Hali Rae Stone ~ Psalm 139:13-16

   

   

     Hali Rae Stone. My girl. A little bit of pink in our world of blue. How she would have changed the dynamic of our family.

How she did change our family.

I have been pregnant at some point in every year since 2014, so when 2018 was turning into 2019, I was determined that I was going to take 2019 off from being pregnant. I wanted to lose some weight, get Randall started with school and sports, and get Caleb out of babydom and well into toddlerhood before we even decided if we were going to try for number 4. But, as most people who do natural family planning will tell you, it doesn't always go the way you plan. So early August when I took a test, knowing that it was a possibility but really doubting it, I didn't even wait for the results, I laid the  test on the counter and got busy doing other things and forgot about it until a couple of hours later when I walked back into the bathroom and saw those life changing two pink lines. My exact words were:

"What in the actual HELL is that?!"

Then I laid in the fetal position on the bathroom floor for awhile.

Then I called my sister and had a proper meltdown.

Then I cleaned the entire house.

Needless to say, I was slightly overwhelmed and not totally happy with being pregnant again. Caleb was only 9 months old, Randall was about to start school and soccer, and to be honest, I had not had an uninterrupted nights sleep in 4+ years and I was tired.

Patrick was in Durham that day visiting his dad and when he got home around 11:30 that night, he walked into the bathroom to this:

By the time Patrick got home, I had calmed down and remembered that babies are always a good thing and another Stone kid would only make life better.

So we settled in for another pregnancy and for the first time I wouldn't have to be pregnant over the summer which I was excited about and we already had a Summer, Winter, and Fall baby so a Spring baby seemed like the perfect way to complete our family.

We went for our first appointment on September 9th when I was 7 weeks 6 days and the baby looked perfect. She was measuring right on schedule and had a nice strong heartbeat. As usual, seeing that little nugget on the screen and hearing that heartbeat makes a mama fall head over in heels in love. I still didn't know how I was going to manage 4 kids under 5, but I couldn't wait to bring that sweet baby home.

That appointment was on a Monday.

The following Sunday, my Hali's heart stopped beating.

We left for the beach that day and spent a great week with our 3 boys. We got lots of comments about our sweet guys and everybody wanted to know if we were hoping for a girl.

We also made our pregnancy announcement that week. I wanted to take advantage of being at the beach and planned out how to do it.

We didn't know she was already gone.

We got home from the beach on September 21st, a Saturday, and that Wednesday I went to the bathroom and found blood.

I immediately starting crying and saying "Oh no, oh no, oh please, oh please, don't ask this of me". I called my midwife and she said it didn't necessarily mean a miscarriage but that I should come in and get an ultrasound. We scheduled an appointment for that Friday September 27th. We were hopeful when we went in for the appointment, I wasn't cramping and we thought maybe I had a hematoma or some other explanation that would reassure us that the baby was just fine. But as soon as my midwife pulled up the image on the screen, I could see that the baby was the same size as the last time we were there, and there was no little flicker of life thumping away.

I didn't know how to process what was happening at first. How do you ingest such painful information? In just a few seconds, our lives were changed forever. Our baby was dead. We had lost a child. We had 4 children but would only get to raise 3 of them. That's not good enough. I want all my children with me. I want to be the one taking care of them, comforting them when they are sad, laughing with them over silly things, making sure they are always fed, and warm at night in their beds. I couldn't fathom going through life with one of my children far away from me.

How do we do this?

The next few days were tough. We already had plans to spend the weekend in Durham to celebrate Patrick's Dad's birthday and his retirement and after a lot of thought we decided to go ahead with our plans. We got home Sunday evening around 7 and almost immediately I started cramping. We went through the bedtime routine and by the time they boys were asleep, I was having full on, painful contractions.

Now, what they tell you to expect when you are facing a miscarriage is "a heavy period'. I am here to tell you that it was absolutely not like a heavy period. It was like a birth. Labor and delivery, complete with very painful contractions, water breaking, delivery of the afterbirth, so much blood and tissue, and what is usually the best part, the part that makes it all worth it, your baby.

It was really important to me to get a chance to see her and hold her, so when my water broke, I moved into the shower so that I could retrieve her body when it came out. Hali was about 2.3 cm long and weighed approximately 2 grams, about the size of a grape. She had weight in this world, she mattered, she was significant. Patrick was still laying down with the boys and did not know all this was going on, so it took me throwing a couple of shampoo bottles at the wall to get his attention, and then he brought a container to place her body in and helped me to get cleaned up. After it was over we sat with her for awhile, cried and talked to her, telling her how much we wanted her and were so sad that she had to leave us.

We are so thankful that we felt prompted to get the early blood work done to find out if we were having a boy or a girl, it helped us a lot to know why we lost her and to be able to name her and call her our daughter has been an important step in our grief process. We found out that Hali is what they call a "trisomy 13 baby" (also called Patau syndrome), meaning that she had 3 copies of chromosome 13 instead of the usual 2 and this causes some pretty major physical and mental disabilities in the babies that survive until birth, and even then most of those babies don't survive more then a week outside of the womb.

We can see where the Lord was gracious in all of this, to get this news before we knew anything was wrong would have been devastating. To spend time being pregnant, knowing that I was probably going to lose her before the 40 weeks was up, would have been devastating. To carry her to term and deliver her, only to have her be covered in tubes and breathing machines, to not be able to hold her, or to hold her while she died would have been devastating. 

I know that the Lord spared me from all of that, but still.....I would have gone through all of that just to have more time with her.

I would like to say that I have handled this gracefully and have continued to praise the name of Jesus through all of this, but the truth is that I'm struggling. Why did this happen? What is He trying to teach me and how dare He use my daughter to instill some life lesson onto me? I don't care if she is in "a better place" or that she was "born into the arms of Jesus", she is mine and I want her back. Is she up there wondering where her mama is? Does she know how much I love her and want her? Does she know that sometimes I can't breath thinking about her? I want to scream, to demand that He give her back, because nobody will take better care of her then I will. Nobody loves her more then I do.

Those are my darkest thoughts. I'm sharing them because I know I'm not alone in them. I know that some of you reading this know these thoughts so well because they are yours too.

I know that actually Somebody does love Hali more then I do, and I know that she would not come back to us if she was given the choice. I know that she is not cold or hungry, or calling for a mama that isn't there. I know that she will never feel this pain that I am feeling now. I know all of this. Its just sometimes in my deepest pit of grief, it does not matter. And other times, it means everything.

I often feel broken, and like I will never feel whole again but in my desperation for Hali's life to mean something, I want to know what the Lord is about in this. How do I trust Him, knowing that He can allow this much pain? I have to continually make the choice to walk down this road of drawing closer to Him and not a road of bitterness and despair. My husband and my three beautiful children need me to find a way to heal and choose to focus on what is, instead of what might have been.

We buried her right outside our bedroom window, in a mason jar, filled with love notes from her mama and daddy. We plan to plant a butterfly bush there in the spring.

It has taken me awhile to write her story and I think it feels like when I share it, that it will be the end, and I'm not ready for that. As I'm writing these final words, its been 5 months since she died and yes, the pain is less intense, and I no longer cry everyday, and I can talk about her without breaking down, but oh man, do I still miss her. My idea of Heaven was always a little blurry, there was the streets of gold, big houses, maybe some angel choirs, but now it is much more simple. When I picture Heaven now, its just me sitting in a small room, holding my daughter, rocking and singing and kissing her precious face. I will continue to love my life here on earth, but I wait in anticipation for that sweet day.