My most recent pregnancy had been like any other. I had minimal morning sickness and I was progressing normally. It was my 6th pregnancy, having gone through a miscarriage at 6 weeks back in January 2022. This was supposed to be my “rainbow baby”.
We told the children about the pregnancy on Christmas morning. It was their big present. They were all so excited! We have always waited until after 12 weeks to tell any of the kids, just in case. They spent the next month planning on how to arrange the house and deciding who is going to have to share a room with someone else. The boys desperately wanted a baby brother, while the girls insisted the new baby would be a sister. They were brainstorming possible names for a boy and a girl, and everything was going according to plan.
On the morning of January 31st, the day started as any other. I felt great and the children were buzzing with excitement because today the “the day”! I would go in for the big 18-week ultrasound and we would finally know what their new sibling was going to be.
At the doctors office, the ultrasound began and I didn’t expect anything out of the norm. Finally, the ultrasound tech looks at me and says, “there’s no heartbeat”. She left the room, then came back and said she needed to take some measurements of the baby. I asked her if she’d at least be able to determine the gender. She tried, but because the baby was no longer moving, she could not get a good angle. As the ultrasound finished, she took me to a room to wait for the doctor to come speak to me.
When the doctor came in, she explained what would happen next. I would need to be admitted to the hospital to either induce labor and deliver the baby or to be sedated and have a D&E, the more risky option. I told her I preferred to deliver the baby, and she scheduled me for Friday.
On my drive home, I called my husband to let him know, and to meet me at the house to tell the children. I knew this couldn’t wait. The children took it hard. We were all devastated. What was supposed to be an exciting day turned into one of the worst days of our lives.
The next few days went by slowly, and I felt numb. My oldest still wanted to attend her dance lessons, so I took her to those throughout the week. My husband came home from work early on most days. I was still pregnant, but not really. My tummy had already begun to grow, so I had a constant visual reminder of what I no longer had. The baby was dead.
Friday morning came and we dropped the kids off with my mom. After we got settled in our room, we had someone come in and ask us what our plans were for the body. Our options were hospital disposal, cremation, or home burial. The doctor had only mentioned cremation, so I was surprised that home burial was an option. According to our state law, because the miscarriage happened before 20 weeks, we could do this. The decision was made very quickly that we would be bringing our baby home.
The doctor didn’t come in until after 1 o’clock. Because of the labor-inducing medication they would be giving me, I requested another ultrasound just to be sure. I didn’t want to make such a final decision if somehow the ultrasound tech was wrong. My mind knew that there was no heartbeat, but my heart hoped and prayed for a miracle. The doctor confirmed through the second ultrasound that the baby had indeed passed, and that its chest had even begun to collapse. She said the baby was measuring small, so had likely died between 16-18 weeks. Genetic testing to determine a cause of death was no longer an option because it had been too long.
We began with my first dose to induce labor. After 6 hours, I would receive a second dose. She said most women need a second dose, and sometimes a third. Because my doctor was tending to another patient delivering a live baby, I didn’t get the second dose until after 10 o’clock. I was feeling only minimal cramping, so I decided to get some rest. At around 1:15, I woke up feeling the urge to go to the bathroom. In my attempt to get out of the bed, I ended up paging the nurse. She came in and helped me to the bathroom. Within seconds, the baby was out. I didn’t feel much of anything, and the baby was still in the amniotic sac, with the placenta. The nurse gently grabbed the amniotic sac and laid it on a towel. She then assisted me back to bed before she tended to the baby.
She gently opened the sac and began cleaning and preparing the baby to be seen. She told us the baby was a boy. She even made little prints of his tiny feet for us to have. She dressed him in a tiny hat and “diaper” and finally our baby boy was brought to my bedside in a cooling bassinet. I held him and marveled at his tiny hands. On the outside, he had everything a fully developed baby had. He even had a little tongue in his sweet little mouth. While my heart was broken, I knew that this was a baby. My baby.
The doctor finally came in to make sure everything was out so I could avoid potential infection. She looked at the baby and said that he looked completely normal on the outside, and that the cause of death was either a cord or heart issue. My oldest son was born with a congenital heart defect, so it was likely that this little boy also had a heart defect.
The nurse weighed our sweet baby, and he was only 2.4 ounces. She again prepared him for coming home with us. The nurses on the floor had made a sweet box of keepsakes for us. They found another fancy keepsake box for us to bring his body home in. I determined that this was not a usual occurrence for them. I suppose not many people have family land anymore for burials. I was grateful we had this opportunity to give our baby a final resting place.
We left the hospital and picked the kids up at my mom’s house around 6 a.m. They wanted to come home and be with us and the baby. We sat in the living room and I showed them their baby brother. This hit my boys especially hard, as they had hoped for a baby boy.
As my husband rested upstairs, I showered and came back downstairs to be with my children. I held our baby off and on, and looked for a name. I wanted to find a name that meant something like “with God”, but I couldn’t find a name that felt right. Every so often, the name Christopher came to my mind. I ignored it because it didn’t sound biblical and it had never really been on my radar as a potential name for our boys. I kept looking for names and found the name Ezra, which means “help”. Even this didn’t fit right. Again, the name Christopher came to my mind and I knew the Holy Spirit was trying to speak to me. I looked up the definition of the name and it was of Greek origin and meant “bearer of Christ”, or “Christ-bearer”. I felt a calm feeling in my heart and I knew this was to be our sons name. My son would forever bear the name of Christ, and serve as a testimony of His love in a time I truly needed it. I called my husband (who was on his way to a funeral for his high school best friend—it was truly a devastating week for us!) and asked him if he had any names in mind. He said he hadn’t thought of any, and I asked what he thought of the name Christopher. He paused for a few seconds and said that it’d be fine. Christopher. I have a son and his name is Christopher.
When my husband returned that evening, he began work on a tiny casket for Christopher. My mom had a pine board at her house, so we used that. I just wanted something simple to place him in rather than burying him directly in the ground. In only a few short hours, my husband came in with a beautiful pine casket, with handles and a cross on top. While my husband is a wonderful carpenter, he is not artistic in any way, but I thought it was the most beautiful casket in the world.
The following morning, we decided to skip church (I wasn’t ready to be around people, and no one knew yet). Instead, we headed out to the family farm. My mom met us there. I had selected a location among a patch of daffodils at the back of the old homestead property. A dogwood tree would be at the left of the grave. My husband and sons got to work digging while my mom and I headed to an area to say our goodbyes to Christopher. She had not yet seen him, and was grateful for the chance to hold him. She had made a little white satin blanket and pillow to lay him on, with a couple of white flowers leftover from my wedding gown.
When the grave was done, we said our final goodbyes to his earthly body. I laid him in the white box from the hospital, and tied it shut with the ribbons. Then I laid the box in the pine casket, and adorned it with flowers that the labor and delivery unit had sent to me at the hospital. Once I was done doing all I could do, I allowed my husband to seal the casket shut. He carried our sweet Christopher over to the grave he had dug, placed him down in it, and said a quick prayer to dedicate the grave. Our 8-year-old son placed the first shovelful of dirt over his casket, while my husband helped. Our 11-year-old couldn’t bring himself to bury his baby brother. We all watched as the grave filled with dirt, and our baby boy was in his final resting place. I laid some old bricks from the original farmhouse around his grave to mark it. We will order a gravestone to place above it. The kids also picked some camellias to place on top of his grave. In only a couple of hours, this location at our family farm became hallowed ground.
We will forever miss our Christopher. He was too young for me to feel him move inside me, but I knew he was there. I later held his sweet, lifeless body. I love him now as my angel baby.
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