My husband and I know the pain of baby loss because we have walked through it two times. It is the hardest thing anyone can go through. After 5 years of marriage my husband Adam and I decided to try to have a baby. I got pregnant right away and miscarried 5 weeks later. We grieved deeply over the loss of that life. The heart starts beating at 3-4 weeks along which means my baby’s heart was beating inside me and I felt a love and connection to him or her.
4 months later I got pregnant again. This time the pregnancy was seemingly normal. We found out we were having a baby girl and we named her Lillian Pearl Angell Waldron. Everything was fine up until I was 35 weeks along. They did an ultra sound and discovered she was breach and my amniotic fluid was low but the doctors were watching me closely. I was hoping for a natural birth so at 41 weeks along they did another ultrasound and Lillian was still breach and my amniotic fluid had dropped dangerously low. The doctor scheduled me to have a cesarean. Right before the cesarean they did another ultrasound. Instead of hearing the thumping of a healthy heartbeat there was only silence. The doctor looked at me and said there was no heartbeat, Lillian was gone.
Lillian was born September 14th , 2016 at 12:57pm. She was perfectly developed, 7 pounds 6 ounces and 20 ½ inches long. She had my husbands dark hair and lips and my eyes.
The doctor discovered that Lillian died because I had a bacterial infection called chorioamnionitis. This infection caused my low fluid and kept her from turning head down. My placenta, umbilical chord, birth sack, and all my amniotic fluid was infected. Nobody knew I had this infection because I had no symptoms.
After the cesarean I was in the hospital three days and we got to hold Lillian and spent time with her. We got a lot of pictures of her that I will cherish forever. Leaving our baby at the hospital was the hardest thing we ever had to do. Coming home with empty arms and aching hearts was so overwhelming we thought we would drown in the sorrow. One thing that helped me was reading other people’s stories of baby loss. I needed to know that I wasn’t alone and that others had been through it to. My husband and I know firsthand the pain of baby loss but we also know firsthand that through Jesus there is healing, restoration, redemption, and life.