Miles’s 1st Birthday.

December 7th was Miles’s 1st birthday… And although every part of us wishes we had our son here with us, we tried to push through the pain and heartache and find ways to honor him and his sister in Heaven…

In honor of Miles’s and Brooklyn’s birthdays, we decided to make baskets to take to Labor and Delivery, NICU and ICU. The nurses and doctors who have taken care of us are people we hold close to our hearts… They are a pivotal part of our journey. They have taken care of us during the scariest and hardest times in our life. They have shared in our fear, our heartache, and disappointment. They have fought to keep me pregnant, they have delivered our babies, they have prayed over us, cared for us, and they helped save my life last year… I think of these amazing people often, and though our journey has not been the fairy tale we had always dreamed of, we wanted them to know how grateful we are for their love and care during those times.

We assembled our gifts and placed handwritten letters to each unit in the baskets. And when we pulled into the hospital parking lot, I didn’t think I would be able to walk those halls again… Flashbacks of the last two years were rushing through my mind… But I wanted to honor our children and let the staff know that we had not forgotten them. We were able to see two of my nurses and our OBGYN in Labor and Delivery… We got to go to the NICU and talk about our babies… We got to go to the ICU, a place where I once worked and then was admitted to as a patient last year… We got to hug all of these amazing, special people… Something I had been wanting to do for a long time…
And although it was difficult, it was also healing… It was something my heart had truly needed… And I hope we made our babies proud…

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Our babies will always be a part of our lives… We will always take them with us wherever we go… And we will continue to educate and bring awareness to the topic of pregnancy and infant loss…

Each year, there are not only approximately 15 million babies being born prematurely… There are 1 million children dying due to the complications of preterm birth, and there are approximately 300,000 women dying from problems that arise during pregnancy and childbirth…

In the United States, 700 women die each year from childbirth. But that is only the tip of the iceberg… Because for every woman we lose, there are many other women that we come very close to losing. And after an in-depth study, that nationwide number is around 80,000… 700, 80,000… Those numbers may seem small… But to me, it is one too many. I was a part of that close call, and we know the fear and terror it brings to families both emotionally and physically.

With Miles, I had a placental abruption and went into Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC). DIC is a rare, life-threatening condition. I was bleeding excessively from the abruption and my body lost it’s ability to clot. With my body’s clotting factors depleted, I was just continuously bleeding… My blood levels had dropped from 34% to 15% within 24 hours, and the only treatment was delivery… I was quickly taken for an emergency c-section and admitted into the ICU. I would nearly lose my life that day, and we would lose our son just one week later…

And for the women who do survive, even that can come at a cost… Some women lose their uterus, can have kidney problems, heart attacks, or brain damage… For myself, I was still continuously bleeding even months after delivery… My body felt terrible, and I was still being seen to determine the source of my bleeding. I had to have a sonohysterogram (SHG) done and it showed that some placenta had been left in my uterus. Retained placenta can cause life-threatening complications for a mother including infection and excessive blood loss. I had to have surgery again in order to remove the retained placenta, and it took a long time until I started to feel better physically…

But the trauma these families experience stay with them long after they leave the hospital… Whether it is the death of the mother, child, or both or just the trauma of the delivery itself… And I hope that with more awareness and research, these numbers can decrease… Because these families deserve it… Let’s keep mothers safe, and let’s bring our babies home…

Through this, we not only want to honor Brooklyn and Miles, educate and bring awareness, and reach those we are meant to reach… We want to show you God’s love… Yes, we have gone through the unimaginable… We have lost and buried two of our children… But we have also come to know and understand God’s love for us in a way we never had before…

When our children died, I wanted to die… I would have given my life for theirs… And it wasn’t until this last year when I realized that that is exactly what God did for us… I love my babies so much, with every part of my being… How much more is God’s love for me? He loves us, so much that He sent His only son to die for us, to die for our sins…

We’ve walked through the fog of child loss… The pain, it never ends… Some days may be easier than others, but in order to get to the light, you have to go through the dark… You have to face those emotions, you have to face difficult milestones like your child’s birthday, the day they passed, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas… And the pain, sorrow and heartache you feel like will seem like it’s too much, you may feel like you’re drowning, and you will feel overwhelmed, and it may be hard to get yourself out of that dark place… But go through it, just don’t stay there… Because that is not where God wants you to be. And if you wonder how to even get yourself out of that dark place… It is through God. He is with you in that valley… And He will lead you to the light…

This year was the most difficult… Last year on Brooklyn’s 1st birthday, I was pregnant with Miles… So although it was hard to navigate emotionally, I didn’t let myself get too deep into that grief… I had our little boy in my belly, and I had to try to stay as calm and stress free as possible… We were hurting, but we had a glimmer of hope in bringing our baby boy home in the next few months…

But this year… We had to face their birthdays, the day of their passing, Thanksgiving, and Christmas ourselves… We didn’t have anything else to distract us or lean on. We had to fully trust and lean on God… And we learned that He is the source of our strength and our peace, He is our hope… You may always feel that hurt and that pain, it’s only natural for our human hearts… But know that this world is temporary. And those who hope in the Lord will never see each other for the last time…

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Miles… Happy 1st birthday in Heaven, baby… We love you so much… We wait for the day when we will see you and your sister again…