"My Son Came Into This World and Never Took a Breath."

Mother of Luke:

Our pregnancy with our son Luke was a roller coaster from the beginning. We had lost a child to miscarriage, "Baby Snowden”, in June of 2021 and were undergoing some investigative and fertility testing.

It was discovered that I had a septate uterus, and I was scheduled to go in for further diagnostic testing. However, 2 days before a scheduled MRI, we saw those two lines on a pregnancy test! The MRI was canceled and we hit our knees in prayer for this baby, knowing we had a potential uphill battle and adverse conditions.

Luke blew us out of the water at every test and scan, and his growth was right on track. We discovered at our 20 week ultrasound that he had a 2 vessel umbilical cord (as opposed to the usual 3) and swollen ducts in his kidneys.

We were then referred to a level 2 ultrasound with Maternal and Fetal Medicine. But Luke was such a strong fighter consistently scoring in the 50th to 56th percentile in weight and scoring 8/8 on every biophysical profile scan.

After about 25 weeks, I began to have issues with periods of time where I wouldn't feel him move, and we began having BBP scans and non-stress tests weekly to monitor him. We prayed fervently but also were strangely calm and not anxious.

I believed wholeheartedly that God had helped Luke overcome so much and had big plans for Luke on Earth.

"God has chosen THIS BABY to be in the world with us," I had said on a social media post.

One weekend at 30 weeks, 2 days from his last aced check-up, we went into L&D because I wasn't feeling Luke move.

It was that day, April 24th, 2022, that we were told Luke had passed.

We immediately were admitted to the hospital and were induced and after 17 hours on April 25, Luke came into the world and never took a breath.

Luke weighed 3 pounds 5.5 ounces, was 16 inches long, and had thick blonde hair like my husband, Michael. We held him, sobbed, prayed over him and then left the hospital to return to our home and empty nursery without our son.

Our faith was and is challenged but also grows in a deeper understanding of God's love.

This loss has opened the door to complexities of our faith that would have otherwise remained untouched. The months that followed, we have wrestled with God, shaken our angry fists, yelled, cried, swore, prayed, and then have done it all over again.

We have so many questions for God from our limited human understanding.

"Why did you give us this child who did so well and was such a fighter, just to have him be abruptly snatched away?"

"Why couldn't we have had him with us, just for one hour, to see his face and feel him squeeze our hands. To see the color of his eyes?"

"Did we not pray enough? If we had prayed more, would You have saved him?"

God HAS saved Luke! He saved him when he sent his son Jesus to die for him, so that Luke could be immediately born into heaven and be held by The One who loves him more than us, his earthly parents, ever could imagine.

We are told in Philippians 3:20, "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." Our hope is not in a comfortable life in this world that is but a mist.

Our purpose is not in a living child or a "picket fence life" built on the sand. In Christ, "the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality; then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.' 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

Our hope is in the return of Jesus when we will be reunited with our babies in perfection and spend more lives than we could count in the presence of God.

Of course we still mourn and miss Luke today in this imperfect world and feel this as a pain like no other. We honor him in a garden, in a little memorial corner in our home with his ashes, and the memorial print from Mother of Wilde, and in our volunteer service.

We hold his photos, his hand and feet prints, his hat, and his blanket as prized possessions. We say his name with our loved ones and pray at night for God to let him know how much we love him and miss him.

We dig into the opportunities God gives us to use our grief to help others who may walk similar roads.

We know that we may never fully heal from these losses, but that we are on this journey with God on our side as the great Redeemer and Miracle Worker. We heal by honoring Luke as our son and using his story to point to our hope in Christ.

This blog was written by Heather Snowden in Kansas City. Heather has been married to her husband, Michael, for four years. Together they have two angel babies: Baby Snowden, who went to be with Jesus at 8 weeks and Luke, who was born sleeping.