It is a lot harder than I thought it would be to sit at a keyboard and express what happened. As all things human, you are allowed to disagree with our choices and life, and therefore you are welcome not to read this post. However, you are NOT allowed to attack, belittle, or debase me and/or my husband for a situation you have never personally experienced.
I had prayed for a second child for so long that last year I finally started being intentional about praying for God's will, and not my selfish want.
I had finely received peace and joy with the fact that Connor would be my only child. Through April, May, and June I had been cleaning the totes of stuff in our house and had donated all the baby things I held on to (just in case) to our church to bless someone else. I was excited about the peace I felt. I had mentally prepared myself for years that I would not be one of those parents that mourned a child I didn't have. Especially having Connor! I never wanted him to ever think that that he was not wanted or worthy! I have seen what happens to children raised by those types of parents, and it's heart-breaking. Through those months God talked me through the releasing of my want into His will, and it finally happened. I had a euphoric peace that our little family of three was meant to be!
This pregnancy was so perfectly normal. I was worried about things that didn't happen when I was pregnant with Connor, but after talking with my doctor I learned my pregnancy with Connor was very abnormal. All the "normal" pregnancy things were happening with bump#2; morning sickness, cravings, back pain, exhaustion, weight gain, etc. It was odd to adjust to. I was extremely conscious and cautious with this pregnancy as well. With so much happening this pregnancy, and the fact that we weren't even trying I made sure I did everything I could for my health. I also decided that I was going to do everything I didn't do with Connor. My pinterest board for bump#2 was full of things.
We (I) made pregnancy announcements! I hid this odd shame I had when I was pregnant with Connor. It's like I couldn't enjoy being pregnant because originally we weren't married. Even though this was unplanned as well I was going to enjoy it, and not take it for granted. I missed out on so many things with my first pregnancy because I thought I wasn't supposed to enjoy it. I wasn't going to make the same mistake again. I was going to take every chance I had with this pregnancy.
My appointment in August ended on an awkward note. The doctor and the ultrasound staff could not get a heart rate for the baby. They assured me it was just because the baby was still so small, and I was rescheduled a month out.
Bubby was so excited to become a big brother! He had been asking for a sibling for a couple of years by this point. So the baby had him super excited. It was amazing to watch and listen to. He and I were both praying for a little girl- much to my husband's angst.
Our church celebrated its 150th year in ministry in September. It was an epic moment for me. Enjoying this spiritual milestone with both my children beside me touched me to the core. I preached once while pregnant, and the thought that my baby was touched by my calling from the womb was amazing.
My next appointment in September went about the same as the one in August. I went in first for an ultrasound to get the baby's heart rate; which came through beautifully! Then toward the end of the ultrasound the tech called in my doctor to look at some things. They informed me I was going to be sent to a specialist to have the baby checked out. At first I was going that day, but the specialist said I was not far enough along yet so I was scheduled to go in October. When leaving the office I was told not to worry about anything so that made me a little scared when leaving, but I just prayed for God's will be done and carried on enjoying my bump!
I had an amazing surprise when I got home from school one Saturday. Hubby and Bubby made me a family of pumpkins for our house! Halloween being my favorite holiday; I finally had some outside everlasting decorations! They were too perfect! Our marriage was changing with this pregnancy. Our relationship with our son was changing. It was amazing to watch what God was doing in our home.
Our next appointment was October 13th. We were going to see the neo-specialist for an ultrasound and find out the gender! I planned a huge a gender reveal party for the following weekend! I was so excited because I was sure it was a girl and it was technically another first for me! The specialist appointment was not a big deal for me because I saw one most of my first pregnancy. Being a diabetic I was surprised that I hadn't been sent to one sooner with this pregnancy just to rule things out.
Thursday, October 13th is now a day that will probably live in my memory for the rest of my life.
When we were called back we were shocked to be ushered into a private room and introduced to a Genetics Counselor. She sat us down and from go started talking about the two possibilities that were wrong with our baby. We could not have been more shocked if she had pulled a snake out of her ear! Needless to say that was not how we were expecting our appointment to start. Trying to hold it together all I could ask was if she was mistaken. She explained that she did not want to take away our hope, but there was no mistake and a slim/if-any chance that we would get any good news that day.
At the start of the ultrasound we found out we were having a boy- much to my husband's joy. Half way through the ultrasound you could feel the mood in the room change. Our cheerful and happy tech became very quiet and solemn. At the end she asked us to stay put as she retrieved the specialist and genetics counselor.
Our baby had what is called an anencephaly. In his development his neural tube formed wrong making his skull not fully form. So basically, he had a significantly large hole at the base of his skull, and that caused his brain to grow/develop outside of his skull. There was a possibility I could carry to term, but based on the fact that he was not moving it would only be because my body was barely sustaining him. There was a 10% possibility that he would live past the first 24hours of birth, but he would live the rest of his life in a hospital with multiple surgeries and in pain. Due to the brains' development he would never be conscious of anything if he survived; he would not be able to swallow, blink, or know we even existed. On top of that, he had a large hole in the outside wall of his heart and one of the valves was growing wrong; which would mean more surgeries.
The crux of this situation was that I had to be far enough along to be able to find these issues, but I was almost too far along to do anything to help my son. We had one week to decide if we were going to continue with our pregnancy. The doctor reminded us that we had to consider the quality of life we and our other son would have should we continue.
God love my husband, he took us straight to our Pastor. She prayed with us as we explained everything the doctors told us, and tried talking about our feelings. This was one of those things that are not in the Bible though. There is just praying and knowing that God gave us the technology we have today. We had been given very straight and factual information from very educated and experienced medical professionals.
We had a very hard weekend. Our decision was not made lightly or negligently. Ultimately, our decision was based on the fact that we could not put our son through that kind of pain. Any life he would have possibly had would not have been a life. I know it was hard for my husband, and it was hard for me. The child I had been praying for, for longer than I care to admit, I would have to give back to God. We canceled our gender reveal party with the only comment that an update would be revealed soon. We decided as a couple that we were going to disappear from social media for a while so we could heal. We knew we owed no explanation to anyone at all, but before totally departing social media we both wanted to inform everyone what had happened.
Monday, October 17th
That following Monday I had the follow up with my regular OB to talk about what happened at the specialist and to give her our decision. After my doctor really explained what was happening it didn't become an option about how to continue. There was more wrong with the baby than the specialist told us about; one thing being his lungs not forming right. The fact that I was a diabetic meant I would be on serious observation for liver failure and a range of other problems because it was inevitable the baby would start to damage me. Due to all that she informed me that the baby was officially listed in my medical file as life threatening to me. Everything in the appointment just concreted our decision all the more. Then, my doctor went to take the heart rate of the baby and it had dropped severely, reinforcing that the baby was dying.
She wanted me to go immediately to the hospital to deliver the baby. First, I was in slight shock because I didn't realize that I would actually be delivering our child. My brain had not processed that far ahead of what would actually happen. Second, neither my husband nor I was prepared to go that quickly! She gave me a list of decisions that had to be made before I could deliver, and they were things we had never thought of in our life! We scheduled to go in the following morning so we had time to make arrangements for our son, our jobs, and make the list of decisions. Having just informed everyone the day before that we were pulling away to heal, we purposely chose not to inform anyone. Some things are just too personal and heartbreaking that no one needs to know about it.
Tuesday, October 18th
The next morning in the hospital was another level of reality check. I wanted and respected that the staff spoke to us in a very matter-of-fact way about what all would happen, but some things still came as a shock to us. One thing being that we had to fill out a death certificate in case he was born breathing. We named him Phoenix; it seemed so perfect. The legend of the phoenix is that he is continually reborn from his own death, and knowing our baby would be reborn absolutely perfect in God's arms is something no parent could wish more for.
We were blessed beyond thought by the nurse who assigned herself to my room, Kasey. She had experienced something similar to me, and it was reassuring that she was able to personally talk me through some things. I will remember her for a VERY long time! We were also immeasurably blessed that our Pastor was there for us. My husband and I having never thought about "arrangements" in any situation before the previous night didn't know what to do. All we had decided was that we would cremate our son. God love our Pastor because she took care of all the arrangements for us while we were in the hospital. That afternoon a bouquet of purple flowers arrived in my room from my former boss. Just that one, small, loving, and surprising gesture made everything a smidgen better.
Unfortunately, come that first night in the hospital people started harassing us and our Pastor. So many blessings on my husband, at one point I knew he was ready to hurt people because I just was laying in bed crying. Not even over a fact like we were praying our son would not suffer a horrible birth, but that people we considered family would not leave us in peace and thought they had a right to hurt us like that! We as parents were loosing a child and all they seemed to care about was that we didn't want to talk to them! Due to all the stress that was happening the nurses decided to give me something to sleep, and with that I was thankful to have the room to myself that night.
Wednesday, October 19th
The next morning I unfortunately woke to my cell phone going off. Things continued not much better through the morning for my husband and I in regards to people and messages being sent to us and other people. Come afternoon I opted to have an epidural because they had to double my inducement medication because I was not dilating. A while after that happened we realized two things. One, my double dose of inducement medicine was kicking in. Two, the epidural was only working for my right side- not my left. After major shifting and some tears due to pain I was finally, mostly numbed out below the waist. I spent the afternoon trying to enjoy some much missed food network and not think about the reason I was in the hospital while sharing my bed with Hubby.
Right at 6pm (nurse shift change) I paged my nurse to say goodbye and give her my thanks because they next day she was off. That is when everything started to happen. It had started storming outside, and I felt the baby coming as Kasey came into the room. This was a whole new experience for me because my first son was C-section. We had to wait for my doctor to make it from another hospital before I could actually deliver. When she arrived though Phoenix Randall-Allen came at 6:46pm, stillborn.
Kasey, our nurse, stayed with me till I had him, then she took him to a separate room to be cleaned up while I was being cleaned up so that we could hold him later. We originally were not going to hold him. The day before I had asked Kasey (she also works with bereavement counseling) about the hardest part for women going through these situations, and she told us that the women who chose to never hold or look at their babies had the worst times moving forward. Something in my gut told me she was absolutely right, and I decided at that point the day before that we were going to hold our son.
I won't lie; I was kind of scared to hold him. He was only 19wks old and we were not sure what abnormalities he would have. That didn't stop us though, and I thank God for that because he was perfect. Kasey did a great job the day before explaining to us what we would experience when we held him, and we appreciated that a lot. We held him for a while, and then we held each for even longer. I was thankful to have the room to myself that night again. Laying in the quiet with God after everything gave me such peace. I knew God had my baby, and I knew it was meant to be.
Thursday, October 20th
The next morning as soon as I talked to the nurse I was up walking as much as I could. My left leg was still numb, and they would only discharge me if I could walk on it. So between eating breakfast and packing I was pacing my room, lol. As I was being discharged later my nurse brought me a box that her and my other two nurses put together for my husband and me the night before. It had Phoenix's hand and foot prints, his booties, and some other memorabilia. It was an amazing keepsake they put together for us. I was incredibly blessed to have these angels by my side the last three days. They truly meant a lot to me.
I was grateful to be going home though! I couldn't wait for Connor to come from school and Hubby to get home from work. I wanted to be surrounded by my guys in our home.
Moving On...
It was just another blessing that our church family and other friends arranged dinner for us over a week. I was off work for five weeks, and by that point I wanted to go back to work. Having all that free time must have made people think I needed entertained, lol. I did not get much alone time during those weeks.
The weeks following October 19th were tough. Our struggles were 99.9% with other people. I was in total shock to find out that some people actually believed we handled some things wrong. I am still deeply hurt and trying to heal from the selfishness of some people. The thought that anyone would ever think they had the right to be involved in us loosing our son is low.
Occasionally I got sad, but that is ok. The day I got on pinterest and saw my baby board was hard. Explaining what happened in the most age appropriate way to our son was a challenge. Knowing that he didn't truly understand that Phoenix was gone was hard to watch. Someone asking how many kids you have- how do you answer that? The first week coming back to work and everybody wondering where I was and if the baby was ok, that really caught me off guard. The big shock was that I was so ready to "get back to life" and the day I realized that nothing really changed hurt. I was getting up to go to school and was doing all the normal routine that I always do, and it hit. We did not have a nursery set up. I wasn't in to maternity clothes yet. I had not even gained any weight or bought anything. As far as physical changes this brought in our lives there was nothing tangible except ultrasound photos. I wondered that morning if those five months were a dream.
Despite the hurt we had a memorial for Phoenix with everybody so they could hear the whole story and say goodbye. Connor picked out a giant blue balloon to send to his brother and it was pretty amazing! I prayed hard that this would give closure to the family because I was done. I wanted life to move on. Not in a forget-him way, but in a live-in-the-love way! Phoenix in his brief five months was a blessing for my husband, son, and I and the ugliness that happened after his passing was such an insult to his innocent life.
Some people may view this as callous, but I had JOY and PEACE! I felt so close to God, and so loved. My only true prayer for my kids was always going to be that they knew Christ. I knew/know exactly where Phoenix is and there is no sadness in that! He is perfectly complete. The presence of peace that knowing everything happened in His will is just amazing. I occasionally wondered if I had too much peace, but then I would realize how silly that was. God gave me the greatest gift, and I don't regret it.
Thanks to our wonderful church my husband and I will always have Phoenix with us!
We didn't know they made these wonderful necklaces that hold remains, but we each got one!
