a visit to the ER. Maybe I had just overdone it---driving all night from Texas to Colorado, unpacking our belongings, pulling weeds in our front garden and cleaning up the house. Just in case, I canceled my girls night out plans for that evening and chose to just take it easy.

Trey and I chose to close out the evening reading. I went to sleep, hopeful, that after a night's rest the morning would bring the evaporation of the fear and reality of losing our little one. 

However, at about 1:24am, I woke up with terrible back cramping. It was constant for an hour. Since I couldn't sleep with it, I decided to get up and immediately felt the need to use the restroom. A huge gush followed and a peek into the commode revealed that I just delivered our precious baby at 2:54pm on July 24th. Crying and hyperventilating at the same time, I stumbled in the dark to our bedroom and woke up Trey. Miraculously, through my panting, he understood what happened.

The tragedy of the situation struck him and he was sick to his stomach. Holding each other in our sorrow, we knew our next step was to decide what to do with our child, submerged in the worst place possible. I couldn't bear the thought off flushing our baby so I gathered him from the toilet and slipped him carefully into a bag. Gazing at him, I was amazed at being able to see him fully formed--hands with fingers, feet with toes, big eyes in a clearly formed head--not the "grey tissue" that was so unfeelingly and medically described in the baby book. I marveled at him. My first thought--as tears streamed painfully down my cheeks--was "he's so precious." My next emotion was gratitude for being able to behold him with my eyes, though too small to hold him in my arms.

I will conclude you with this beautifully true analogy found here that sums up how, by God's grace alone, I have been able to view the loss we've suffered:

Life is just a cherry storm


"God’s blessings don’t come to us in tidy baskets. They don’t fall to the ground pitted and frozen. They splatter juice on our patio tables, and stain faces and fingers. God’s blessings come in their own season, and sometimes they come so fast and so full that they make you feel a little woozy for a minute. But only for a minute, and then you’ll be out picking some more."

To be continued...