On this morning five years ago I was given the most painful, sad news I had ever received. It was nothing more than an, "I'm sorry.", from that day's resident on the birth floor. But those words, which can be so common, so normal, so over used, were heavy, wrought with meaning. With those two words the thing I had been waiting for all my life and more recently the thing I had been most anticipating for the previous 36 weeks came to a crashing halt. There was no more heartbeat, that beautiful "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" I had heard for the first time just five months before was silent. I remember lying on the hospital bed, looking at the ceiling and feeling the tears run from the corners of my eyes & down my cheeks. I remember thinking (well, maybe not thinking so much as hoping) for a moment that the resident must have been sorry about something else and that my baby was going just fine. I remember wanting to go home and pretend this wasn't happening or at least to go get the bag I'd been preparing to pack for the "big day". In my mind having the opportunity to pack for myself chapstick, slippers & my own pillow in a colorful pillowcase, lest it be confused with the hospital pillows, just like BabyCenter's "what to bring to the hospital" email had told me to do, was something I didn't want someone else to do for me. I think I wanted to experience everything that I could because I knew that I wasn't going to get to experience the most important thing, bringing my baby, my first child, home. But I didn't get to go home. I was put into a hospital gown and the induction process started.
About a month before we had attended our childbirth class and were given a tour of the birth floor. We passed a door that had a photo of a rose on it. When we were safely away from that room the instructor told us that they put that photo on the door so that any staff coming into the room knows that the baby inside will not be born alive. That morning my door had a photo of a rose on it.
The waiting room quickly filled with my family. I could say friends and family but the friends that were there, Aaron, Annie, Coleen, are my just as much my family as the ones I share blood with. They were there to support us, pray with us and for us, and they stayed holding our hands and our hearts as we waited for our baby to come. Today I am remembering their support & love. Tomorrow I will remember my Allen Michael. Forever I will remember this. My story, Allen Michael's story, and as was so poignently pointed out to me this week, most importantly God's story.
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