What happened?

The first question people want to ask when they hear that we had a stillbirth two weeks ago is, "Do you know what happened?"  The short answer is no, we don't know.  Baby John was perfectly formed with all ten fingers and toes, the cord wasn't around his neck, there were no known genetic abnormalities, and when we had his sonogram every organ from his baby bladder to his brain looked perfect.

On Thursday, April 24,  at 36 and a half weeks pregnant I woke up feeling sad and depressed for no apparent reason. I cried easily all day and figured this was part of the hormonal craziness of the end of pregnancy. In hind sight, I think my heart knew before I did.  The day was busy with the hustle and bustle of caring for four boys and it wasn't until I had them all in bed and sat down that I realized it had been a while since I'd felt the baby move.  I started tracking kick counts.  I even thought I felt a couple, but I think you can feel anything if you want to badly enough. By 1:30 that night I called my doctor and he said to come in.

Even on the way to the hospital I wasn't panicked, I had been scared at different times during all of my previous pregnancies and everything had turned out fine. I even said to my husband as we entered the maternity ward how excited I was to finally meet this baby.

When the first nurse was having trouble finding the heartbeat, my optimism still hadn't faded. As the second nurse came in and also couldn't find the heartbeat it just didn't seem real.  And when they finally brought in a doctor with a sonogram machine and he said, "I'm sorry, there is no cardiac activity" I felt myself willing this not to happen.  My first words were, "I'm not strong enough. I can't do this."  My husband and I cried and mourned and he tried to comfort me as I knew I still had to give birth to this baby who was really already gone.

The labor was slow and took all night and all day.  This time was painful but also a gift in that we had time to process what was happening and let reality sink in.  At one point the nurses asked if we planned on having our other children see the baby. My first instinct as a mom was to shield them from this heartbreak and protect them from having the image of their dead baby brother forever burned into their memories.  But over the course of the day, I realized that this might be one of our most teachable moments ever as parents.  How can we speak of the resurrection if we are afraid to face death? This was following on the tails of Easter and I wanted the boys to really know in the depths of their hearts that death is not the end and that we have eternal life waiting for us.  This decision proved to be very graced for all of us.

John Paul Miki was born at 7:18 pm on 4/25/14 at 7 lbs 2oz.  After Keith and I had some time alone with baby John, my parents brought the boys in and they got to hold and kiss him.  My second son later said that although this made him sad, it helped make it more real that he has a brother in heaven.  My five year old still didn't fully understand since later he asked, "When do we get to bring him home?".  Through tears I told him that he doesn't get to come home with us.  And although this time was so deeply sorrowful, it was filled with hope too as we told the boys how happy John is in heaven and how death is not the end.  We told him that our goal as parents is to get them to heaven and that John won... he beat us there.  I told them that Jesus came to abolish death and that one day He will wipe away every tear from our eyes and death and sadness will be no more.

Several nights later at dinner our oldest son raised his glass and said, "Cheers to John's victory".  We kind of looked at him for a second in stunned silence, and he continued, "John won the race, he's in heaven".

These moments when I was trying to comfort and teach my children these truths so central to our faith have proven to be a comfort to me.  I have to tell myself over and over again as I ache for my baby that he is in heaven and someday we will be reunited.

Countless times I have asked myself, "What happened? Why? Why?"  The truth is we just don't know.  As a mom I have gone over everything in my head a thousand times looking for a reason, or something I did to cause this, and there really isn't one.  I don't know how to make sense of this tragedy, all I can do is hope that God is using it as a teachable moment too.