Saturday, October 16, 2010

National Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day, October 15

My Christian and Grace, in their urns with candles lit for them on this day.

This is a day, we unfortunately recognize every year. I have two Glory Babies which entered Heaven before I did. My beautiful baby boy Christian Daniel was born March 10, 1998 and lived just over two hours. My precious baby girl Grace, was born February 27, 2008 and lived almost 1/2 hour.  They were diagnosed with Potters Syndrome. When my son passed away, I was told it was a fluke and it would never happen again. It did... 10 years later with my daughter.

I found out my son was "incompatible" with life in my 9th month, about a week before his birth. They told me he would die shortly after birth - I did not have amniotic fluid and his lungs did not develop. I begged God to let my son live long enough for us to look into his eyes and tell him that we love him and would see him soon. My son lived over 2 hours. He stared at us... his eyes were trying to tell us something, something much deeper, comforting us. We held him every precious second until Jesus came and took him home. I prayed the same thing for Grace when I found out in my 4th month that she too had the same thing Christian did. I wanted her to live long enough to hear our voices, feel our arms on her body and know that she was deeply loved. She came into the world crying and breathing on her own for just a little while. She unfortunately never opened her eyes, but she was alive and could hear our words to her. From what I've been told, about 95% of Potters babies are still born. We were blessed with living babies we were able to bond with, create memories with and pour our love on.

They lived their entire lives in our arms. We listened as their little heartbeats slowly weakened and got further and further apart until the next beat.  .  .  .  .  .  .  didn't come.  It's hard to imagine a person living through such a painful loss, watching as your baby you waited so long for slips away right before your eyes ...and then being able to continue on. Especially, having to endure it twice. Only with Jesus and the promise that we will be together again make it even remotely possible. Life is never the same. A huge pit in your soul cannot be filled with anything. I searched, I moved and moved again, I bought things, I bought more things, I adopted many cats and dogs, I dived into different crafts (never really completing anything), I tried so many different avenues to try and fill that something missing in my life. I finally realized it's nothing that I can do, buy or change. It's only possible to believe. To believe in the promise from our God that He has a plan, and a reason and it will be for our good and their good. They are being raised in a better place - they have Heaven before we do. I look forward to holding my babies in my arms again, to smell their skin, to look again into their eyes and listen to the voices I so long to hear.

Not a moment goes by that my glory babies are not with me, are not thought about and greatly missed.



Every year, October 15th, we write love notes on balloons and release them to the Heavens. We light candles with all the other parents who are grieving for their babies across the world. We create a "wave of light" and hopefully our glory babies will look down and see the shimmery lit earth shining in their memory and know that they are dearly loved and so greatly missed.