In the days following Harper’s birth, Eric and I felt compelled to start writing. We wanted to remember as many details of May 21st and 22nd as possible. I was still in shock when I wrote most of this. It is a very raw, detailed account of what happened to us those days.

Today Harper would be 3 months old. In memory of her, I would like to share part of her story on the 22nd of each month. You can read part I of Harper's story here: HARPER'S STORY :: PART I

-A

I could feel my heart begin to rip in two as my doctor went on to explain that Harper’s heart was not beating. He showed us the four chambers of the heart and we could see how still it was. We could also see how perfect our baby looked. Perfectly developed and whole in every way. Eric asked if they could do an emergency delivery and somehow get her heart to start beating.

“I’m so sorry guys. That’s not possible. We don’t know why this happens, but it does happen. It’s an awful thing, but it does happen. It’s nothing that you did or could have done differently.” -Dr. Weinstein

I felt like I was having a panic attack. Surely this couldn’t be real. Surely our baby girl wasn’t dead inside of me. I immediately asked my doctor to perform a c-section. Cutting her out of me was the quickest way to end the feeling of carrying a lifeless body inside of me. Did anyone really expect me to labor through the birth of my daughter, and endure all of the physical pain that comes along with that, when we knew the end result would be a dead baby? Dr. Weinstein told us to take a moment and talk about it. Although the thought of a vaginal delivery was horrific, a c-section might be even worse. The recovery that comes along with a c-section would drag on much longer and there would be a scar to forever mark the hell that was this day.

The doctor and nurses stepped out of the room and Eric fell over me. We both started weeping and staring at each other in disbelief through our tears. She was our baby girl. The daughter that Eric had always wanted and the daughter that I never knew I did.

How could this be happening to us?

We tried to process the news and the journey sitting in front of us as best we could. We decided that I should try to deliver vaginally. Our bodies, hearts, and minds were in shock. The nurse took us to LDR 7- the room where I would deliver my dead baby girl. They handed me a blue hospital gown and I headed towards the bathroom to change. I was numb. It felt completely unreal- an out of body experience. I had purchased a cute pink hospital gown to wear for Harper’s delivery, just like I had for my two sons. I didn’t have the gown with me and surprisingly I didn’t care. I didn’t have any makeup on because I had cried it all away and I didn’t care. My hair was a complete disaster but I just didn’t care. The weight of the tragic news we had just received made every single one of my materialistic worries fade away. Nothing mattered anymore.

My doctor came into our room to check my cervix. I was 2cm dilated. My nurse came in to start my IV (pitocin and fluids) and hook me up to the monitor. She also placed a blood pressure cuff on my arm and a heart rate monitor on my finger. She asked me questions about my health history and wanted to know if I would be wanting an epidural. Everything that was happening felt extremely familiar and normal. I had been induced with both of my sons, so I knew the drill. This part was not new to me, but in the back of my mind I knew the ending would be different.

Not sure of what to do next, Eric and I started to contact family & friends about the awful news. Word spread quickly and within the hour we had dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people covering us in prayer. Some of our closest friends stopped by the hospital to physically lay hands on us and pray. Most of them did not have words for us, and we didn’t have words for them either. We just sat there and sobbed into one another.

In between visitors, our minds were racing with questions. I specifically remember wondering: Why is this happening to us? What have we done to deserve this? How long had my daughter’s lifeless body been floating around inside of me? I should have noticed her lack of movement sooner. Was it something that I ate? Had I had too much caffeine? What was the thing that caused her heart to stop beating?

Eric took a moment to pray over the two of us and our baby girl. He prayed for God to perform some kind of miracle. That she would be born and that her heart would begin beating once again by the power of God. We wanted to believe that God could heal our daughter. She had so many people praying for her. Was it crazy to believe that such a miracle could happen?

At some point during all of this, the nurses came in to give us a basket of support from an organization called Hope Mommies. This group was formed by women in the area who had experienced the same type of loss that we were in the midst of. The basket was filled with several books on the topic, a willow tree angel, a candle, letters of empathetic words, a Bible and much more. A nurse also came in to drop off a folder filled with pamphlets of information for people dealing with the loss of a child as well as a list of funeral homes to choose from. Not only did we have to grapple with the thought that we would never be bringing our daughter home with us, but we now had to start thinking of her funeral and burial. No parent ever imagines that they will have to plan a funeral for their own child. That they’ll have to pick a cemetery for their own child. That they’ll have to design the tombstone which will sit at the base of their child’s burial plot. It felt so wrong.

Every single bit of it felt so wrong.

A little after 9 pm, Eric’s parents arrived at our house to be with the boys. I felt so much relief knowing that they were being taken care of and loved by their Nana and Papa. They were so excited to see their grandparents that they didn’t even think about what had happened to their Mama and Dada. They were clueless to the fact that the little sister they had been longing for and counting down the days to would never be. Eric and I completely dreaded the fact that we would have to explain the news to Hudson, our 4 year old. How do you explain something to an innocent child that is so depressing, something that is incomprehensible even to a grown adult?

Eventually, a girl named Whitney (a complete stranger to us)  came to visit. She explained how she was a member at Prestonwood, the church that Eric and I had attended for the past 7 years. As soon as she got word of our story, she rushed to the hospital to be with us. Unfortunately, Whitney was all too familiar with what we were going through. She and her husband had experienced the same tragedy just 8 short months ago in September of 2017. We could see the look of sorrow in her eyes as she spoke to us. She knew well the pain and heartbreak of the path that lie before us. She knew all of the details that we couldn’t even imagine would be a part of our journey. She offered to call the list of funeral homes for us to get pricing. She knew this was the last thing we wanted to be doing. She told us more about ‘Hope Mommies’ and what a ministry it had been to her and her family. She gave us her number and asked us to please reach out if there was anything at all that we needed. Once she was gone, I sat in my hospital bed feeling a little less alone than I had before. I knew that I had just met a girl that would probably become one of my closest friends. There were so many similarities in our stories and it was so easy for Whitney to relate to me.

Finally, Eric and I decided to try and get some sleep. We were physically and emotionally drained from the past 12 hours. We managed to get about 3 hours of sleep total. I woke up a couple of times in between only to realize that my life was still a living hell. I was still in the hospital and my story was the same. It hadn’t been a horrible nightmare. It was real and it was here to stay. On top of all this, it was my 7th wedding anniversary to the man lying across the room on the horribly uncomfortable hospital couch bed. Who would have guessed 7 years ago on our wedding day that this would be our future together?

-A

*read part III of Harper’s story here*