This Gift of Time
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I wrote for the last time on my first photography blog today. Actually, it was in the wee hours last night when I couldn’t sleep. And more accurately, I should state that I let someone else write for me. Words that tell our story still don’t come easily. If I’m writing an e-mail to a friend, I can usually pour my heart out easily. But to write things out in a place like this is different… and this, coming from an often wordy, open-book sort of person.
But as I find myself in a mental/emotional fog these last few days {likely due to lack of sleep or maybe my subconscious way of coping with what is to come}, I also find myself needing to get anything out that I can. So I’m back here once more… one more stop I didn’t think I’d be making before I’m induced on Thursday… this time, to share an image of her.
There she is, around twenty-three weeks old. Under pleats of grey. Under hands that long to save her. Captured beautifully by a talent I could only ever aspire to. In a photo that will likely be my favorite forever.
This image embodies the title and message of a book I’ve recently read, A Gift of Time. How unfortunate that it takes a sad and tragic event to get me to read a book for once. I’m just not a big reader. But I’m so grateful to the woman who gave it to me to read… someone who lost her own sweet child to Trisomy 18. Not being much of a bookworm, it’s likely that no one will ever witness me touting or reviewing a book. But this is one I would recommend again and again… and not just to parents who are facing the loss of an infant, but to their entire extended family. It’s just so well-written, so helpful and resourceful, and so comforting. It’s informative in ways that I think would benefit even family of the grieving parents who are losing {or who’ve lost} their baby, every bit as much as it benefits the parents themselves. I wish I’d read it sooner so that I would’ve sooner realized I should lend it to my husband’s family and mine. Though written for him and me, it seems it would be equally beneficial to them… if for nothing more than to help them help us and help them understand all that engulfs us.
Ultimately, though, it was written for my husband and me… and the many other parents who have continued {or are contemplating carrying on} with their pregnancy after receiving a fatal diagnosis. The reason it helped me does not lie in affirmation of my decision about whether or not to terminate. My mind was made up on that long before I was even of age to have children. Instead, it helped me to see that our choice to keep our baby was not merely a moral-based decision, but also a gift to us as parents. A gift of more time with her. This became a life-saving perspective on the very toughest days when I didn’t feel like I could go on for one more. Mine was a very difficult pregnancy, physically speaking. And emotionally? More than I could bear in my own strength. If I did not choose to see my time with her as a gift and was not given the perspectives this book offers, I don’t know where I would be today. Bitter, I think. Full of regret, even.
There was no way to know, looking forward, the extent of our gift of time… how many days we would have. Doctors painted a picture that had me thinking that time would be brief. Today, my gift of time with her there in my womb is coming very nearly to a close. There’s only one more day between the hour I write this and the moment I hold her in my arms. After tomorrow, we may get another gift of time with her… or rather, additional time, but now face-to-face. And then again, we might not.
Coming so far, I can only hope and pray for this additional time. And if it should be withheld, all the more I need to see these impregnated days as beautiful and precious and deem it a privilege and honor to have had her life entrusted to me, whatever the number of days we’re given.
It feels as though this gift of time I’ve been given {April 6th through this Thursday, at soonest} with my daughter is the bridge between my last blogging home and this one… between my Before and After. So I felt it should be written into my About Page. Not just included, but very much at the heart.
Doing so is what should {and hopefully will} shape where I take this space and how I will use it. I hope it can be a place to grieve, and not just a place to cover up pain. It’s hard to say, because I get this sinking feeling that I don’t even begin to grasp what pain lies ahead, and couldn’t possibly until it is here.
I’ve read many blogs over these past months by other moms that have walked or are walking a similar road. Each time I read their stories, I can’t picture myself being where they’ve arrived… blogging about the gift of their experience and the joy they find in it.
If that could ever be me at some point, I think it is still a long way off. But where I may not yet be able to write about the joy, I trust I will easily see and acknowledge this time as our gift… where joy might someday abound.
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{Please, if you ever go through this or currently are in the midst of one such pregnancy and have not yet heard of the book mentioned above… or if you are family of one who is going through this… please get your hands on a copy of this book and read it.}
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Photograph by Stacey Montgomery
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Beautiful mama…from what I just read today will be your day! Enjoy every moment you may be blessed with her in your arms. I’m shedding tears for you as I know this feeling all to well. My angel baby boy Micah was born at 37 weeks 8lb 12oz. He lived for almost 2 hours and the entire time in my arms. He was born just 3 short months ago and I am still hurting as if it was just yesterday. If it wasn’t for this book and the wonderful support of the HEART STRINGS program at the hospital, I don’t know I how I could of got through. But believe me you will get through although it don’t feel like that now. Make every memory you are able and take lots of pictures. That in the end has been the biggest comfort to me. Let yourself grieve in what ever form that may be. I am praying for you, your daughter, and your family.
Georgia, my heart aches. We will hold you, your husband and son up in our prayers.
I followed a link from A Gift of Time on Facebook and I thought of you all day on Thursday. I offered the Mass I went to for your peace and well being. When you have a chance, I would love to hear how the birth went. When I teach people about this type of care, I like to say that I support babies having a chance to “tell their story” as each is unique.
Thank you… to the nurse who commented here. Briefly, the birth went so well. I could not have asked for a better experience. But I will personally e-mail you with a more detailed account, as well. I appreciate your comment and words. ~Georgia
Thinking of you, Georgia. Love and prayers.
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Any amount of time with your precious little one is truly a rich and beautiful gift. My daughter Rachelle was born in 1984 with T18 and lived 2 1/2 years. I decided early on to love and enjoy her for however long we had. Heartwrenching yet worth it. I have two healthy sons but she was and is my only girl.I realized at the time that I am not the first mother to have this happen to and sadly would not be the last.Without God’s grace, I could, and probably would have become very bitter.It’s been a long road. I miss her tremendously but know she is with our Lord and healed. God bless you richly with His Grace and Love.
Thank you, Lorri. We miss our Anysia, too. And we feel the same… that she is whole and healed, now with God. In fact, that is what her name, Anysia, means. We had six lovely hours with her. We are, of course, very sad and grief-stricken, as was the pregnancy. But we also feel that we were given a great gift in her. Not just our time with her, but her period. Though we could not keep her, we consider her a gift to us. Thank you for your comment and for sharing your story of your Rachelle.
There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him. About the gift of time. But, for a long time that became such a time of anguish, of grief that I thought I would die screaming, of anger and then one day it was gone. Empty. What would my life with my husband be like now? The explanations, the tears, the silence and the knowledge that we would never have a baby. I think maybe I could find some peace in the night if I read this book. I am thankful to the person who sent this to me.
Wow, Katherine. I so get that. I was there, too. We were blessed to already have a son… a toddler who helped us to carry on. But I very much remember days where I was screaming and angry and in shock. I so know what you are saying… the anguish. In fact, it’s still there sometimes. Even after I have felt such peace about her loss and been so grateful to be given her. There are still days of anguish. Thank you for sharing. It is such a wonderful book, and I hope you will read it. It helped me just to see other parents going through it… and see that there is no one “right” way to grieve… that we all have to go through it the way we have to go through it.
I belong to a different group of parents with babies who had T18. We didn’t feel the anguish of carrying a baby with a fatal diagnosis. We only learned of our son Cameron’s condition after he passed away at around 16 weeks. I would have carried him, though, and some days I long to have seen him (it wasn’t possible, as I wanted genetic testing and under 20 weeks that means a D&C at our hospital.) Yet, I believe that God knows us best, and that He knew what was best for us as well. It was July 26,2011, and since then we have had a healthy baby boy who is now 1. Our older five children grieve as hard as we do, it is amazing the depth of love you can feel for a child so small, yet unseen. I treasure the pictures we have when I was pregnant with him. He is there, yet hidden. I am sorry that you have gone through this, but grateful that you had time with her when she was born. Your picture is beautiful.
thank you for sharing, leocea. i actually know a mom who went through a trisomy 18 experience the way you did… lost her little one early in her pregnancy and had genetic testing as well. you are right… even so small, there is so much love that has grown and is felt. even moms who miscarry very early feel this. i’m so sorry for your loss. i am so blessed to hear that you have gone on to have another. there is still a deep longing in me to have another. but at 42, it’s not just fear of going through this again, but my age as well, that stops me from fulfilling that desire. whatever God has in store, i will accept and trust. thank you for commenting.
Thankyou for sharing your journey.I feel your anguish and loss but at the same time am glad for you that you had some time (even though it was so brief) to hold your baby girl in your arms.We lost a baby girl april 2004 we found out through cvs she had T18 and decided to terminate but just couldnt i still recall that day clearly it was a rollercoaster of such turmoil we went home and I miscarried her 8 days later at 16 week.We named her Alexandra grace and buried her in my mothers grave who we lost to cancer in 1985.I would love to read this book.God bless you and your family you are a true inspiration.Thankyou
thank you so much. and thank you for sharing your story of alexandra. just read about another baby with tri-18 named alexandra who lived for about 50 days. i hope you get a chance to read the book. it really is so good. and you could always give it to someone else who could use it when you are done. blessings.
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