Remembering Elijah....

To tell our story, I should begin in the beginning with when we decided to try for another baby. Our 5 year old daughter, at the time, had been talking about a sibling for 2 years and how much she wanted one. We decided to go ahead and try and we were so excited. It took us five months before we found out the news that we were pregnant. I actually didn't think that I was. You know how it is when you're trying... you take all the pregnancy tests. This particular morning I decided to go ahead and take the test, even though I wasn't really feeling like I was. I took the test, sat it down and went on my way to getting ready for the day. To my surprise, the test read positive! I gasped when I saw it and just laughed... "Finally!" I thought. My girl came into the bathroom and said "What's the matter mommy?" I told her that I had taken a test and that it was very good! I didn't want to let her know until I had talked with her daddy. I took pictures of the test and my daughter and I headed out for our errands before we were to meet daddy for lunch. When we got to the restaurant for lunch, I told my daughter that we were going to show daddy the picture and make it sound like it was something bad. She just smiled and thought it was fun... still not knowing what in the world I was talking about. I told her to tell daddy, when I told her to, that mommy took a test and it came out really good. We sat down and I showed him the picture and our daughter told him what I had told her to say... and the look on his face was priceless. At first, he couldn't make out the picture, then he said "Are you serious?"

We both were so excited. We decided not to tell our daughter right away, because we knew as soon as she knew she would tell everyone. And we had decided, due to a miscarriage we had had before our daughter, that we wouldn't announce a pregnancy until after the first trimester. But as time went by, we just couldn't keep it from her anymore. We were on one of our many camping trips, enjoying that special family time around the campfire when we decided to let her know the news. I told her and she stood up and started running around the site yelling "A baby! A baby!" She was so excited every day after that day. She always asked about the baby, and how mommy was doing. She would say things like, "Mommy, you don't worry about that, you need your rest." She would come up and kiss my stomach.

We knew that this baby was either David Elijah or Felicity Andrea. Our daughter was hoping that it was Felicity. She wanted a little sister badly. She always said that a baby brother would be alright, but she really wanted a baby sister. When we went to our ultrasound and found out that it was Elijah, she said "A boy?" And from that moment on, she was one proud Big Sissy to her little brother, Elijah. She ran around the doctor's office saying, "I'm having a baby brother!" It was another priceless moment. Along with daddy as we got in the car. I looked over at him and he said with a twinkle in his eye and a big smile, "I'm going to have a son." I think it really hit him then.

Our daughter decided she was going to call him "Baby Eli!" And so she did. As he grew, she would come up and talk to him. When he got to really moving he would just gravitate to her voice. He loved his Big Sissy. And she loved him. When he would hear his daddy, he would just move. It was so sweet. We all were so happy and so excited and just couldn't wait to have him out of the womb to hold and kiss.

Elijah's due date was June 1. The doctor had told me that he wouldn't be surprised if he came at least 2 to 3 weeks early... so when I started feeling some cramping on May 16, I decided this might be it. We had an hour and a half drive to the hospital, and I was willing to drive the distance for a false alarm then not make it in time. Our daughter was induced, so I wasn't sure what the first signs of natural labor would be like. We rushed along and got to the hospital and I kept thinking and saying.. "I hope this is real." I got ready, laid on the bed and they came in to hook the machine up to check the contractions and get Elijah's heart beat. As they kept trying to find his heart beat, my heart kept sinking. The nurse said, "Let me go get the doctor, sometimes they can find it better then we can." The doctor came in and she looked and looked and decided to bring in a small ultrasound machine. She looked some more and then said the hardest and most horrible words I pray I'll ever have to hear. She said with pain in her eyes, "I think your baby's heart has stopped beating." It was like someone took this sledge hammer and hit me in my chest. I literally couldn't breath. "There's no way this can be happening." I kept thinking. And praying that it couldn't be true. Yes, he hadn't moved but very little the days before... but our daughter did the same thing the days before she was born. The doctor called them "Lazy Days." Daddy just kept saying "No! No!" and crying. In 10 years of marriage, that's the hardest I have ever seen my husband cry. We just held each other and cried and prayed that they would find that it wasn't true. They brought in the big ultrasound machine and it showed that it was indeed true. Elijah had passed away. We were never going to hear him cry, we were never going to hear him breath. They went on to get me ready for induction and I went through one of the hardest things I've ever had to do; Deliver my son, who I knew I would not hear cry when he came out. My husband said afterwards that it took everything in him to help me because you could see in my face that I just didn't want to do it. But I did.

David Elijah was still born on May 17 at 9:14 a.m. He weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz's. and was 20 1/2" long. He was one of the most beautiful babies I had ever seen. He had wavy hair with a tint of red... just the way I was hoping it would be. He was perfect. We found out that his umbilical cord was abnormally long and it had wrapped around his neck 4 times and then true knotted. This is something that is hardly ever seen. The doctor said he had never seen it before and so did the chief nurse. The most they had seen was 2 times, but never 4 with a true knot. (A true knot is when the cord knots and then pulls tightly.) We were fortunate to know why he had passed away. There are many who never know why, even after an autopsy.

We held him and cried.. and then came the time to tell our little girl. She had been with some very close friends during all this time. And they, of course, had not told her what had happened because we wanted to. They told us of how hard it was to hear her talk about how excited she was to see Baby Eli and to hold him finally. When she walked in she looked at us, and you could see in her eyes that she knew something wasn't right. Mommy and daddy wasn't happy. I was holding Elijah at the time and she came in and looked at him. And then I proceeded to do the second hardest thing I've ever done in my life; To tell our daughter that her baby brother wasn't going to get to come home with us. And that he had passed away. We didn't hide anything from her. We told her everything. And she just looked at him and rubbed his little face. Then she wanted to go play. This was odd to me at the time, but one thing I've learned is that children handle grief in a very different way then adults. Often times children handle grief by playing. They grieve in their own way. She played a whole lot in the days to come.

The next day a professional photographer came in who worked with "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep." NILMDTS is a program the hospital offered where professional photographers come in and take pictures of the family with the baby when the baby passes away. She and her son did an absolutely wonderful job. And I tell you, it takes special people to do that. We sat there as she took the pictures and our daughter said something, that made us realize that she understood what had happened, but not completely. She looked at Elijah's little lips, which were black, and she said, "When he grows up his lips won't be black like that." I told her that he wouldn't grow up and she looked at me and just cried. She said "You mean, I won't be able to help him learn how to walk?" and I said "No, baby." And she said "I won't be able to change his diapers?" There was not a dry eye in that hospital room. I looked in her eyes and she looked in mine... and there was so much love there. We both wanted to comfort each other. 

The days to follow went by like a blur. All our family came in, our church family provided so much food we didn't know where to put it. The love of our family, church family and friends was overwhelming. It was so good to have them all their for us.. 'cause honestly, we weren't there... at least I wasn't. I was still in the hospital room waiting for them to find Elijah's heartbeat. The funeral home was so nice. The owners are absolutely wonderful. They let us come and hold Elijah whenever we wanted. Most of our family was able to hold him and see him. They all grieved with us. And during this time, our daughter still wanted to play.

Elijah's funeral was on May 21. I had the hardest time trying to decide what to put on him. What do you put on your son the one and only time you'll dress him? There was a shirt that I had bought for him that had a little snail on it and read "Worth the Wait."  I decided that it was perfect. He was worth the wait here on earth and would be worth the wait to hold and see again in Heaven. My husband went on to write a poem for him entitled "Worth the Wait."

After a few days, family started to leave. My mother-in-law stayed with us for a week and then my mother came in and stayed with us 2 weeks. After my mother left, one night our daughter decided that she wanted to sit in Elijah's room and look through his "Memory Box" that the hospital provided. As she went through his pictures and looked at his little lock of hair, she just burst into tears. She held his picture and hugged it and she said "Mommy, I miss Baby Eli." I told her that I knew and she said "I want to hold his hand again. And touch his face again." She asked if she was going to be able to teach him how to walk in Heaven. And I told her that I didn't know. She said, "Mommy, I would have changed his diapers... even the poppy ones." She had let us know that she wasn't going to change poppy diapers before. We both just held each other and cried. We went in his room again for the next couple of nights.. and each night got a little easier for her.

Ten months later, our daughter still mentions her baby brother and how she misses him. We still go into his room every now and then, which is still the way it was. But she is living her life. Daddy and mommy are getting by, with God's help and prayers. Life does go on. The pain is eased some, but never goes away. You never get over the loss of your child. You never forget that precious life that in some cases was so short and in some longer. On one of my bad days- 'cause I have good days & bad days- I thought up this site. A site that would let mothers and fathers who have lost a child, how ever young or old they were,  tell their story. And those who have lost someone else they love.  When you can tell your story, even if nobody reads it, it helps with the pain. I know just how very painful losing a child is.  But with this page, I hope to continue to ease my pain and remember and share the sweet life of our son. To share that even though we never got to hear him laugh or cry... or got to see him crawl or walk... he gave us so much joy and happiness and excitement in the very short time we had with him. To share that we have another reason to live our lives according to God's will so that we can see him and hold him again in Heaven.

I want to thank you, with all my heart, for reading our story and remembering Elijah with us. And I want you to know, that you are in our prayers.

I would like to invite you to see our page dedicated in Memory of David Elijah.

~Our Story~

Remembering

Elijah

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