Hello and Goodbye
March 2, 2012 by 2 Comments
Told by: Claire
On Friday 25th November 2011, my baby girl Keira Kate was born and died. She was 21 weeks. We had found out a month before that our baby had a severe and complex heart defect that she would not be about to survive. We were told that there was nothing that the doctors could do for us. And so we were faced with the agonising decision of whether to allow our daughter to continue to full term and then die or to allow her to go early and possibly suffer less. I decided to be induced. I knew that I wanted to give birth to my daughter. I wanted to see her and hold her. And I wanted to protect her from further suffering. I was in labour for four days. Her actual birth was surprisingly quick. She was perfect. My husband and I held her, took photos of her, wrapped her in a blanket, marvelled at her. And eventually, we let her go. The nurses took her hand and footprints for us and we’ve kept that little card framed between two photos of her tiny hands and feet. I had to have a D&C afterwards, but we were able to go home that evening. That was the hardest part – going home without my baby. It’s now been three months, and it’s still hard. Some days are better than others, but then, some days are worse. I miss my little girl. I miss the life I had dreamt for her. I miss the family we were to become with her. But I celebrate that she was here, that she touched our lives, that she made us into parents. It has been an enormous comfort to have had those short hours with her at her birth. It has helped that she has a name, that she is acknowledged as our daughter. It has helped to have photos of her. I so desperately want more time with her, but I am so grateful that I could at least see her and hold her and know her as mine.
In My Weakness, He Is Strong
February 28, 2012 by 2 Comments
Told by: Phillip
My daughter Zoe Elizabeth was born still–you can read more about her story from my wife’s perspective here.
There are just so many different dimensions to the pain and grief I felt when she died.
First of all, just that she died. My daughter.
Secondly, that I never got to see her alive before she left.
Hope, my wife, had to begin to deal with the idea that somehow she was defective as a mother; that her body could not do what it was intended to do, namely bring a new life safely into this world. A dispassionate, objective third party would point out that bad things happen and it’s not always our fault. But tell that to a mother who has just lost her baby. The sadness and pain and guilt from the loss of your own baby goes so much deeper than any reason or logic can ever touch. Because it’s an instinct, isn’t it? Women know, deep inside their guts and hearts, that their job is to nurture this little life to fruition, to protect this little person with their own bodies. Not to do so is a failure of the deepest and largest kind.
Men have a similar instinct. There is something so primal about conceiving, bearing, and raising a child. We just know, in our innermost being, that we have a sacred responsibility to protect our wives and our children, to keep them from harm, to keep evil and darkness and death away from our homes. And so when my daughter Zoe died, I got hit with a double whammy of instinctive failure and weakness. I was powerless to protect and defend my tiny little girl, and I was equally powerless to protect my wife from the pain and grief of losing our child. All the logic, reason, and fact in the world cannot take away those feelings of weakness and inadequacy. Feelings that directly attack the very core of how we identify ourselves as men.
The logically reasoned facts state that neither I nor Hope could have changed Zoe’s fate. And even if we had known about Hope’s blood clotting disorders, and she had been taking the right medications, any number of things could have happened. We were truly powerless and without guilt in the face of our daughter’s death. But facts don’t work against instinct and primal emotion. Not for a long time, at least.
Walter Bradford Cannon spoke of the “fight or flight” response to threats. As a man, husband, and father, I felt powerless, inadequate, unable to fight. So it’s not surprising to note that I chose flight as my response in the aftermath of Zoe’s death.
We men choose to flee so much more often than we choose to fight for the right things, don’t we? I chose flight; I fled to the realm of denial and fantasy. There are so many different places we can flee to these days, some harmless in and of themselves, and some less harmless. Anything that offers the illusion of control and power is an option, from books and video games to alcohol, drugs, pornography, et cetera. I fled because I felt powerless to save my wife from the grief, because I was a bad father to my daughter Zoe. Because I felt like I had to, somehow, maintain some illusion of normalcy and strength for my family, when inside myself there was anything but strength and normalcy.
It has taken me a long time to stop fleeing. In some ways, I am still tempted to flee from what I feel inadequate to fix, solve, or control. But I am finally learning that I can face the senseless chaos of a fallen world, and fight, even though I am truly weak and without power to make things right. Now that is truly an illogical response: to fight even though I have no power. But “the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.” (1 Corinthians 3:19)
I can stand and fight because, in the wisdom of God, which makes no sense by the standards of a godless world, when I am weak, Christ’s strength is made to shine; it becomes larger than life!
The apostle Paul: [The Lord] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.(2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
The weakness that is part of our fallen human condition becomes the path God bids us follow; it leads straight to Him. When I acknowledge my weakness, and I humbly ask my God to help me act like He is God, He pours His strength all over my and my situation, and I finally understand what true strength is. I was never meant to be an island. I was never made to have strength and power on my own. Instead, I was made to serve as a way and a means for God to pour His strength, power, love, wisdom, and every other quality, into this world. That is true reality. As I learn to let God use me in the way I was made to serve, He is showing me that I am not broken anymore. He has fixed me, and is fixing me. In my weakness, He is strong, and His strength makes me strong in the way I was meant to be. That’s what it means to be a man.
[You can click here to view a photo of Zoe Elizabeth]
My Baby is Intact
February 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
The pink & blue ribbon depicts infertility, prematurity, and pregnancy and infant loss. It is now being used by those who espouse an anti-circumcision campaign in developed countries, by comparing to, but not striving to cease, female genital mutilation in underdeveloped countries. Circumcision or not may be a worthy debate, but the issues surrounding our babies being “intact” when we endure pregnancy and infant loss cut deeper than foreskin.
Pregnancy and infant loss not only impact parents emotionally and physically, but it can impact parents medically, legally, and spiritually, too.
There are a number of situations in which a mother may wonder or even worry about the eternal perfection of her miscarried or stillborn baby, when the temporal form of his or her body has been altered.
Can your baby enter Heaven in perfect condition, regardless of the physical location of his or her body?
Can your baby enter Heaven in perfect condition, regardless of the physical condition of his or her body?
If your baby was not “buried”, will your baby enter Heaven? Will this impact what happens at the Resurrection?
Here are a couple of scenerios in which these concerns may present themselves:
“I could not identify my baby’s body, and so I flushed.”
“I was so overwhelmed by what was happening, I believed flushing to be my only option.”
“I was in a public location and so believed flushing to be my only option.”
“My baby was born via D&C or D&E.”
“My baby’s physical form underwent a complete autopsy.”
“Individual or group cremation is the only option my hospital or funeral home provided.”
“We decided on organ or tissue donation.”
Ezekiel 37:1-11:
The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
1 Thessalonians 4:14-18:
For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
1 Corinthians 15:42-57:
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall webear the image of the heavenly man.
I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:17:
and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
1 Thessalonians 5:10:
who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.
2 Timothy 2:11-12:
It is a trustworthy statement:
For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
God has the ultimate power – even over death, and even over our babies’ physical bodies – regardless of their condition or place.
You have a responsibility to trust that power, and to submit to Him in your own life. You baby is most assuredly with God. Is God with you? Ask Him into your heart, and let Him lead you through the rest of your life.
For more information about other biblical questions regarding pregnancy loss, please visit The Answers.
