The Pink and Girly Place in My Heart

 "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)

The Pink and girly place in my heart. It is a restful, peaceful, happy, and sometimes a sad place in my heart these days. It is a complicated place for me. I suppose in some respects it will always be complicated. Your children aren't supposed to go to heaven before you. I don't recount the story of the little girl who touched my heart so deeply very often, but I wanted to share her story. Maybe in hopes of helping someone else. I used to recount it all the time. People would ask or I would meet someone who had or was walking in similar shoes as me. I used to tell the story with a shaky voice. I tried to be strong, but I couldn't hide my pain. Now her story has been written on my heart and it has found a home. I am at peace, but sometimes I still find myself deeply sad. As I think of her now, I smile. She was precious. She was beautiful. She was my baby girl....but she was....not is.

Her story started in early January 2009. I remember coming home from a day of teaching on January 28th and taking a pregnancy test. I remember seeing those two pink lines. I remember feeling shocked, excited, blessed, nervous, and scared. I was shocked because I thought it would take much longer for us to get pregnant. I was excited because what I wanted more than anything was to be a wife and mother. It took five pregnancy tests and the doctor confirming on February 9th, before I was convinced. The next hour was the longest hour...waiting for Patrick (Pat) to get home from work. I put the test in a small blue gift box. It was all I could find. I wanted it to look like a gift. I had him sit on the couch and open the box. He thought it was odd, but he went along with it. I won't ever forget the look on his face. It was a look of calm. We kept it to ourselves until we told our family the week of Valentine's Day. We told our parent's over lunch the day after Valentine's Day. I remember feeling bloated and very sick. I had all the symptoms...down to the metal taste in my mouth. You know what they say. It is a very good sign if you feel sick. I was certainly sick. This little baby must be healthy! I remember being fearful of a miscarriage, because my Mom suffered so many and miscarriages ran in my family.

The second trimester came and all was going well! We felt so incredibly blessed and we thanked God for her! I still remember feeling those first flutters at four months and how new and amazing that feeling was. It was all so new and exciting! That is when I really started to enjoy the anticipating. I only had one ultrasound with her and that was my 20 week ultrasound. It was on May 18th. Near Patrick's birthday, our 3rd anniversary, and Mother's Day. I hold the memory of that day very close. It was the only time I saw her move or saw her heart beat. She kept turning her face towards the ultrasound probe. We saw her face several times. She waved at us. She liked to keep her hands near her face. She was healthy! She was a girl...pink! Pat would be a protective Daddy. She would be a daddy's girl. I would be responsible for teaching her what it means to be a woman...a lady. Really God? You would give me this responsibility? I thought she was a boy. I asked the ultrasound technician if she was certain. Pink...Really?...Pink? As weeks went by I began seeing in pink. I picked out her pale pink "coming home" dress with a pale pink sweater and she was going to wear the white crocheted booties I wore as a newborn baby. I shopped for sweet baby girl clothes and I couldn't help but think if my Mom were alive, she would help me shop and prepare for her. I wanted my own mother. I felt very lonely without my Mom, but I felt so incredibly close to this baby girl inside me. I began to bond with her. I began to fall in love with her. She was a blessing...a gift. Her room was painted a very pale green and was accented with pale pink. The valances on the windows were fun. They had a pale pink background with white, pale green, and darker pink polka dots. The valances matched her crib skirt. I had so much fun picking out the fabric. Her grandparents helped us paint and decorate her room. Patrick put all the furniture and equipment together. I loved her room. I would go in her room during the day and read, sing, and pray with her in the rocking chair. I loved the growing belly...the kicks...the check-ups when I got to hear her heart beating.

I remember her beautiful girly baby shower given by sweet, gracious friends and the fun I had with family and friends that day. I remember the very hot summer before she was born and I remember the tank top and shorts I wore the day I felt her last kick. It was September 6th when Patrick took maternity pictures of me... it was September 9th the last time I heard her heart beat...it was September 10th when I felt that last strong kick...and it was September 11th when I saw her beautiful face.

She was always very busy at night, but she was especially busy the night of the 9th. She had the hiccups and they always made her mad. She kicked, rolled, and punched so much that I couldn't sleep. In retrospect I wonder if she was in distress. Was she hurting? I hope she never hurt. The next day she was calm and I was busy preparing her room and washing her clothes and blankets. I was a little over 36 weeks into the pregnancy and I was in full nesting mode. I was cleaning and organizing. I had just seen my doctor the day before. All was going perfectly! I was 1cm dilated and thinning out. My body was getting ready. I was preparing for the arrival of our healthy baby girl! The last movement I ever felt from her was around 11:30 the morning of the 10th. I still remember what it felt like. After an afternoon of no movement from her I began to worry and ate chocolate in hopes the caffeine would wake her. I wasn't ignorant about stillbirth. I knew it could happen and I began to fear it. Patrick came home from work a little early, because we had a tour of a pediatrician's office that afternoon. I told him I hadn't felt her move in awhile. He was concerned, but we went ahead and went to our tour, in hopes that our baby girl would wake up. He played music on his phone for her while we waited in the waiting room for the tour. She wouldn't move. She always moved to music. My baby wasn't alive, but all these other women on this tour had live kicking babies in their bellies. We went home and I ate more chocolate, drank juice, played more music for her, poked her, and Patrick even held me upside down. We had never wanted anything more in our lives. We just wanted her to move. But there was nothing...no movement...stillness. Patrick urged me to call the doctor. I was scared...very scared. At this point it was early evening and we had no choice, but to go to the hospital. We very quickly packed the bag. Packing the bag was something on my "to do list" that day. I never got to it. Patrick thought we would go and come back, but I remember saying, "we should pack a bag. We don't know what is going to happen." I was hoping she was just taking a long sleep. What I didn't want was an emergency c-section and what I was fearing the most was what happened. In a haste to get packed and out the door I forgot her pale pink "coming home" dress with sweet little white booties. I still regret forgetting her beautiful dress. As Patrick raced down 400 we were mostly silent, but we prayed. We prayed for our baby girl to be okay. It wasn't the race to the hospital we had hoped for those nine months.

When we arrived we were calmly taken back to a very small room with a bed. I was told to put a hospital gown on. I remember thinking, is this necessary? Can't I just hear my baby's heartbeat like I do when I go for my check-ups? I remember thinking, this isn't the way I want it to be. I don't want to be in a panic while putting the hospital gown on before she is born. Isn't this supposed to be exciting? It took me forever to figure out how to put that silly thing on. Patrick was moving our car to the parking deck. Maybe I took so long because I wanted him there with me when she put the doppler on my still belly. I finally got in the bed and Patrick was there. We were scared...very scared. She put the doppler on my belly and rolled it everywhere. She said, "I hear a heartbeat, but I think it is yours". My heart was beating incredibly fast. Fast enough to be a baby's heartbeat. She then said, "let me get another doppler", and I could see the fear in her eyes. She told Patrick to hold my hand and my heart started beating even faster. The next doppler was just the same. It wasn't a malfunction in technology. It was a malfunction with me or my baby girl. The imperfection of this world...of humanity...was showing itself. But my heart desired perfection.

Then she told us not to worry, she wanted to ask my doctor to perform an ultrasound. My doctor happened to be on-call that night, but she wasn't the one to perform the ultrasound. We waited for her, but the nurse didn't want to wait any longer. So, a doctor we didn't know, and not even with my ob group performed the ultrasound. We rushed through the pleasantries and she quickly put the probe on my belly. Our baby girl's face wasn't against the probe anymore. She wasn't looking at us. She wasn't moving. Her heart wasn't beating. She was still. She was calm. Her body was dead. The long painful silence...my heart racing...Patrick's hand painfully squeezing mine in an effort to hold back tears. It was the longest minute waiting for the doctor to turn around and look us in the eyes and say those two words, "I'm sorry"...the words we would hear for several months. The shock of hearing your child is dead is like no other. It is like a knife in your heart and as her mother, I felt responsible. What did I do wrong? The nurse was very sensitive and the doctor was pretty neutral. I didn't know the doctor. I felt like I knew the nurse. We had been together since I first walked into that small room. They left us alone and Patrick and I cried together...like we never had before. A dream was taken away in an instant. Our baby girl was gone. We called our parents and told them. The hardest phone calls we ever had to make. My Dad had just had surgery on a detached retina and I remember being concerned if and how he was going to be able to drive to Atlanta. Patrick's parents graciously drove themselves and my Dad in their car...a car that had seen much better days. Ironically that car died in Athens the day of our baby girl's memorial service. Time stood still that night, but to our relief and comfort our parents arrived safely at the hospital sometime in the night. My doctor eventually came to us in that tiny room. She was pregnant...her baby girl was due just one month behind our baby girl. She sat there on the bed and cried with us and she discussed our options. We could go home and come back when we were ready or go ahead and deliver her. I couldn't imagine going home and knowing she wasn't living. The doctor recommended we proceed with the delivery and we took her advice.

The induction began that night. We were moved to a room that was supposed to be far away from crying babies. They placed a dove on our door, so nurses would know I would be delivering a baby who no longer had a beating heart. I remember filling out paperwork and just not having the mental capacity to do it. But I remember feeling a push to work. I had to fill out this paperwork, I had to deliver my baby and it didn't matter if her heart was beating or not. I didn't have time to think about what was happening. I just had to do it. The next day I felt like I was in a tunnel, but I felt an amazing peace. The night before she was born was sleepless. Even with the help of medication. I wanted to see my baby girl and my focus was on embracing the moment of meeting her and holding her for the first time. I couldn't think about anything else yet. I couldn't handle it. They gave me an epidural at 5cm. At this point the contractions were getting painful. Patrick was very strong and supportive. We did the breathing techniques we had learned in our birthing class just a couple of weeks prior. The nurses and doctor didn't want me to be in physical pain. They knew I was already in a lot of emotional pain. The epidural didn't work. So, they kept coming back and finally got it working. At that point I was very numb. I couldn't feel anything, but I could hear the heartbeat of a baby on a monitor next door and I later heard that baby cry. I tried to ignore it. In just a couple of hours the doctor came in. Not my doctor, but one from my group I had never met. She checked me and her head was right there. She was surprised that it was happening so quickly. The nurse who was there with us the night before, made a special effort to be with us for the birth. I can still hear someone saying as I was pushing ( I don't know who), "Are you ready to meet her?" She said it in an excited voice and I thought, yes, but I won't fully meet her, will I?  

I was in a tunnel. Focused on one thing and only one thing. Her body was here after three contractions. I was numb...physically numb and in some ways emotionally numb, but I felt her release from my body at 4:07 p.m.. I will never forget that moment in the quiet room with the dove on the door. The moment they put her on my belly and the only thing the doctor said, was she looked like an angel. She was perfect. I tried to prepare myself for bruises or an umbilical cord around her neck. She looked like a newborn baby...just still...just calm...beautiful...peaceful...precious. She had chubby cheeks, chubby hands, short legs with chubby thighs, a long torso, long feet, blonde eyebrows, brown hair with blonde highlights and a touch of curl. She had my nose and her Daddy's eyes. Patrick said, "She was just too beautiful for this world". Such a beautiful thing for a Daddy to say about his daughter. When I saw her I thought of my Mom. There was something about her that reminded me of her. All I could picture was her holding her. She loved babies...she loved children and now she gets to enjoy her granddaughter in heaven. She and my father dreamed of having a house full of children and eventually grandchildren. We named her Felicity, after her grandmother, Felicia. Felicity means, "happy" and I know Felicity is happy in eternity. She never knew the pain and sadness this imperfect world can bring. Her middle name was Amanda...after my father's mother, who died from colon cancer when he was 13. She was also named after me. My middle name is Amanda. Amanda means, "worthy of love". Felicity Amanda will always be loved. She will always be that pink and girly place in my heart. There was a reason why we could never decide on a name for her before she was born and now we understand. Felicity and Amanda were some of our choices, but we had decided we wanted to see her face before we named her.

Her body was still warm from mine, but it was limp. The nurse bathed her and dressed her in a Winnie the Pooh sleep n' play the hospital donated. I remember looking at Winnie the Pooh and thinking back to the day we found out she was a girl. We bought her a little pale pink Winnie The Pooh security blanket after the ultrasound appointment. It was at home in her crib waiting for her, but she would never cuddle it to her face. We had the afternoon and evening with her. Those hours we held her were precious. A volunteer at the hospital took pictures of her. They dressed her in a handmade pale pink dress that someone sweetly made and donated to the hospital. We kissed her...we stared at her in hopes of never forgetting her beautiful face. We had the chaplain pray and she read Psalm 23, while I held her calm and peaceful body in my arms. I couldn't see it then but, "my cup did runneth over". I still remember painfully wiping the blood from her lips and nose. There were so many tissues for our tears and tissues for her nose and blood stained lips. Patrick was calm...just like the day I showed him those two pink lines, but this time his eyes showed a pain and despair I had never seen before.

It was heartbreaking when Patrick told me it was time to let her go...that we wanted to remember her body warm and not cold. I called the nurse to come get her and I had to let her go. The nurse who was there just the night before, searching and searching for her heartbeat. I had let the hopes of meeting her spirit go, but now I was letting her body go. The focus I had been strong for all day was done and I cried. I cried hard in my loving husband's arms and with such heartache and pain. My breasts tingled from my milk coming in and all I wanted to do was nurse my baby girl. To hold her in my arms and tell her I would take care of her. I wanted to take her home to the room we had prepared for her and rock her in the rocking chair. I wanted to watch my baby girl grow into a little girl and a lady. I wanted HER in my arms instead of pillows and a box of things to remember her by when I left the hospital. I wanted her to wear that pale pink dress I bought for her and my little white booties. I didn't want to have to decide what to do with her body. I didn't want to plan a memorial service for her. I didn't want to have to physically recover from a pregnancy and birth without a baby to hold and care for. I didn't want to have to stop producing milk. I wanted to give her nourishment and love. I remember looking into her face and asking God, why? She looks so perfect and healthy. She is 6lbs. 15 oz and 20 inches long with ten fingers and ten toes. If she had been born just a day earlier she would have been okay...right? I asked God if he allowed her to be taken from me, because he didn't think I was a strong enough woman in Him to be a mother to a little girl...especially without my own mother. I asked Him why He would put the desire to be a mother in my heart, give me the privilege, and then allow my baby to be taken away.

Those questions no longer enter my mind, but they did. The searching for the biological and spiritual answers to why my seemingly healthy baby was suddenly taken away. The frustration when after the autopsy and blood tests were done, we were still left with no answers. When I finished planning her memorial service and celebrated her life with ceremony and loved ones, when Patrick returned to work, when the gracious friends and family left and no longer took me out for lunches, sent cards, emails, texts, calls, came for visits or brought meals...I was there with the raw pain of grief...just me and God. I was left to do the work of grief. Not the responsibility I had planned for those nine months, but I had been called to do it. I had to do it to see the blessings. I cried until I had no more tears...I screamed in pillows... I read other people's stories and how they made it through...I slept to get away from my thoughts... I would write when I couldn't sleep...I wrote in the pale pink and pale green baby book I bought for her...I physically ran to deal with the anger and the baby fat that had to pass as fat to strangers, because there was no baby...I felt like a failure...I remembered the prayers, words and arms of comfort and encouragement from friends and family......I read God's word...I prayed...I prayed on my knees with my face to the ground or my pillow. What I did eventually find was peace. Peace in knowing that she is okay...she is safe..she is in the arms of Jesus...she knows paradise...she knows what it feels like to dance to the beautiful music of heaven...She truly understands the depth of the greatest love...the love of God. I have peace in knowing God does love me in my suffering. I don't have all the answers and I don't expect to get them anymore. Not while I am on this earth. Before I could get to that place I had to deny...I had to be angry...I had to question...I had to search....I had to cry...I had to be completely broken in the arms of Jesus. I had to sort through all the negative. I had to completely surrender to Him and I had to surrender the baby girl I was given for a short time to Him. He was the only one who could get me through the grief. I still cry, I still hurt, but I have accepted that she is in eternity and one day I will see her open her eyes...I will see her smile...I will hear her laugh...I will see her dance...I will see her walk to me, take my hand and introduce me to Jesus. One day I will see Felicity Amanda happy and full of the greatest love...the love of Jesus. For she is so very worthy of love.

Until then, her 9 months of life in me have changed me forever. You are never the same person you once were, when you lose a child. The road of grief doesn't end, but the pain isn't as raw as it once was. There will never be a Christmas I don't think about how old she would be or remember the anniversary of her death and birth, or her due date (my birthday). There will always be things that remind me of her and now they often make me smile. When Sean and I listen to the music she listened to in my womb and always kicked to. When I hear "Sleepers Wake" or "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" by:  Bach, "Claire de Lune" by:  Debussy or sing "Jesus Loves Me" or "Brahms Lullaby" to Sean, I think of her. I think of her memorial service and how this music filled the Botanical Garden Chapel as the sun finally came out after days of storms, since the birth of her still body. The sun was comforting shining through the beautiful chapel windows...as if God was saying, "she is in my loving arms and beauty will come of your suffering". When I look at Patrick and when I look at Sean I think of her, because she favored them. When my body would wake to feed her in the middle of the night I would stare at Patrick when he slept. Just so I could see his eyes as I saw hers. I am more in love with my husband now and our marriage is stronger, because we clung to each other in the grief. Life seems shorter and eternity is even sweeter knowing she is there. Heaven and the hope it holds became so much more of a reality for me and my responsibility on this earth is becoming so much more evident. I began to see God's blessings in my surrender to Him in the pain and just how weak and broken I am. It was in my weakness that I was fully open to the love he has for me and the work he wants to do in me. I began to see the simplest things in life as the most beautiful and precious. In the surrender I heard God tell me to trust Him with my family and have faith in Him and His plan. In the surrender God gave me the strength to carry on with my life.

She isn't here with us, but she is in our hearts always. She is that pink and girly place in my heart and even if we were blessed with another baby girl someday she will never be Felicity Amanda. She will be different. Just as Sean may have filled my desire for a baby in my arms and a child to teach and love, he will never replace her. Felicity will always be my first child. She is unique and special...just as every person is. When anyone asks me if Sean is my first child I always say... no...he is my second child. I have a baby girl in heaven. I am honored I was chosen to be Felicity's mother for those nine months. I loved caring for her in my womb and preparing for and anticipating her arrival. Those are such beautiful memories. Her little life has changed me forever and touched my heart in a way I never knew a child could. Her brief life showed me the deep love a mother has for her children. She was the child who first made me a mother and in some ways I think losing her has made me a better mother than I would have been. She helped me begin to understand the depth of love my heavenly father has for me, as one of his children. Sometimes the shortest lives leave the biggest marks on our hearts...

I share Felicity Amanda's story in honor of her beautiful life and the mark she has so beautifully left on our hearts forever...