We lost our firstborn on her birthday. On the day she was to be born via home birth, she came into our world through emergency cesarean section. The best laid plans of mice and men, and all that.
All seemed to be going well, as well as I could tell, anyway. You see, this was to be my first child. She would be Heather's third, and this prior experience was paramount to the smooth 42 weeks we had enjoyed, thus far. I had been so elated the first time I placed my hand on Heather's belly and felt a little tiny kick in response. Once or twice I even played "Shave and a Haircut" on my wife's swollen tummy and would laugh out loud as "Two Bits" would kick back from the babe within.
We had stockpiled clothing and diapers. We had shopped for toys and car seats. We had already picked a name, Clara Edith Webb.
So sure we were that nothing would, or could, go wrong. What fools time makes of us all, when pride blinds us. I mean, surely, after almost a full year of life on the road, pulling together what funds we could to get by, this gift from God was a herald of change for our family... wasn't it? What God would let this suffering worsen? What God would hold such joy and hope over us, only to snatch it away? No, this was meant to be, this was meant to happen. A reward for our faith and patience. And all Glory unto Him for this blessing! Amen...and all that jazz.
After much worry and waiting, 42 weeks had come and gone. The decision was made to seek aid from the hospital. And we, two smiling idiots, sent the girls to visit family, loaded up in our friends' car and chugged across town to the hospital, joking all the way. Grinning like a pair of Cheshire Cats driving a minivan across Wonderland.
And, why not? I was about to officially be a daddy! My life was about to change. I would finally get to have a taste of those years I had missed while my stepchildren were growing up. And they would be there to enjoy watching little Clara grow. This was right - more right than anything before had ever been!
My high school girlfriend, who had finally become my wife, and I were going to have a family together. Clara would heal any hidden fears from Heather that I would just decide to leave some day. She would show our parents that we were self reliant and capable. She was our salvation and our reward.
It all crumbled when, upon checking for her heartbeat (on the delivery table, no less), it was discovered that she had passed on from within her mother's womb. Her umbilical cord still attached. No words can ever describe the agony of hearing your smiley nurse saying to the attending physician that she can't find the pulse.
I will never be able to lessen the dark image of her limp body being popped from my wife's open belly. Her still pink flesh, covered in a thin brown fluid and traces of her own mother's badly infected blood. This will forever be frozen in my darkest memories.
Her ashes sit in a tiny urn upon our bookshelf. A picture of her eternally sleeping form, framed in pink, rests to the left. To the right, a small silver keepsake box sits mostly empty.
Behind this stands a small statue of a mother and father holding a tiny statue baby, gazed upon by two statue girls. This shrine to such a love lost stands to remind us that she lived, if only for a moment, and was, indeed part of our family.
Heather's sister came into town in August, bringing her two infant children. She asked us to watch them for her one night. I had found myself rocking Clara's cousin, Avery to sleep. I sang to him the only lullaby I could find in my fractured heart. It was "Silent Lucidity", and somehow it felt right. I think I even felt my heart healing a tiny bit. Maybe.
All seemed to be going well, as well as I could tell, anyway. You see, this was to be my first child. She would be Heather's third, and this prior experience was paramount to the smooth 42 weeks we had enjoyed, thus far. I had been so elated the first time I placed my hand on Heather's belly and felt a little tiny kick in response. Once or twice I even played "Shave and a Haircut" on my wife's swollen tummy and would laugh out loud as "Two Bits" would kick back from the babe within.
We had stockpiled clothing and diapers. We had shopped for toys and car seats. We had already picked a name, Clara Edith Webb.
So sure we were that nothing would, or could, go wrong. What fools time makes of us all, when pride blinds us. I mean, surely, after almost a full year of life on the road, pulling together what funds we could to get by, this gift from God was a herald of change for our family... wasn't it? What God would let this suffering worsen? What God would hold such joy and hope over us, only to snatch it away? No, this was meant to be, this was meant to happen. A reward for our faith and patience. And all Glory unto Him for this blessing! Amen...and all that jazz.
After much worry and waiting, 42 weeks had come and gone. The decision was made to seek aid from the hospital. And we, two smiling idiots, sent the girls to visit family, loaded up in our friends' car and chugged across town to the hospital, joking all the way. Grinning like a pair of Cheshire Cats driving a minivan across Wonderland.
And, why not? I was about to officially be a daddy! My life was about to change. I would finally get to have a taste of those years I had missed while my stepchildren were growing up. And they would be there to enjoy watching little Clara grow. This was right - more right than anything before had ever been!
My high school girlfriend, who had finally become my wife, and I were going to have a family together. Clara would heal any hidden fears from Heather that I would just decide to leave some day. She would show our parents that we were self reliant and capable. She was our salvation and our reward.
It all crumbled when, upon checking for her heartbeat (on the delivery table, no less), it was discovered that she had passed on from within her mother's womb. Her umbilical cord still attached. No words can ever describe the agony of hearing your smiley nurse saying to the attending physician that she can't find the pulse.
I will never be able to lessen the dark image of her limp body being popped from my wife's open belly. Her still pink flesh, covered in a thin brown fluid and traces of her own mother's badly infected blood. This will forever be frozen in my darkest memories.
Her ashes sit in a tiny urn upon our bookshelf. A picture of her eternally sleeping form, framed in pink, rests to the left. To the right, a small silver keepsake box sits mostly empty.
Behind this stands a small statue of a mother and father holding a tiny statue baby, gazed upon by two statue girls. This shrine to such a love lost stands to remind us that she lived, if only for a moment, and was, indeed part of our family.
Heather's sister came into town in August, bringing her two infant children. She asked us to watch them for her one night. I had found myself rocking Clara's cousin, Avery to sleep. I sang to him the only lullaby I could find in my fractured heart. It was "Silent Lucidity", and somehow it felt right. I think I even felt my heart healing a tiny bit. Maybe.
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