I met my wife Kim while I was in my second year of college. At the time I wasn’t specifically looking for a relationship, but I quickly fell in love. Six months after meeting Kim I asked her to marry me! Nine months later we were married. Even though we didn’t date very long, I felt like I’d known her all of my life. We had the same dreams, plans, passions and desires. We both loved God, music (in fact that was what drew us together), and both ultimately had a desire to have children.
We waited for five years before deciding to move forward with trying to have children. Once we started trying, Kim almost immediately became pregnant with our first daughter Isabella! What a blessing she was to us. The pregnancy was relatively easy, no complications during birth. It was basically a “text book” pregnancy. Not long after that she was pregnant with our first son Caleb. Once again it was a pretty smooth pregnancy and delivery.
In the mean time, several friends of ours suffered losses during their pregnancies. Two of these losses were stillbirths. We tried our best to walk along side these couples and provide the best support we could, but we often felt inadequate to share any hope or comfort to them. Often times our words seemed empty and cliché. Often times I wondered why this was happening all around us and would begin to fear that God was somehow preparing us for something.
We then found out that Kim was pregnant for the third time. During this time Kim contracted a virus called “CMV”. The doctors immediately went on to tell us that this is one of the leading causes of stillbirths, miscarriage, and downs syndrome. We were heartbroken and scared. Sometimes, fear of the unknown can feel as debilitating as the loss itself. I can still recall one of the doctors giving us our options. One of the “options” was ending the pregnancy. This was never an option for us. We believe that God is the giver of life, and only He has the right to decided whether or not the child will live on this earth or not. We began preparing ourselves for the worst, but continued planning and praying for the best.
We met with a specialist throughout the pregnancy and were often reassured that everything was looking well. That’s when our little Lilah was born, a completely healthy little girl who would quickly become the “fireball” in the family. She can be the most loving and sweet little girl you’ve ever seen, but in the same breath she can be very scrappy and strong willed!
Approximately two years after having Lilah we found out that Kim was pregnant again. This was not a planned pregnancy, but we were excited nonetheless. We started wondering if Caleb would finally have the brother he always wanted… In fact we were positive that this was a little boy! Approximately four months into the pregnancy, Kim went in for a normal checkup. I stayed home with Lilah and Caleb that day and Isabella was in school. That’s when Kim called home and told me they couldn’t hear a heartbeat. She was going in for an emergency ultrasound… All of my fears immediately came to surface. I began praying and questioning God, pleading with Him to spare the life of our little baby. The moment I arrived, Kim was coming out of the ultrasound room. Everything was fine… We were so relieved. But deep down we still had a sense of insecurity about this pregnancy.
One month later Kim went in for another appointment. I received a similar call… I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I knew that at this point they should have been able to hear the heartbeat. I immediately rushed in to meet Kim. This time when the ultrasound image came up, there was no heartbeat. We were absolutely shocked… We just couldn’t understand why this was happening. The next twenty-four hours were a blur. We were immediately scheduled for delivery at the hospital. We were there through the night. The next day, March 10th, 2007 Kim gave birth to our second son. We named him Braydon, which means, “called of God”. We were able to hold him for a little while and pray with him. This was by far the darkest moment of my life. We buried him across the street from Kim’s parents home where she grew up.
As we began the grieving process, we both dealt with our pain quite differently. It seemed to me that Kim was diving head first into the grief process. She locked herself in our bedroom and wept, wrote letters to Braydon in her journal, paged through his pictures and held the paper with his footprints and birth certificate. I however withdrew… I felt that I needed to be strong for my family and for those around me. I poured my time and energy into our other kids, the house, and my job. This seemed to work for a while, but I was dying inside. I began to resent God, resent work, and started struggling with deep, deep anger. I had bottled everything up so much that at one point it all exploded.
One day I decided to take the family to Baltimore for the day to clear our minds and have some fun together. It seemed like a great idea at the time. We were about 15 minutes away from the aquarium when traffic came to a standstill… I tried several alternate routes but it just kept getting worse. At one point I was trying to get back onto the highway and someone wouldn’t let me in. I proceeded to roll down my window, flipped him off, and shouted every curse word I’ve ever heard or known all in one breath!!! I even offered to help him out of his car! Kim and the kids were shocked… They’ve never seen me act like this before.
After that incident, I realized that I needed people in my life to talk through these issues and frustrations with. God placed several amazing people around Kim & I to help us through that time. Many of them were the same friends we had reached out to during their time of loss. When you talk with someone who’s been through something similar, there’s an amazing bond that forms between you. We’ve described it many times as being part of a special club that you never would have signed up for, but you’re so thankful for the other people who are in it. It’s so important to know that you’re not alone.
Once we experienced the outpouring of love and support from others who had lost, we wanted to reach out and use our story to help others heal as well. We decided to start a support group for couples who have lost babies. Our first meeting felt like such a sacred time. As we began to share, we began to heal. As we began to reach out, God began to reach in and start making something beautiful out of our brokenness.
After our group had been together for a few months, we found out that three of us were pregnant again and were expecting within weeks of each other! The next eight months felt like an eternity. We were all seeing the same doctors and specialist, sharing war stories and gynecological nightmares!!! It really was a blast!!! It was so comforting though to have a safe environment to share our hopes, dreams, and fears. We felt such support throughout the pregnancy even though we were often getting mixed signals from the specialists. We still had a peace throughout the pregnancy mainly because of the amazing people we had to lean on. Our friends gave birth to two amazing little girls Sadie and Macy! We were so excited for them!!!
On July 15th our precious little Adeline was born. She spent one week in the NICU and came home completely healthy! She has been such a blessing to our family. It hasn’t completely taken the pain away from losing our little Braydon, but having Adeline has definitely brought a new sense of Joy into our home. We thank God each day for each of our children, including Braydon.
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