remembering my Noah...

I am posting today because I feel the need to share my story with anyone who wants to listen. I have 3 wonderful boys and then my precious daughter but I am supposed to have 4 boys. I did have a fourth boy... only he died during birth. A lot of my friends through our homeschool group know that we lost a child because of the email that got sent around that awful day but many don't know the circumstances. Many people that kinda "heard" about me and Brock (my husband) think we miscarried or had complications or something. Doctors have even treated me that way and I have to argue with them a bit to actually READ my charts.

You see, my pregnancy with Noah was very healthy. At one point I had gallbladder problems but it was totally separate from the pregnancy. Every heart beat monitoring, every ultrasound, every everything was fine and normal and perfect. On the day before Thanksgiving of 2006 even labor was very smooth and normal ... at first. They gave me an epidural, which I generally don't use but for some reason did this time, and then the nurse went to check me. I was actually joking with my husband about how he's "gotta try this epidural thingy" when I looked up at the nurse who's face got real serious all of a sudden. She wouldn't say at first & just kept fumbling for the call button. The cord was coming down ahead of the baby. I had no idea what that meant. I had had 3 quick perfect births prior and didn't know what I was heading for. They rushed me into Csection and I was in shock about it all. I remember feeling like "Wait a minute, I want a second to pray with my husband" but there wasn't time. The nurse had to keep her hand in there pushing Noah's head back so he wouldn't suffocate himself. They couldn't get me to go numb enough on my skin in the OR so they put me "under". It was like falling into a black hole. SO FAST. I was terrified, but I prayed quick "Lord, be with me". Then I woke up. I was in a labor room again. There was one nurse typing on a computer in the room. Oddly, I asked first if I had been intubated...my throat hurt bad. She said yes. Then I asked where my baby was.... she said nothing. I asked again, thinking I was too quiet. She said the doctor will be in in a minute. ??? What? Was the baby in ICU or something? Then my husband walked in crying.... that's when I knew he was gone.... All I could say was "No, no, no " and cry.

Everything after that was very ethereal....
I tried "ministering" to the hospital chaplain. She was this older lady that for some strange reason I remembered who she was. She had been a patient of mine a few years earlier who was actually mourning the loss of her teenage daughter at the time to cancer. As a physical therapy student I had massaged her and gone through exercises and my instructor "clued me in" to her story. I remember praying for her in her grief back then...now she was trying to walk me through the first stages of grief of my baby boy. It was so odd. My faith was strong those first few days. I just felt like God was close. For the first time I didn't know what God was allowing or why but I just knew He was there. I couldn't bring myself to read His Word or pray much... I was just in a state of "being still and knowing".

I felt my baby boy move and tumble in my tummy just hours before he died. They said he just "never took a breath". The doctor was stumped because his pulse-O2 was fine. His heart was beating and then it just slowly stopped. My sweet husband held his hand as he went.

I could not brng myself to hold my son. It was bad enough to feel like he was stolen from me. But I felt at the time that if I were to hold him I would scream for him to come back. I wanted to remember my boy as the kicking squirming guy inside me - I was the only one who knew him like that. I could not bear to remember him as the cold baby in my arms. This was the right decision for me. I'm not saying everyone who loses a child needs to do it this way. I know personally some ladies who needed the closure of embrassing their child. I just couldn't bear it.

We made the decision to donate his heart valves so his death might save the lives of others. We don't know if they were usable, but hope that someone else was spared the grief we endured.

I got to know the true meaning of Church in the months that followed. Mostly from our homeschool group, some family and friends came and took care of me and my family day in and day out for the next 6 weeks. People I had never even met before came as I sat in a chair in my livingroom and they cleaned and cooked for my family. They even held my toddler up so I could sit with him. The Csection really put me out of commision. It was so wonderful to meet all those generous families. I was flabbergasted. If you'd have asked me only a few weeks prior if I had someone to care for me in an emergency I'd have said "Maybe my mom". I had no idea HIS people would drive all the way from the surrounding counties just to sit with me, clean my toilet, and change my son's diapers. I didn't have time to be depressed.

On top of it all, the funeral home and cemetary did everything for FREE. People attending the funeral gave so generously though and we just could not keep that money for ourselves so we were able to send it to India to some pastors with orphans in their care. The death of our son made a few Indian orphans a little more comfortable...praise the Lord. My memories of the funeral are so powerful. My dad is a firefighter. Just about EVERY firefighter in the city came to my son's funeral. They came dressed in their uniforms. They came because they wanted to be there for my dad who'd just lost a tiny grandbaby and to represent their "brotherhood". Many also remembered me as the spunky blonde-haired kid playing hide-and-seek on the rigs. I sat in a chair as people paid their respects. It was very difficult to stand as I still had my staples in from the surgery. Most of the men shook our hands and said their "I'm sorry"s as they walked past. I mostly looked at the floor and said "Thank you". One firefighter, I will never forget, got down on his knees on the floor in front of everyone and grabbed both of my hands. He looked me right in the eyes and said so truly, "I am so sorry". It still makes me weep - his humble act of love. There were many people who felt bad for us....and then there were the ones who grieved with us, shared the pain with us...like they were taking a bit of it and feeling it themselves so it wouldn't be too big a hurt for us to feel.

7 months later I was pregnant again. We found out it was a girl. We were thrilled. It was very comforting to be full of life again when the one year mark came around of Noah's birth/death. We named her Zoe Hosanna which means life of praise. After losing our son we so wanted a daughter named life. She is a joy to us, as are our other 3 boys. We appreciate more now each little gift in our lives and realize how out of control we really are in this world.

Thanks for taking the time to share my story,
Amanda