This is an excerpt from my journal. It is not edited well, it is of a very personal nature and may be distressing to some.There is one fuzzy picture. So this post may not be for everyone, but I wanted to include it in my blog.
I was very happy
to discover I was pregnant again, in
August of 2012. This pregnancy was rough. From the very beginning I was
extremely sick, and unable to do more than get out of bed for 5 ½ weeks, but I dreamed clearly of a little boy, with dark eyes, his name was Nicholas.
The doctor was actually pleased with how sick I was, and told me that the
sickness was a positive sign. At around
10 weeks, I was able to hear our dear baby’s heartbeat and a had a quick
ultrasound to make sure all was well. I
was anxious to go to each of my appointments to hear the baby’s heartbeat and
reassure myself that the baby was okay.
I was very excited when I was finally able to schedule my ultrasound to
find out the gender of the baby. I had told Barry, if we have a boy, we will
name him Nicholas, (no ifs ands or buts about it :) and if we have a girl, we
could discuss her name. He wasn’t sure if he agreed, but also didn’t argue with
me.
When I went
in to schedule my ultrasound. I requested the ultrasound be on my birthday,(Dec
4th) since I knew I would be 19 weeks. Yet, on a second
thought, I asked the receptionist if I could schedule it earlier, I fully expected to
be told no. For I knew that wasn’t what the doctor wanted …but I was anxious to
see my baby. The receptionist didn’t even blink, she said I could schedule it
for that Tuesday (Nov 27th) if I wanted (even though the note I had just given her
from the Doctor said to wait at least another week.) I smiled, and said “that
would be great!”
Barry and
the kids came with me to my appointment. The ultrasound tech, wondered out-loud,
no less than 10 times, why I had been scheduled for an ultrasound a week early. I
just smiled at her and didn’t say anything. Our baby was perfect in every way.
He was quick to show us he was a boy, and I started crying I was soo happy.
James was very excited for “a little brudder.” Ellie was just happy we were
happy. The ultrasound tech was amazed at how clear the image was, and that she
was able to make all the measurements she needed so easily. He was wiggling all
around and waving his arms. Before we left, the tech took a few pictures of our
little boy. James even recognized that his little brother was trying to
communicate. “He said, look Mom, he’s giving us a thumbs up.”, and sure enough,
he was.
We were so
very happy to be having a little boy, but something was not sitting right in my
heart. I hesitated to share my fears with Barry, because a pregnancy loss after
12 weeks is so rare. I even looked it up,
less than half a percent.
Unfortunately only three days later on November 30th(
18 weeks), at 6 am I woke up, laying
peacefully in bed, and my water broke. I ran to the bathroom crying and called
to Barry, who was just leaving for work. I told him what happened, and all he
said was “but Jill, it’s too early he can’t survive.” “I know,” I said. We frantically called a neighbor, whose name
just popped into my head. She agreed to come. As soon as she arrived, we jumped
in the car and drove to the hospital. I called them on the way to let them know we were coming. We went into the ER, and they were very kind to us. They made
sure I was comfortable and brought out the Doppler machine, which monitors baby’s
heartbeat. I wanted to scream at the lady not to put it on my stomach, but she
did, and immediately found our baby’s heartbeat. She said “Your baby’s
heartbeat is fine and he is alive right now.” The Dr called and said he was on
his way and ordered me to have an ultrasound. Explaining that the water loss could
just possibly be a discharge from the uterus. I was horrified, I didn’t want to
see an ultrasound. They wheeled me into the ultrasound room, and the ultrasound
tech, immediately began measuring our little boy’s arms, and legs, and pointing
out where his organs were. She put the heartbeat on the speaker so we could
hear it. I looked up at my little baby on the screen and I knew that something
was very wrong. He was curled up in a ball and had his head tucked down in his
chest. I knew at that moment he was dying. I closed my eyes and started crying uncontrollably.
Barry took my hand and we cried together.
I tried to ask the ultrasound tech questions, but she would just
respond, that it was up to the doctor to look at the pictures and decide. When the Dr.
walked in, he said “I was hoping that the decision wouldn’t be in a grey area,
and that it would be black and white, and THIS decision is black and white.” The decision was very black as he proceeded to
explain that to prevent fatal infection for me, our baby would need to be
delivered that day, and would most likely not survive the labor, and was too
premature to be saved if he was in fact born alive.
At that moment I entered an alternate reality
(I’m sure due to shock). They wheeled me back to the emergency room, while they
prepared things in Labor and Delivery. It was then, through my tears, I asked
Barry if we could give our boy a name …knowing in my heart that I couldn’t name
him anything other than Nicholas. Barry
took my hand and said, “He already has a name.”
It was there in the delivery
room, that Barry gave me a beautiful Priesthood Blessing, I had asked him to bless
our Nicholas that he would not have to suffer, and would pass from this earth
quickly. When Barry gave me the blessing, I knew the words that he was saying
were not his own. He blessed me to know
that nothing I had done had caused this to happen. He blessed me to know that Nicholas
and Heavenly Father were aware of me, and they knew that this was going to
happen, and for me to know that he(Nicholas) had chosen this. That he had come to this earth
to get a body, but that he needed to return home now. He blessed Nicholas to
pass from this earth quickly and not to suffer. He blessed me to know that even
though our dear little boy couldn’t be with us now, that he would be mine again
someday.
I knew, and
know that what he was saying was true and that those words were from my
Heavenly Father. An overwhelming spirit of comfort descended upon the room and stayed with us, and I spent the next few quiet
moments quietly saying goodbye to our little boy. We were comforted to remember seeing our little boy through the ultrasound waving to us just a few days earlier and giving us a thumbs up sign, ...knowing now that he had chosen this path and was telling us goodbye.
After
inducing my labor, Nicholas James Pate was born later that day. He was
tiny, and dark red, but perfect in every way. His eyes were closed and he
looked completely at peace, though his body was bruised from a rough delivery.
He had big feet like his older brother and a very similar frame. Tiny hands
with long fingers. He had a little cleft in his chin, and broad shoulders like his Daddy. His
little profile looked amazingly like James.
We had decided to name him Nicholas Barry, but after seeing him, we knew
he was Nicholas James. We took some pictures and held him for a long time, even
though we knew that he had left this earth earlier on, and wasn’t in his little
body anymore.
After
recovering a bit from surgery, we returned home. I prayed that Nicholas' spirit would stay with us for a while so we would not have to go home without him. We were grateful to Grandma
and Grandpa Pate who had driven up to be with the kids.
It was hard to tell the
kids about their brother. We told them, we named him Nicholas. James got a frown and said, but I wanted you
to name him James. We were happy to tell him we did. We named him Nicholas
James. That made James very happy.
The next
morning, James woke up to tell me he played with Nicholas James up in Heaven, and
was sad when he had to leave. That they had had lots of fun together.
Ellie made
me a beautiful card, on which she wrote the names of our family and drew
Nicholas’ picture.
A few days
later I was looking at some pictures of Nicholas that we had taken at the
hospital. James came right over, and said, “That’s Nicholas James Pate. He has died in that picture. I love him Mom.”
He had no trouble recognizing his little brother, and that his sweet spirit was
no longer in his little body and had already returned to Heaven.
Nicholas James Pate 11/30/2012
Though our
hearts are broken, we are so thankful little Nicholas came to our family ..even though he couldn't stay. We know we will see him again, and
are so very grateful for the peace and comfort the gospel brings.
