Preparing for Abigail's Birth and Death

Our 7-year-old son loves to brush my hair and play with it. Every day this week our 3-year-old has been on my bed playing LEGO pretend with me. I've had lots of good talks with each of our five sons these past few weeks, but only the older three have been warned about the upcoming surgery mommy is going to have on Abigail's birthday.

We are 33 weeks along in the pregnancy, and the C-section is scheduled for February 25th, 2020. This gives us one extra week from what we initially thought we'd have. She will be born at 37 weeks and be considered full term. All the plans we have made for the birth, commemoration, and graveside service are coming together, but it feels surreal. 

Time should stand still in this moment.

Since time is not actually standing still, I find myself resenting its passage. It doesn't make sense that time should go by in the ordinary way, with breakfast and lunch and dinner, with children's waking and sleeping cycles, and with messes to clean up and obligations to keep.

One special thing that seemed to make time hold still for a moment was meeting my brand new nephew on the 18th of January, when he was about eight days old. To smell newborn baby and touch soft, tiny fingers and toes is to come near to heaven. He was still so sleepy and only opened his eyes for a short time during my brief visit, but it was wonderful to sense the special spirit he carries. I am grateful to my sister for sharing those precious moments with me.

I've been reading some beautiful stories about heaven from people who claim to remember it or to have visited it during a health crisis, attack, or accident. When they talk about the incredible variety of colors in fields of flowers, I cry. I know Abigail must love the flowers in heaven. I hope we can give her something like it here on Earth, in her garden and on her grave. I want to create spaces where her spirit will feel welcome to visit us. I don't know what form her post-earth missions will take, and what kind of work she will be doing, but I believe she will always joy in beautiful flowers.

As life goes on, we spend time each day thinking about Abigail and solidifying plans for her birth and death. Last week, Bill put a wood stain on her casket. I love that he has been able to spend time with this project, and put his energy into something for our first daughter.

Yesterday we confirmed the date of the c-section with the hospital and visited a funeral home to make arrangements. Each step we take toward the birth and death of Abigail Reileen feels like a step closer toward finality. Our relationship with her will forever change. Some people felt even closer to their babies after they passed, and I very much hope that will be the case with us.

We learned that in the same town as the funeral home is a floral store owned by a couple who lost a baby last year, and that to honor babies who pass away, they provide a free floral casket spray for the service. I am touched by all the ways people choose to remember their children and to pay it forward to others who are going through the same thing. At an organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, local photographers offer to come take pictures of the family and the baby to commemorate the lives of these special souls who stay so briefly on earth. There are groups of nurses and grievance counselors who are also bereaved parents wanting to comfort those who stand in need of comfort and to mourn with those who mourn. The services they provide are tender and helpful beyond what they can possibly know. I hope we can find ways to use our own talents and gifts to share with those who are suffering through this and similar griefs.

Bill and I are grateful to everyone who has extended expressions of love and kindness toward us during this long goodbye. It is impossible to tally or rate how much these expressions mean to us now and how much they will continue to mean in the future as we look back on these long days and short weeks. Thank you for loving us, our boys, and Abigail Reileen. May God bless and keep you in his tender embrace always.

Something Soft for Abigail

I wanted to help with Abigail's casket so today I made a cushion to lay her on. There are still many things to do and arrange, from her temporary grave marker to a vault for her casket. Details I didn't expect to be focusing on at 32 weeks pregnant.

Her cushion is made of just the prettiest fabric I could find, something that might have made a lovely sundress under different circumstances. Because everything about Abigail Réileen is sunshine to me. 

Her flower garden won't bloom until a few months after her death, but it will bloom every year. We'll make sure of that. 

I just know that Abigail would have loved a garden, and I hope in some way that she still will. Some things you can simply sense, like the feeling I have that Abigail is an optimist. Her spirit is so strong, and maybe a little bit mischievous, but she is full of life and full of hope. Gardens are all about life and hope.

So this beautiful shimmering flowery print seemed a perfect thing on which to lay her when we have to put her down for the last time.

The more Bill and I talk about the details, and the closer the inevitable day creeps, the more surreal the whole thing feels. We should be planning for a birth, and we are, but the birth is so closely shadowed by a death. My nesting instincts usually have me painting or cleaning to prepare the house and nursery space. But now all that nervous anticipation is channeled into trying to honor Abigail in the way she deserves. I can't let her down, and yet I already feel like I have.

Doing these little things helps me to feel like I'm doing something for her. Of course nothing feels big enough. What would you do to honor your firstborn daughter?

Only four weeks to go.

More Difficult News

On Sunday this week, Katrina and I were reading together from a book we have on dealing with loss of a baby and part of what we read was on making a birth plan.  We've done this before with our previous pregnancies, but this was going to be a whole different ball game.  We knew we were going to have the birth in the hospital, so we had to make our birth plan taking that into account.  It was a difficult process, but we got through it.

On Wednesday, Katrina and I visited the Maternal Fetal Medicine department at the hospital in Provo.  Katrina has already been there once before.  I went with Katrina this time for a follow up visit to see how things were coming along.  The first lady who came in, who wasn't the doctor, performed a routine ultrasound and got some basic pictures of the Abigail for us.  Another nurse was in the room to record how Katrina is doing on taking her vitamins.  The first nurse let us know that Abigail was head down.  That confused us a little bit because we knew she's connected to the placenta, so we didn't think it would be possible to be head down.  That was one of the things we had talked about on Sunday that we were worried about, if Abigail didn't go in the head down position, it wasn't likely Katrina would be able to push her out.  But finding out she was head down gave us a lot of hope.

Next came in the doctor.  She is a very nice lady and she was happy to see that I had come along for this appointment.  Last appointment she had stressed to Katrina that none of what is going on with Abigail is Katrina's fault and she pointed to the empty chair and said how she usually told the husband to make sure his wife understood that point, so I wanted to make sure I was there for the next appointment.  She sat down and started doing some more ultrasound work.  Quickly the conversation turned to the birth.  She mentioned how it was good that Abigail's head was down, but with this ultrasound, her previous suspicion was confirmed: Abigail's head was fused with the placenta.  This meant that even if her legs came out during the birth, there was some, but very little chance that the head would follow.  So this meant one thing and that was the best option for us was for Katrina to have a c-section.  This would also give us a slight chance of being able to see and talk to Abigail before she dies.  With a natural birth, there was very little chance Abigail would have been born alive, so we are happy to upgrade from little to slight.  I'm still very scared for the c-section.  I personally know a few people that have had bad experiences and I want to protect my wife from whatever I can.  I know the doctors will do the best that they can.  I'm still scared out of my mind.  We went to my parents house right after so we could spend a few minutes talking to them.  My dad has always been great at listening and then when he could sense I said my peace, he talked to me about other stuff like sports to get my mind off of the c-section.  My mom listened as well and offered to make an angel wing cross stitch for us.

I knew Heavenly Father brought us to Mona for a reason.  The more I think about it, the more I feel like He was bringing us closer to my family so they could help me process this difficulty.

Abigail's Heart

One thing that has been consistent through the ups and downs of learning about Abigail's acrania/anencephaly and the amniotic band syndrome that caused them is her perfect heart. 

At 18 weeks when we went in to Kicks 'n Giggles to find out her sex, we bought this memento of her heartrate on a whim. We are now so grateful we did. 

When I'm really feeling low, I play back the doppler sound of her heart beating rhythmically. Her heart is still going strong. 

When it stops, we will mourn, but I always want this reminder that she lived and that her heart beat powerfully all the while. ❤️❤️❤️💓

A Spoonful of Sugar-Coating

January 7, 2020
I've mentioned how powerful and peaceful temple service has been during this time, helping me to grasp at eternity and to broaden my perspective to see Abigail's life in terms of forever, rather than the deeply felt loss of her life here on earth. Last week, we missed our temple date because Wednesday fell on New Years, and we just didn't make it out the weekend after.

This, combined with a rather unpleasant visit to the doctor's office on Friday, sent me into a dreary gulch emotionally that lasted beyond the weekend. Despite a long and cathartic conversation with my amazing midwife, I've struggled to shake this wave of grief. It's a grief renewed by some phrases and images conjured by a doctor who thought I needed to relive the diagnosis of ABS (Amniotic Band Syndrome) and the prognosis of certain death for my baby and potentially a very difficult labor for both of us.

He had communicated with the maternal fetal medicine doctor about her findings via ultrasound, and for some reason thought I needed a rehashing of the situation and his own worst-case scenario fears.

This was unwelcome and unhelpful.

Since November 8, I've gotten used to the phrase, "I don't want to sugarcoat things, so..."

It's not my favorite phrase. Like I've said, I'm the type of person who asks questions and wants to understand the full picture. I appreciate honesty in medical practitioners.

I also value my emotional health and sanity, and I understand that where you train your focus can often build your reality in incredible ways. I wish more medical practitioners understood that the mental and emotional state of a woman about to give birth is intimately married to her outcomes. A woman in panic will not have a peaceful birth. I can only imagine how a woman in grief will fare. As I fight for my emotional well-being in the face of discouraging worst-case scenarios, I could use a little help from the people tasked with supporting my physical well-being.

Mary Poppins famously sang about a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down. I appreciated the way Dr. Feltovich struck this balance. She may have had fears and worst-case scenarios going through her head, but she wasn't bent on planting them in my imagination. She didn't sugar-coat things, but she didn't knock the spoonful of sugar from my trembling hands either.

My biggest complaint, and this comes out of my gulch, the one I'm still trying to fight my way out of, is that some obstetrics practitioners take their detachment to an extreme. I am weary of hearing about how they are going to prioritize my physical health at the expense of Abigail's, simply because her expected outcome is poor. I am tired of being told that, since she's going to die anyway, the goal is to get her out without too much damage to me, as if she weren't real or important.

That's my baby you're talking about.

I know that people generally don't know what to say. Heck, I don't know what to say either. That's why you see so few comments from me after other people's beautiful and supportive comments on my facebook posts or here on the blog.

My wish would be that everyone who has something to do with bringing Abigail into this world could be on the same page about something: she's a person. She's our person. We LOVE her. We are grieving her and celebrating her at the same time. The language we use to talk about her is not detached, and we don't want your language to be detached, either. We are all humans dealing with other humans, and Abigail is just as human and just as valuable as I am. We want her birth to be handled with human dignity, and not with fear-based urgency.

I am trying to learn from the many, many mothers and babies who have gone before Abigail and me. One thing I've heard repeated from these mothers is how they wish they had spent less time dreading or fearing or mourning the future outcome of their angels, and more time enjoying the life within them. I feel that the well-intentioned lack of sugar-coating is creating more obstacles than we need to the goal of celebrating and enjoying Abigail's life while she is here.

It is unlikely that I will die during Abigail's birth, but if I die, it was meant to be. Neither of us needs for our final days to be made up of fearful dialogue and depressing thoughts.

I'm watching on social media as my favorite people all make New Year's Resolutions. It's a joyful and optimistic time for most people.

It's a beginning.

Though I know that something difficult and devastating awaits my family in the first few months of 2020, I also want to focus on what I can bring to this new year. The message I feel coming strongly through the veil between heaven and earth is to trust God in everything.

The saying goes that the devil is in the details, but I love to say that God is in the details. I have witnessed many miracles throughout my life, from prayers for the starting or stopping of rain to priesthood blessings to overcome serious illness. I have cheated death a few times, with angelic aid. I have healed from past trauma and sin through the atoning grace of Jesus Christ. All life is a miracle that I witness every day, flowers, mountains, pets, and people.

On facebook, a friend shared this Carrie Ten Boom quote:

NEVER BE AFRAID TO TRUST AN UNKNOWN FUTURE TO A KNOWN GOD.

The future is always unknown. Prognosticators will try to predict it, and we will always have wars and rumors of wars to keep us busy and fearful. But, "...God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).

That doesn't mean that difficult things don't exist. They are here mixed in with the good, like the life-constricting amniotic bands mixed with the life-preserving amniotic fluid in my womb right now. Opposition in all things is what makes this world grow and each human heart beat against the anarchy of the blood. We push up through the soil or out of the chrysalis or egg shell, and are born, over and over again, until we become ready for that final birth, the one called death. And there we are promised to enter into Christ's rest.

As my husband gently reminds me on a regular basis, because I need the reminder, we ARE keeping Abigail. But if we were allowed to keep her here on earth, Abigail would have soon learned to love to dance as much as I do. Like my five-year-old said, she would have gone to ballet with me. This necklace is the one I wear to remind me that she does dance. Club foot or no, she is dancing now in my womb. And soon she will dance with all the heavenly hosts. I do believe that one day we will dance together.

That's hope. It is as real and powerful as fear. Today, I choose hope.

Feel free to hope along with me, and thank you for the prayers and emotional support you have given to me and my family. I will never forget it.

Abigail's Casket

I wanted to do something for Abigail, something special.  We had been looking for different caskets for Abigail, but most looked like shoe boxes or storage containers.  I wanted to do something different for her and I wanted to put in the work to do it.  There is this friend I know, Gary Young, one of the most amazing guys you will ever meet.  He works in construction by trade (owns a business with his son), but he also does woodworking on the side.  We just happened to be going down to Toquerville for Christmas.  I was a little hesitant to give Gary a call.  He's a great guy to talk to, but I don't like talking about the situation with Abigail.  It takes too much energy out of me and I've never liked crying.  I even took a long drive to my parent's house in Christmas Eve to pick up some bed mattresses from my sister in law and thought it was a perfect opportunity to call and ask Gary if he could help, but I didn't do it because I exhausted my mind and spirit just thinking about it. 

When I got back home, Katrina had asked me if I called him yet, I told her no, so she called Gary on her phone, put it on speaker and then held it out of my arm's length so I had to talk to Gary. He was of course very gracious.  He's never done anything like this before, but he would be more than happy to help.

December 26th came.  We weren't sure if we were even going down to Toquerville.  Sam woke up that morning sick.  There had been some sickness going around our family.  But we went and Sam would just have to stick it out in the room that Grandma Renee was letting us stay in until he felt better.  We got down to Toquerville and I met up with Gary around 3:30.  The last time I saw Gary, it was when we moved. He had had a stroke only a month or so earlier and you could still see the remnants of the stroke.  As an attestation to how awesome he is, even after the stroke, he still came over to help us move.  This time when I saw him, he was back to his normal self, which was great to see.  He already had a bunch of wood cut for the sides and bottom of the casket, so we just needed to glue and nail them into place.  He didn't have a top yet, but we made some good progress that day.  I was only there for an hour or so, but we were able to make quick work.  Gary shared with me everything going on in the area since we left.  I was glad, because it helped to keep my mind off of the situation with Abigail.

Our first day progress

Gary asked that I come back on the 27th when he would have the top and we could finish off the rest of the casket (minus varnish and stain, we will do that at home).  Katrina and the kids came along on the 27th, though they didn't stay long because it was freezing outside and there was too much going on in Gary's shop for them to spend too much time in there.  But Katrina stuck around long enough to give Gary a hug and talk to him about Abigail a little and look at our progress

You could spend days looking around Gary's workshop

He always made sure I was getting my hands dirty.  He made sure I got to be involved in every step of the process.

We got the top situated and had to do some sanding to get the sides matched up.  We also put some handles on both sides so the boys can carry the casket if they want when we go to bury Abigail, and also some locks up top.

As I said before, I don't like talking about Abigail, but being able to work on the casket with Gary felt pretty cathartic.  Gary has always been a great friend and I feel a little sense of relief when I get to spend time with friends.  Plus, I get to give Abigail a gift that she will use until her body is ready to be resurrected.