I’ve been sitting here for awhile trying to piece together my thoughts and words. I want to share Andelyn’s story, but find myself wondering where that should even begin. Is it during my pregnancy, or is it before? Is it the moment her heart stopped beating, or is it after? I can promise one thing, her story does not ever have an ending. After Andelyn is just the beginning of a new chapter. 

 

Andelyn’s entire short life was inside of me, but her story started long before those two pink lines. Two years of longing for and praying for the missing puzzle piece to complete our family. Two years of failure after failure, and slowly coming to terms with being a family of 4. Two years of struggling with infertility and I still remember the shock when I took that test. Just days before planning when to schedule my egg retrieval for our IVF journey, our life pivoted down a new path with our little miracle. With zero interventions, we were pregnant. The excitement then followed when we found out that this little miracle was a girl. The missing piece to complete our family. I grew and nurtured my baby girl for 37 weeks. I loved her from the second I saw that test, before I even heard her heart beating inside of me. She was a force. The way she moved around inside of me made me never feel alone. She’d wake me up multiple times a night ready to party. She danced up a storm to Philharmagic in Disney, exactly like her brothers did when they were in my belly too. She loved ice cream. She loved to kick her brothers when they would fight over who got to feel mommy’s belly. She loved hearing her daddy’s voice and made sure he could feel her as much as me. She was so strong and made her presence known. We could only imagine the personality she would have. She was so wanted. She was so loved. 

 

After you make it past the first trimester, you're supposed to be in the "safe zone." 

 

You breathe a sigh of relief when everything is perfect at the anatomy scan at 20 weeks. 

 

And another, when you reach 24 weeks. The relief that your baby will probably live even if they're born sooner than you were hoping, thanks to amazing NICU care. 

 

Past week 32, the anticipation grows. You wonder who they will look like. You get their nursery ready, and make sure everything is in place for their arrival. You get your hospital bags packed and the car seat installed. You’re ready, and just waiting for that beautiful day when they will decide to come into your world. 

 

Then you're blindsided. The risk of stillbirth is less than 1%. A thought that I’m sure never even crosses your mind when you’re pregnant, as I know it never crossed mine. 

 

December 7th. 

We had an ultrasound that went perfect that very morning, in the same building that we would be back at just 3 hours later. 

 

We made it to 37 weeks and 2 days. 

 

Everything was perfect... until it wasn’t. 

 

Contractions start and I feel an excruciating pain on top of them that just won’t let up. I lay on the floor in the bathroom in pure panic that I’m going to have my baby right there. I was due to have a repeat c section but knew she was head down, so I immediately thought “omg what if I need to push?”. Looking back, I wish that was the worst of my worries. I can’t get off the floor. “Just get up. Get in the car.” Words I would keep telling myself. Thoughts that still haunt me. Next thing I know, I’m being laid on a stretcher, kissing my boys goodbye. I hear the EMT say, “Looks like mama is having a baby today!” 

 

The pain; indescribable. 

 

My first time in an ambulance, scared out of my mind. Of all the thoughts that went through my head, never could I have been prepared for what was about to happen. I’m wheeled up to triage, alone, because Eric wasn’t allowed in the ambulance with me. The nurse is questioning me about why I’m supposed to get a c-section. I remember yelling “I’m not pushing. She’s head down and coming. PLEASE just get me on the OR table now.” I remember feeling like she was judging me and probably just thinking I was a girl that couldn’t handle labor pains, as her meaningless questions just kept coming. 

They put the monitor straps across my stomach. I immediately hear nothing. I can still feel how hard they pushed and moved the sensors around frantically in all I can describe as shear panic. “Lower her volume next door!” ... as if it really could have been a volume issue. Time stood still. They roll over an ultrasound machine. I turn to Eric before anyone has uttered a word to me. “They can’t find her heartbeat.” I can’t believe I even spoke those words. I spoke them and knew, but still held on to hope that I was wrong. One doctor scans, a second doctor scans. 

 

“I’m so sorry. There’s no heartbeat. Your baby did not make it.”

 

Words you never imagine hearing, and I pray you never will. My entire world stopped. How could this even be real? She was perfectly fine 3 hours earlier! The out of body experience I had is something I will never be able to describe. 

 

Focus was immediately switched to me, as the patient and quickly an emergent situation. We didn’t even have a second to grasp what just happened and I’m giving consents for blood transfusions and the possibility of losing my uterus and surrounding reproductive organs. I was bleeding internally, my BP 85/48. At this point they didn’t know for sure what actually happened, but were thinking it was a uterine rupture, just based off the knowledge that I had a previous c-section. I was unstable and at risk for DIC. I remember being moved to the cold, metal operating table, and everyone moving so quickly around me. I remember looking around for Eric and not seeing him. Thinking about the fear he must have felt in those moments, not knowing if he was also going to lose me, breaks me all over again. I remember hearing them say “let’s wait until she’s fully under”. A huge fear of mine has always been to be put to sleep for surgery; I didn’t even have a second to realize that that’s what was happening. Next thing I know I’m waking up in recovery, Eric’s hand in mine, tears down his face. Coming out of that, and waking up from what felt like a nightmare, for a split second I thought maybe none of it really happened.

 

Oh, but it did. This nightmare was just beginning. 

 

Our world, shattered. Our baby, gone. 

 

37 weeks of a “low risk” pregnancy, our perfect Andelyn, never got to take a breath. 

 

A maternity room that normally is supposed to be filled with the sound of crying, and “congratulations” from everyone who walks in, quickly felt like an entirely different place. Instead of our newborn daughter’s cries, it was ours. Instead of congratulations, it was “I’m so sorry.” 

 

My doctor came in to talk to us about what happened. Placenta abruption. The two words that will haunt me for the rest of my life. While most abruptions are found early on because of visible bleeding, mine was completely spontaneous and concealed. The severe pain was the only tangible sign I had that anything was wrong, and at that time I had thought I was just in a quickly progressing labor. During surgery, a 500mL blood clot was found behind my placenta, where it had separated from my uterine wall. I suffered a hemorrhage of nearly 2000mL blood loss and subsequently needed three units of blood. My doctor talked about the risk factors that cause abruptions, and I had none. There’s a 1% chance of a placenta abruption happening. In that 1%, about 15% of babies do not survive. This was our lightning strike. 

 

Nothing could ever prepare you for the moment you meet your baby in this scenario. We had no idea what to expect or how long we would have with her. They wheeled her in, and she looked like a perfectly healthy, sleeping angel. She was placed in my arms and I was screaming inside. Begging for some miracle and for her to just wake up. I touched her perfectly soft skin, grazed her tiny button nose, ran my fingers through her thick black hair. I would have given anything to hear her cry and to see her eyes looking up at mine. Tears streamed down my face, onto hers while I kissed her. The aching I felt inside of my heart was crippling. I felt like I couldn’t even take a breath in, from the weight of this immense love that was immediately transformed into grief. Eric held onto me, as we both held her. Our nurses were amazing and grabbed my phone to take pictures. I am forever indebted to them. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do in these moments, and because of them, we have these beautiful memories of our daughter. The only pictures we will ever have of her. The only way we can share her with everyone. They cared for her as if she was living and breathing. They talked to her, they dressed her, they told her how beautiful she was. They were so gentle and kind with her. These nurses who were complete strangers, made such a lasting impact on my heart. 

 

Eric’s heart was so broken, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I couldn’t comfort him anymore than I could comfort myself. I have never seen him in so much pain before, and I couldn’t help but blame myself. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Words I kept saying to both her and to him. I felt like my body which was supposed to protect her, and did for 9 months, completely failed her. Completely failed them both. I heard a faint cry from somewhere else on the floor. The pain. Do they know how truly lucky they are? Why were we the ones chosen to face this immeasurable pain and loss? The questions didn’t stop, and I don’t think they ever will. That night into the next morning was a blur. I barely slept. I remember waking up multiple times, just sobbing. The morning came and in that instant I looked over at the bassinet, a ray of sunshine beamed into the room and onto her. It felt surreal. In that very moment life felt perfectly normal. Just my newborn baby girl, peacefully sleeping next to us. I close my eyes now and I’m taken right back there to that moment. That moment where time stood still and it took a few seconds for my brain to catch up to the reality of this nightmare we were living. This nightmare of holding onto our lifeless baby. This nightmare of moving forward without her. How do we tell her big brothers that she’s finally here but she isn’t coming home with us? We didn’t know what was right or what was wrong, but my nurse pushed for the hospital to allow the boys to come see us. Under normal circumstances, siblings under age 12 are not allowed to visit. We chose to have her out of the room, to spare them.

 

“Daddy, why are you crying? Daddy what’s wrong?” 

“Mommy, where’s Andelyn? Is she here?” 

 

My poor boys. My heart breaks for theirs. Being touched by such a big loss and such grief at such a young age. We talked to them and tried to explain in the best way we could that Andelyn wasn’t coming home with us. That something terrible had happened, but that it was all going to be okay. We told them it was ok to be sad, and angry, and ok to cry. We promised them we would all get through this together. We showed them pictures of her. Their little brains were turning and they innocently asked if she was still here, and if they could see her. In that moment, we both agreed it was best, and I am forever grateful that we made that decision to bring her back in. They held her, they kissed her, they cried. They would have been the absolute best big brothers. 

 

We weren’t expecting visitors, because who knows how to act in all of this? But they came. Our family, our friends. They didn’t know what they were walking into. They didn’t expect to meet her, they just wanted to be there for us. Being thrown into something so big, something so hard, you would never have known. The way they showed up, and how they acted with her, again as if she was living and breathing. Talking to her, holding her, kissing her. Admiring every little detail of her. It was such a beautiful thing to witness, and something I will never forget. 

 

Nearly 42 hours we had with our Andelyn, and it was time to say goodbye. She was changing before our eyes and we couldn’t bare to witness it any longer. My nurse promised she would care for her and sit with her and tell her how much she was loved. The mother instinct in me wanted to jump out of the bed and run after her. My baby, ripped away from me. My baby, no longer a part of me. My baby, not coming home with us. This was so surreal. I asked Eric how we were ever going to get through this. In all honesty, I now know we never will. We will carry this pain for the rest of our lives. It will never go away, but I hope for a day when we will learn to walk beside it. 

 

Perhaps one of the most excruciating things to add on top of being wheeled out of the hospital with empty arms, is that your body doesn't know that your baby died. Against my will, I experienced everything a normal mom does postpartum. Recovering from a brutal surgery, because there’s no time to be gentle in an emergent c-section. Health issues developing and just piling on. The emotional pain of milk coming in meant for your baby that isn’t there to feed, on top of the physical pain of engorgement and trying to stop production. You’d think loss moms could somehow be spared all postpartum pain to somehow ease the pain of losing their baby. The pain that will live with them forever. The pain. Unspeakable pain that lives with me every second of every day. The emptiness I feel in my body that grew and housed my daughter for 9 months. Now I’m left with just an incision lined deflated belly, where she moved, stretched, flipped, and kicked all day long and nothing to show on the outside. No baby to look at or hold. All I can do is hold on to the memories and the moments of her inside of me. The only life she lived was with me. Her heart only beating with mine. 

 

I read about something called fetal-maternal microchimerism. Besides providing nutrients to the baby, the placenta actually allows cells to pass between the mother and her baby. In a scientific study, pathologists found cells with Y chromosomes in autopsies that were done on 26 women who died after pregnancy. Why is this interesting? Cells with Y chromosomes are male cells and should not exist in a female body. Each of the 26 women had been carrying sons. The pathologists found these baby boy cells in every organ that they tested. The cells had developed into functioning tissue in each of the organs. Fetal cells in the brain developed into brain tissue. Fetal cells in the kidneys became kidney tissue, and fetal cells in the heart became heart tissue. The cells of these baby boys were, scientifically, a part of their mothers' beating hearts.

 

When I say I will always carry Andi in my heart, I quite literally am. With every beat of my utterly broken heart, she is there. With every single breath of air into my lungs, she is there. I would have given my life in an instant to save her. I will question it all until my very last breath, but I wholeheartedly want to believe that my angel saved my life. Placental abruptions are extremely rare. Severe abruptions, like mine, can be fatal to both the baby and the mother. The name Andelyn means “beautiful” and “pillar of strength”. The strength and selflessness of my breathtakingly beautiful baby girl will never be forgotten. Andelyn chose herself because she knew her big brothers and her daddy needed me more. 

 

We are forever changed, forever broken, but forever searching. A bigger meaning, some bigger purpose, some light from underneath the darkness. There has to be something beautiful to come out of this unimaginable loss. There has to be an answer, on our journey After Andelyn.

 

Andelyn,

 

I promise to always tell your story.

 

I promise to never stop saying your name.

 

I promise to always keep you alive in our family.

 

I promise to never stop searching for answers.

 

I promise to do good in your honor and make you proud to be my daughter.

 

I promise to keep fighting for changes in perinatal care and testing.

 

I promise to advocate for all pregnancies to be treated the same. 

 

I promise to help others who will walk this path of pain and loss.

 

I promise to look for you in all of earth’s beauty.

 

I promise to love you with my whole heart and carry you always. 

 

This is my promise to you, until I can hold you in my arms again. 🕊️