Now you’re in the arms of Jesus

It’s been such a rollercoaster this past year, from finding out I was pregnant, to the day we lost you.

Such beautiful moments, when we got to know you, from the little movements.

Every little flutter and tumble, making me feel smile. Having your dad put his hand on my belly, and wait, asking him: did you feel that?

To him saying no and me anticipating when he would, bursting with excitement, for when he would feel you move.

When he finally did, sharing all that joy with each other, and looking at each other with pride for our little baby.

Loving his hand on my belly, feeling so happy, growing you.

Telling him: I always want you to feel the baby move, because I’m only pregnant for so long, and we don’t get this very much.

Enjoying all those movements, all the moments of you in my belly, especially at night when we would relax in bed.

Now I lay awake in bed, dreaming of those times, how I’m so happy I appreciated them, because I’ll remember you forever like that.

So sweetly tumbling, in your safe little world, protected by me.

I feel so broken, that I couldn’t keep you longer.

I’m heartbroken you’re gone, and knowing that I can never hold you again, makes me cry.

I miss you in my belly, and wish you were back here, where I had you safe.

Only now you’re in the arms of Jesus, loved more than anything.

Through this, because of this, I know I am loved more than anything too.

I’m surrounded by love, family that love me, friends that love me.

These people have shown me just how much I can be loved, in a time, where I feel the most broken.

That’s where I realized — God is always in the place we least expect, always in the last place we tend to look, which is right where we already are.

Click here to read more of our blogs about seeing God's hand through baby loss. This blog was written by Rebecca Bates in Walla Walla, Washington. She has been married to her husband Joshua for six years. Together, they have two boys - Bayne, who is 4 years old, and Luca, who was born into heaven.

Mothering Trisomy 18: God made my baby with extra chromosomes

"Oh for Grace to trust Him more."

This familiar line of an old hymn popped into my head a few days before I was scheduled for my cesarean with our third child, for whom we had chosen the name Jett. We chose this name because he was incredibly active in my womb, feisty and stubborn (breech, hence the cesarean). Jett fit him so well. Nothing was wrong the day this hymn popped into my head, but I was thinking how sweet it is to walk with the Lord and how much more I wanted to know Him. Hindsight now, I think this hymn was incredibly ironic, prophetic, .. coincidence if you will. On September 4th, after a football game on Friday night, my husband and I drove the hour drive at 5am to get to the hospital for our scheduled cesarean. It was my third child and first scheduled delivery, first cesarean. I was nervous, of course, but at peace.

"Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus"

Everything went routine and the delivery room was calm and chipper, as cesareans are fairly routine, and there were no known complications with our feisty Jett, aside from being IUGR, small in the 3rd percentile. Everything was fine until it wasn't. When they pulled him from me, they were calm, but something was clearly not right. There was no cry, and according to my husband, everything started happening very fast. My husband remembers being concerned. I remember worrying why he didn't cry, but being assured by the anesthesiologist. As they finished with me, and my husband went to check on Jett, everything to me was a blur.

In my room, I remember feeling calm, and just hoping to see Jett soon, I had never been separated from a baby at delivery before. When the pediatrician came in and explained there were more and more complications, but that he was intubated and stable, it was like in the war movies when a bomb goes off. Words like "respiratory failure" and "abnormalities", "recommend he be sent to Cook Children's for consult" "care flight is heading this way" "you can't go, but your husband can" ... these words all pinged in my ears but didn't stick. My whole life, I have loved and followed Jesus. My whole life, He has been my anchor. My life hasn't been perfect or easy. Jesus has always been constant. At this moment, Jesus gave us the gift of shock. As a Christian, Jesus gives not as the world gives, He gave me peace with my shock. Peace with my panic.

Everything in Jett's delivery was absolutely laying the foundation for God to show me His perfect faithfulness, a foundation I would need in 79 days.

In Fort Worth, On September 8th, in the ER at Texas Harris where I was having blood drawn for cultures to be diagnosed with sepsis (spoiler, I had sepsis), I received a phone call from Jett's NICU doctor. I answered every call whether I had the number or not, no matter where I was. It was the classic "are you sitting down? Can we have a discussion?" phone call. I just wanted her to tell me the results of the genetic testing we had done the night Jett arrived at Cook Children's, the night he was born.

"We have his results back, your son has full trisomy 18......"

Anything else after that was irrelevant. My husband had just driven the 5 hours back to Ozona to be with our big boys, and turned around and came back to Ft Worth. Days of uncertainty, days of vulnerability before our friends, family, and community, desperate for prayers. We had never needed prayers more than we did when we had to take Jett off the ventilator and get him to breath on his own on nasal cannula oxygen. Our town gathered and prayed. And God answered. "Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus".

From September 29th, to November 22nd, Jett lived his entire life surrounded by the love of his family, and the adoration and support of the community of Ozona. With Trisomy 18, many babies do not make it home. Many babies do not live a week, but with intervention and support, many babies DO live. Trisomy 18 is usually diagnosed in pregnancy, but for a variety of reasons (above my ability to explain but having to do with back-to-back same-gender pregnancies and maternal-fetal blood). Jett's trisomy did not show up on our genetic testing, no obvious signs of Trisomy 18 on ultrasounds, and not until confirmed by more in-depth genetic testing were we given the diagnosis.

From conception, Jett had this. It was nothing we did, it was just a genetic event in his embryonic state, that his 18th chromosome had three instead of two.

The most beautiful and gut-wrenching thing about our third son was that God created Jett with extra chromosomes.

We didn't know this. Doctors didn't diagnose this the way they usually do. Medical science is amazing and advanced, but God's plans are so much higher than what we can fathom. For some reason, for Jett's story, we couldn't know he had trisomy 18 until after birth. He, as well as all trisomy 18 babies, was incredibly marvelous, worthy of life, love, and perfect in our family.

We knew medically the outcomes are not painted in light with hope and joy; but parenting a child with a tough genetic diagnosis, having his brother's love on him, was truly my life's most beautiful and joyful work.

I honor his life by continuing to speak his name, his worth, and to advocate and educate all that will listen on the beautiful lives that medically complex children, specifically babies with trisomy 18 can have.

One thing we prayed when we began to start a family was that God would be glorified in our family. Everything about Jett points to God. He was not planned by us, he was a surprise. God knew Jett was coming into our family before we did, and God knew he was going to have trisomy 18. God knew the world needed Jett Nolan Taylor, exactly as he was. Jett was not diagnosed the conventional way. He was breech, when I tried so hard for him not to be, he was delivered via c-section. His breech position, in my opinion, saved him. Had we tried for induction with head down presentation, given his small size and unknown respiratory issues, I believe it would have been catastrophic for him. He thrived as a trisomy 18 baby, he had a purpose.

On November 22nd, the day that Jett's earthly body grew weary and was welcomed into Heaven, was a day my life entered a new phase. I often wondered before Jett.. how do people survive child loss. When we had Jett, I wondered, how would Jesus carry us, how would this feel, what would we feel. Our faith in Jesus has shown us the most beautiful perspective on Jett's life, and death. For 79 days, every breath we and Jett took. God was there. Every complication unknown, every bomb that went off in our lives, every trauma, God has been faithful. His faithfulness, His presence has never been more palpable to me. Losing Jett has been the ultimate most significant event in my life, it has changed me to the core. It will always be with me and I will always carry this grief.. but Jesus is with me, and carries it as well. My faith in God, my view of faith in general has catapulted me into the arms of Jesus, where every moment I need him, and every moment I trust that He is good.

We see our son's life, our story, and his story as one where joy and sorrow meet. Grief and gratitude. Sadness and rejoicing. I see a side of Jesus I have never seen before in this loss.

I see his mercy and I see that the well of compassion He has for us never ends. In this world, losing a child is possibly the worst thing you could endure as a parent. Everything about Jett's delivery and first weeks was traumatic to us, and Jesus carried us. In Jett's life, we see God's sovereignty, that God loves and creates children of all needs in His image, and that medically complex children are so worthy of our love because they are worthy of His image, they are His image-bearers as we all are. Jett, with trisomy 18, and all were made in His image. How has my faith changed by losing Jett? My faith has been given new eyes. Eyes that see deeper and more true parts of God's heart.

"The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love" Psalms 103:8.

Many people see God as angry, unfair, and ask Him why He allows bad things to happen. These are all very valid. However, when our son's body grew weary and when he died; God was with us in our grief. He continues to be with us. We know the compassion and steadfast love of God because we have walked through it in a way that would have destroyed us but for His grace.

So when I think back as to why that song popped into my head before Jett was born, and I look back on the 79 days we had with Jett, Oh for His grace, that I can trust Him more. That I can see Him more. It is truly SO sweet to trust in Jesus. We cling to Him and draw near to knowing Him more as we walk this side of grief. I hope through Jett's life, his beautiful life with trisomy 18, that all who know Jett will also look to Jesus and trust him more.

Click here to read more of our blogs about seeing God's sovereignty and faithfulness through losing a child. This blog was written by Laura Taylor in Ozona, Texas. She has been married to her husband Jarryd for ten years. Together, they have three boys - Jace, who is 4, Jones, who is 2, and Jett their youngest, in heaven.

Losing your baby after the first trimester

I always thought that if we can make it past the first trimester, we were safe. Back then, no one talked about miscarriages or stillbirth. After hearing that the pregnancies should be safe after the first 13 weeks, I thought we would be bringing home a baby no matter what. I thought we were in the clear. We made it past the second trimester and then we should for sure be safe in the third trimester.

If only and barely.

At 27 weeks, our first baby was stillborn and for unknown reasons. Sometimes that’s the hardest part: not knowing why. Was it something I could’ve prevented? Was it something that I did? I was responsible for growing this little human in me and I thought I failed. I thought God failed me.

I could never understand how He had made it hard for us to conceive our first baby and then to take him away like that.

Sometimes to this day, I question God on why. Sometimes, I still get angry at Him for taking away Levi from us. This little baby who we had grown to love so quickly and easily.

I couldn’t step into church for a month or so and I was warned it wouldn’t be easy when I eventually did. Worshipping brought tears to my eyes, as I thought,” How could I worship a God who took away a piece of us?” Everything felt like it was falling apart around me.

Until one day, I gave it all to Him. I gave God my pain. My anger. My lack of understanding of why. I finally could raise my hands and sing a beautiful worship song, and just cry out to Him.

If anything, losing Levi brought us closer to God. It moved our faith in a direction that we weren’t ready for. But here we are, with our rainbow baby, Isaac, and expecting another on the way.

Not a day goes by where I don’t think of Levi. I’m a private person but I speak of Levi very openly. I speak about him because I want others to know that they are not alone. I want his story and his life to live on in any way that it can.

Click here to read more of our blogs about seeing God's hand through baby loss. This blog was written by Meagan Gonzalez in Dallas Fort Worth, Texas. She has been married to her husband Michael since 2014. Together, they have three boys - Levi, who was born into heaven, Issac who is 3.5 years old, and currently 37 weeks pregnant with Caleb.