Our One Day With Emily

If you would like to send meals please contact Julie Massie at 540-449-4104.  She is coordinating a schedule for us.  Our work friends at Bon Secours and the Children’s Museum have already brought us two weeks worth of food which was incredibly thoughtful and helpful.  We work with amazing people.

We would love to have visitors.  I would especially like having some visitors while I recover from labor before going back to work.  I’m taking off the next two weeks at least.  It depends how my body is recovering for how long I take.  You can reach us at our house number 804-360-3192 or my cell 703-851-5551. 

Our One Day With Emily

On Monday, April 11, 2011 God welcomed home our sweet baby girl Emily at 12:14am.  She was absolutely beautiful.  She was 2 pounds 11 ounces and 16 inches long.  She had Phil’s lips and a nose that was a combination of ours.  She had my long fingers and Phil’s wide feet and high arch.  She even had some very tiny curls of hair around her ears. 

We feel so blessed to have been able to hold her and kiss her and snuggle with her before having to say good-bye.  We have her hand prints and footprints and some beautiful photos of her.

Below is the story of her delivery and our day with her.  We are writing this to share with family and friends partially because we want everyone to know about our amazing daughter and partially as a form of therapy to help us grieve.  Please understand that it is LONG, very honest about our emotions, and includes a lot of details but those details are important to us.  If you are worried about reading about labor—I kinda gloss over that part on purpose though I have no problem sharing if you would like to hear about it. 

Here is her story:

Last Monday we had another doctor’s appointment and we got to see Emily on the ultrasound.  She was moving around, hiding her little face behind her arm, and to quote the doctor had “a beautiful heart.”  The doctor had said something similar the month before which always filled me with joy because that is what a baby needs in order to live, developed lungs, brain, and heart.  We could handle 9 fingers or funny ears as long as everything else was functioning (just so you know, she had all 10 fingers and 10 toes and cute ears).  She continued to move around like crazy all week, dancing on my bladder, poking me in the ribs, kicking my hip bone.  On Saturday I had a lazy day where I stayed in PJs most of the day and started working on a quilt that I decided I needed to make for her (sewing has become a recent hobby of mine).  I realized part way through the day that I couldn’t remember her moving much so I went to take a nap since she usually liked to move then.  I still didn’t feel her move really but I figured hey maybe she was just having a lazy day with me.  By early evening I still hadn’t really felt her move so I called the doctor and they told us to come into the Labor and Delivery wing of the ER to get checked out (normal procedure on a weekend). The problem was that we hadn’t been on our hospital tour yet!  That was supposed to be on Tuesday.  When we got to the hospital (around 7:20pm) a nurse looked for her heartbeat but couldn’t find it.  So another nurse came in to try.  Still no heartbeat.  So the doctor came in with the ultrasound machine.  No heartbeat.  How could this be?  We just saw her “beautiful heart” on Monday?  Phil and I sat there in shock hardly listening to the doctor as he told us there was no heartbeat which meant that she was stillborn.  Then we were told that I was going to get induced so I could deliver her.  I was pissed.  Phil was upset.  All I kept thinking was I have to go through labor and not bring a baby home??? Seriously I have to give birth to a baby I can’t keep??? You’ve got to be kidding me!  As weird as this may seem, that anger also gave me the strength I needed to understand and begin to come to peace.  I had to have the strength to get through this so I could hold her and kiss her, comfort and show her my love for her.  I had to get through this so I could begin to recover from labor.  I had to get through this so we could try again.  I had to get through this so we could have a baby to bring home. 

While we went through the process of checking in we started calling family and friends.  We really didn’t know what else to do.  I also had the doctor do another ultrasound to give us peace of mind.  I kept thinking that the doctor was going to say, “Surprise!  We just wanted to play a horrible trick on you!  Everything is okay.” 

They started inducing me around 9:00pm Saturday evening.  I was only 29 weeks so my body was doing what it was supposed to be doing, keeping baby in.  They had to trick my body into labor by inducing me. 

Labor is not fun.  It is especially not fun when you’ve only had one birthing class and are feeling unprepared.  Luckily we have some amazing friends who helped to coach me through it and give advice.  I kept myself distracted by having a “party” in the room.  We had the Masters on and friends and family sat with us, talked with us, laughed with us, and cried with us.  It was the distraction I needed to deal with labor.  I thought I would want relaxation music.  No thank you.  I wanted happiness and laughter and oh yeah the Masters ;)  It made me happy that Phil was able to distract himself by hanging out with friends and watching Sunday at the Masters because my labor lasted from 9pm Saturday night to 12:14am Monday morning and labor is pretty boring. 

I delivered Emily at 12:14am on Monday, April 11, 2011.  The whole labor I was looking forward to being able to see her and hold her and kiss her.  It gave me peace and strength to know that I would be able to at least do that at the end.  But then after I delivered her I became fearful. I was fearful of how I was going to react to my sweet baby girl when I saw her.  I didn’t know what to expect when I saw her because she was stillborn. Phil was amazing.  He told me how beautiful she was and that it was okay and hugged and kissed me.  It was amazing to be able to hold her.  All I had been dreaming about all pregnancy long was getting to hold my baby and now I was finally able to.  It was not how I had dreamed it but at least I had part of the dream. 

Then our family arrived back at the hospital.  We had just sent them home an hour before I delivered because they thought I wouldn’t deliver until morning.  Little did we know that the epidural I got at 11pm would help me relax so much that an hour later I would deliver her.  Our family was able to hold her and rock her and grieve for her loss.  It was all so special. 

I slept with her in my arms that night though I hardly even slept.  We knew that in a few short hours we would have to really say good-bye to her and there was no way I was going to waste most of that time on sleep instead of looking at her. Phil and I had a very quiet morning with her as our little family of three. We even baptized her together just the two of us.  It was perfect.

We were allowed to have Emily with us as long as we wanted.  The reality of the situation though was that there was only so long that we should.  God helped us gain the strength to say good-bye.  We said good-bye around 4:30 pm on April 11.  It was the hardest thing we have ever done in our lives.  How do you have this little baby that you can’t take home?  How do you watch your daughter walk away from you in the arms of a nurse and know that you will never see her again?  God gave us the strength to watch her go and the strength to walk out of the hospital afterward.

I had peace throughout the labor because I knew that at the end of it I would at least be able to see and hold my baby.  I also had peace knowing that she didn’t suffer.  One of my dear friends from college died last year after battling cancer for over two years.  I kept thinking about something her mom said at her funeral, “Liz is the lucky one.  She is with God and is no longer suffering.”  Thinking of her strength and her words gave me strength.  In a weird way Mrs. White’s faith and love for Liz gave me the faith that I needed to have peace.

God doesn’t give us struggles we can’t handle.  Last year I had a miscarriage and was very unhappy with my job which combined together made me severely depressed.  I was very mad at God at first for taking away my baby.  I didn’t understand why he would give me so much unhappiness at once.  Then I quit my job and started working at the Children’s Museum.  I was happy at work which made me a happy person again.  If I had had the baby that I miscarried I would not have been a fit mother because I was so depressed.  The thing is I haven’t been mad at God once since we found out Emily was going to be stillborn.  I seriously have been at peace the whole time.  I learned through my miscarriage to trust in God’s plan.  You may not like it or agree with it but he has a plan.  Having the miscarriage last year made it so I could have peace with losing Emily.  Clearly God has a plan. 

We found out after I delivered the placenta that there was a blood clot in the placenta which had caused the placenta to die and caused her to be stillborn. The doctors told us that it would have been quick and painless.  We will get answers as to why this would happen in the coming months.  All we know now is that there was nothing we did to cause it and nothing we could have done to stop it from happening.

We are at peace because we know that God took her so she wouldn’t have to suffer.  If she would have been full term with a placenta that was not healthy meant that she would have had major health issues.  If she would have been born early she would have had major health issues.  Instead in his love for her he took her home early.  He took her so she wouldn’t have to suffer.  She was beautiful and completely innocent.  She was our little Emily and we love her with all of our hearts.  

Thank you for all of the emails, phone calls, messages, flowers, food, and texts.  I haven’t had a chance to respond to everyone yet.  Please know that they are greatly appreciated and help to give us strength.

Thank you to our family for dropping everything and coming to support us and meet Emily.  It was important to us that her grandparents and aunts and uncles meet her and see how beautiful she was in person.  They drove/flew in from Harrisonburg, Norfolk, Northern Virginia, North Carolina, Syracuse, and Nashville.  They are amazing.

Thank you to the Massies, Browns, and Snapps for keeping us company at the hospital and helping to distract me throughout labor.  A special thank you to Maria Brown for doing just about anything and everything for us and being so incredibly supportive and thoughtful.  A special thank you to Julie Massie for being our friend, our advocate, our birthing coach, and our photographer.  Both of them made it so I was able to have the emotional strength I needed to deliver Emily by taking care of everything else.

Thank you to the nursing staff at St. Mary’s Hospital.  They were amazing.  A special thank you to Amy our nurse who was there for most of the labor and was the one who delivered Emily (it happened so quick the doctor didn’t have a chance to get there).  She answered all my questions, gave me tons of advice, and handled our daughter with tender loving hands.  Amy was amazing.  Thank you to our doctor, Dr. Tyson.  She was not able to be at the delivery but came in when she found out to see how we were doing.  She rearranged her schedule so that we could basically have unlimited time with her to ask questions.  She cried with us and gave us hope for the future.  She was fantastic.

Thank you to Philip Noakes for being an amazing husband and father.  Words can not express the love I have for him.  It is amazing how much closer we feel after having Emily. It is amazing how much closer we feel from grieving for Emily.  He is my everything and I don’t know what I would do without him.

If you actually read all this, thank you.  I love Emily and want so badly for everyone to know her story since they will never get to know her. This has been an amazing therapeutic release to write down her story so thank you for helping me to grieve. 

We are going to do a very private prayer service sometime this week. 

Once we get the photos of Emily back I will post a link to some.  I know that not everyone will feel comfortable seeing them and I understand that.  For the most part she looks like a tiny baby.  Her skin and lips are rather red and she is tiny because she never had the chance to get some meat on her bones.  To us, she is beautiful.

Thank you again for all the love and support. 

My Uncle Bill sent us the following quote which Phil and I feel perfectly describes Emily.  “An angel in the book of life wrote down my baby’s birth.  Then whispered as she closed the book ‘too beautiful for earth’.” 

We love you Emily.