Bailey’s Story – We held an angel in our arms
Lion # 113
I am sure of the future. I have married my Prince Charming, we have two little boys, I am pregnant and sure it is a girl and I am on my way to having the two boys and two girls I have always wanted. We have heard the heartbeat and we are on our way to have an ultrasound to see what we are having. Just the routine 20-week ultrasound.
We are taking the two boys and we have invited anyone that wants to come, so my Mom and Dad are there, my sister and sister-in-law, and my mother-in-law. A full house. The tech comes in and asks if we want to know the sex of the baby and we say “sure,” and she tells us it’s a girl. Cheers go up, a baby girl!
Then the tech gets real quiet and rushes out. It seems like it takes the doctor forever to come in. He seems pretty serious, and the boys are getting restless so my sister takes them out. The Doctor tells us that our baby’s head is not completely formed. She has anencephaly, which is a cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect. t occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp (Wikipedia). My first thought is, “Okay, how they are going to fix this?” The doctor goes on to explain that there is nothing that can be done. If I carry her full term she will probably die en utero, or I can deliver her. Most anencephalic babies do not survive birth. At this point I just said to my husband, “I will not do this.” They send us on our way and we stop by our Doctor’s office and he explains what we just found out. We call our church leader, looking for something, someone to tell us what to do, and give us some peace of mind on how we could ever do this. We find out it is our choice. We can deliver early or carry her until her due date, or until she dies. The peace we are looking for will have to come from within.
We pray and pray. We talk to the Doctor about whether she could be an organ donor. That is not a possibility. I want a sign. I am just starting to show and harmless questions are now very painful: “Are you expecting? Do you know what you’re having? Are you just so excited? Plus, we are trying to figure out a way to explain to our boys who are 5 and 3 what is going on. I become a little obsessed about being able to give her a name and a blessing, because it seems to so important to me to have her name on our church records. I don’t want anyone to ever forget she was here!
Eventually, we decide to deliver her early. My Dad goes to the cemetery and finds out that we can bury her with my Grandpa. That somehow seems so comforting to think she would be buried with a Grandfather I love so much. They schedule the day and we go in. We have tons of family who want to support us, so they are planning on being there. They tell us it will be about 6 hours. After about 3, I am starting to have contractions. Most of our family have visited, and we can’t seem to get the nurse to come back. Finally, my sister goes out in the hall and grabs a nurse that just happens to be in her church congregation, and she literally comes in and takes over. Her name is Kathy, She know I am going to deliver soon and called the Doctor. In a short amount of time they wheeled me into the delivery room and we had our sweet angel Bailey. The Doctor was most concerned about me, but Kathy said that Bailey’s heart was still beating and Greg (prince charming) was able to give her a name and blessing. They wrapped her up and we went back down to the room, filled with our family. What to do, how to handle the whole thing? What I really wanted to do was to curl up in the fetal position and drop out of life. What happened was, Kathy walked us through it. We held Bailey and Kathy unwrapped her, and pointed out her long fingers and long toes. We noticed that she looked like her brothers, and we were able to enjoy her. Later we would receive the molds they had made of her hands and feet.
Bailey would be 13 this year. We hang a Christmas stocking for her every year. We have ornaments on the tree that her brothers have picked out. I really don’t like the cemetery, it hurts to much, even now. So my Mom goes out in the spring and cleans up. We usually go by on Memorial Day. My Mother-in-law goes by and leaves things on holidays and my Dad drives by and lets me know all is well out there. We ended up with three boys to raise on earth and an angel daughter. It still hurts, and I still miss having a giggly girl in the house, but I never doubt that she is close by. I feel her all around us. I always pray she knows how much we love her and what an important part of our family she is. I know she knows. And when people ask me how many kids I have, I say, Three boys,” because it’s easier. In my head I always add, “and a girl.”
The thing I really hope for when I get the chance to be with her is that I can do all of the things that only Moms and Daughters get to do. I’ll learn to do her hair, go shopping for shoes and clothes–you know really cute girly clothes. We’ll laugh about girly things, get our nails done and talk. Mostly just talk. People wonder, “how it can be so hard, you didn’t even really know her, and how can you miss what you didn’t get to have?” That’s one of the things I miss the most, not getting the chance to know her here on earth. But I know her spirit and I am glad that I get to feel her close by.
On her headstone it reads, “Some people only dream of angels, we held one in our arms.”
-Trudy, Mother of Bailey
