June 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — It was Christmas Eve 2008. I hadn’t been feeling well all night. At four months along in my pregnancy, I had been spotting, but having five healthy children already and a perfect record of no miscarriages, I wasn’t too worried, so decided to go to bed after the evening’s family festivities.
I hoped to feel better by Christmas Morning, so as to get on with cooking the ham and preparing for more family holiday fun and games. But it was not to be. At 12:17 am, in the bathroom, my whole pregnancy fell to the floor. In utter horror I pressed against the amniotic sac, and saw within, a tiny baby with arms, legs, a head and torso, about the size of a newborn kitten.
I called to my husband to come and confirm, hoping he would tell me that I was dreaming, take me back to bed and tuck me in so that I could wake up in the morning to find it had only been a terrible nightmare. No such luck. It was all too real and I spent Christmas Morning in the Emergency at the hospital.
I grieved for the loss of my precious baby and I could not get the image of him/her out of my head. It had been snowing on our way to the hospital in the middle of the night, so we called our baby our little snow angel, and we named the baby Christmas Novena, as he/she was born Christmas Morning. I never did break open the amniotic sac to find out if our baby was a boy or girl, and the doctor said the baby would be too young to tell. I wished to preserve the integrity of the amniotic sac, as it feels like a pregnancy that is frozen in time, like it is still preserved within me.
The next two months were almost unbearable and waiting until I could try for another pregnancy. In March 2009, I did get pregnant again, and it was terrifying until I passed the fourth month with no problems.
On October 26, 2009 I woke up screaming that the baby was dead. I had had a nightmare in which I had seen myself holding my baby, only it was too dark to be my baby and it didn’t move or cry. I hadn’t been in labor either, so how was my baby born? I didn’t remember giving birth to the baby.
Upon awakening, my husband could do nothing to convince me that the baby was still fine and alive in me. I called the doctor and he got me in. He could find nothing wrong. He even picked up the baby’s heartbeat, which I later found out was mine (I have a fast heart rate). He convinced me that the baby was fine, but I was not convinced. I could not feel my baby moving.
On October 29, 2009 I went back to the doctor, saying that I knew something was wrong and could he please check again. Again he picked up my heartbeat, but had a harder time finding it this time. He sent me to the hospital for a non-stress test. There were other women in the same room and I could hear their baby’s heart beats loud and clear. I kept asking the nurse why my baby’s heart rate was so quiet, when all the other babies’ were so loud.
I was beginning to panic and the readings were off, so my doctor was called to check them. He sent me to the ultrasound. I knew there was something wrong with my baby, but hopefully it was something that could be fixed, I thought to myself. The ultrasound technician spent all of three minutes on me, quickly excused herself, brought in another technician to consult with on her findings, and when I asked them if everything was ok, they said yes and ran out of the room.
I looked at the frozen image on the screen thinking it was on pause because I saw no movement at all. I lay there for about 45 minutes staring at the kitten poster that hung on the wall and praying to St. Gerard (Patron Saint of Expectant Mothers) to please fix whatever was wrong with my baby so that he/she would be alright.
My doctor finally came into the dark room where I had been laying in the darkness with my baby praying for nothing, for a lost cause. I saw my doctors’ face and then I heard the words that he spoke –“I am so sorry, but your baby has passed away.” This is the moment that the darkness of losing a child set into my soul. Most of my spirit died that moment in the dark room, with my baby’s frozen image on the screen and the doctor squeezing my hand to comfort me.
I started to sob and begged him for a c-section so as to not go through a painful labor with nothing to look forward to.
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At 5:00 pm, our precious baby boy, George was born by c-section, so I had no labor, just like my dream, and when I saw him, my whole world shattered.
His poor little body, still and four days dead, the doctor said, so his skin was too dark, just like my dream that I had had four nights ago, which was probably close to the time at which he died. Everything was unfolding, just like it had happened in my dream.
Perhaps it had been a foreshadowing from my guardian angel of what had happened and what was to come – I will never know for sure. But when I saw George’s face for the first time, the thing that stays with me, that torments me – haunts me – I didn’t – couldn’t save him in time; his little mouth and closed eyes were turned downward in a crying position. My poor precious George was crying when he died, and I was unaware, unable to save him. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to die. He wanted a full life with his loving family.
It made me wonder how many aborted babies are crying when they die – like George, they didn’t want to die, they just wanted a chance at life.
Every day now, at 5:00 pm, George’s birth minute, in honor of George and Novena, I say a Novena to Our Lady of Sorrows for anyone who has been hit with tragedy that day, including all the aborted babies who did not want to die that day, or any day, for that matter.
The reason for George’s death was determined inconclusive. As for our family, we did lose another baby early on in June 2011 at 12 weeks along, but with much help from many doctors, I am happy to say that we did have a healthy baby boy in December 2012. His name is Anselm George, after his big brother in heaven. Anselm means protected by God.
One day I hope our whole earthly family will join our three little angels in heaven. Until then, I will always be in that hospital room with George, paralysed in that moment, frozen in time. I was honored to spend 24 hours with my precious little George, and then I had to kiss his little head goodbye. His death has broken my heart and my spirit, and I have to live the rest of my life like this.
George died a natural death and I can hardly live with the guilt of not having saved him. What about a woman who has an abortion, killing her baby on purpose? How can she live with that?