Jonathan Timothy

I lost my first child during labor. (See his precious hand to the right.)  My husband, Lawrence, has reminded me several times, “This is the hardest thing in your life, but it is not the lowest point in your life.”  He is right.  I hope this blog site will be a testimony to that.  But first, you need to know the story of my son:

After he came home from a week in Guatemala I announced to my husband over dinner, “You’re going to be a Daddy.”  He sat there in shock.  You see, we have been married just two years and had not really been trying to start a family.  God thought we were ready.  So began the preparations and planning.  Besides morning sickness in the first trimester, I had a very normal and healthy pregnancy.  Lawrence did not want to find out the gender of our baby before birth, so we kept ourselves guessing all the way.

At 38.5 weeks, on October 27, 2009, after work I went in for my weekly appointment.  I had a few contractions spread throughout the day for the first time.  Baby’s heartbeat sounded good, I was looking healthy and starting to dilate.  My due date was November 6th, but my doctor said all her November babies seemed to be coming early.  We went home with the excitement of thinking we could meet our little one in less than one week!

That night after dinner, the contractions starting coming more regularly. We tried to go to bed, but the contraction would not stop and I could not sleep.  Just after midnight I decided that I should go to the hospital as they might be able to make me more comfortable.  Lawrence thought I was ready to have the baby, but since it was my first I thought I had at least another day or two of labor ahead of me.

The news came shortly after our arrival to the hospital that my baby didn’t have a heartbeat.  The deep pain and agony I felt in that moment can never be described.  I wailed and cried like nothing I had every done or heard in my  life.  I just kept thinking, this really can’t be happening.

About nine hours later I gave birth to my child, discovering it was a boy. We named him Jonathan Timothy, and Lawrence  nicknamed him “JT.”  He was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen.  He looked just like a sleeping angel.  The nurse cleaned him, and dressed him, and we held him.  We got to spend six hours with JT.  They felt like a fleeting moment, but they are hours I will cherish in my heart forever.  While I knew my son within me for 38 weeks, those six hours are all that my husband got with his son and I watched on in amazement.

After a bit of uncertainty, we decided to authorize an autopsy to see if there was any chance of discovering what caused our son’s premature departure.  In cases like ours, usually a cause is never discovered. We are blessed to know what the actual cause was.  I won’t bore you with the medical terminology that I hardly understand myself, but we were assured that it was not a genetic problem and it was nothing caused by anything we did or didn’t do.  The pathologist has never seen such an occurrence twice in the same family, so we should be safe to have a second child. This gives us great peace so we can begin to sleep at night and have hope for the future.

We will always remember the six short hours we had with our son on October 28, 2009.  We honored Jonathan through a memorial service four days later.  You can hear the audio by clicking on this link and then clicking on the folder icon:  http://cid-66d1703fdec7bb38.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public?authkey=zmAz5BMDAfE%24

Here is a picture of our sleeping angel:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boys I love:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Proud parents: