With great sadness, I wanted to share this with you…

Vivienne (to Grandmom):

“You know, my mom won’t be bringing the baby home with her from the hospital.

But d’ya wanna know what’s great about it?

The baby is in Heaven… and didn’t even have to read the Bible to get there!”

Some of you knew, some of you didn’t know, that Ryan and I were so happily expecting our third child. At our 20 week ultra-sound appointment, we discovered that the baby had stopped growing at 18 weeks and was no longer alive.

And, so, I don’t really know what else to write except that we are journeying through a stillbirth.

I’ve always thought of it as one of life’s single-most terrifying words: stillbirth.

I’ve always thought of it as being a quiet, sterile experience with no pulse; no energy.

But, there we were… laboring, crying, reaching, and waiting.

And I realized I had overlooked all of the movement there would be.

All of the agony, anxiety, care, love, turmoil, shock, shifting, and growing of mother, father, nurses, doctors, grandparents, children…

All the beating hearts and falling tears and mourning groans…

The only stillness, really, is that precious little body that emerges to say, “I was really here. But I am not any more.”

And that one little person is so very, very still.

While everyone and everything  keeps moving, and pulsing, and groaning, and hurting.

***

It’s only been one day since.

But, I wanted to let you know about it because it’s very hard for me to pick up the phone or talk about it in person.

***

We’ve had incredible, overwhelming support from friends and family – even from some folks who we do not even know, but who are entering our mourning process with the perfectly placed Scripture or word.

On Tuesday morning, Ryan and I were like a mommy and daddy sheep, grazing contentedly on a mountaintop, not realizing that, the next moment, when we turned our heads, we’d be whirling headlong down a cliff, into the valley of the shadow of death, running, feet over feet just to keep up with the plunge.

But, no sooner had our feet hit the depths of the valley, when we heard the thundering…

…the thundering footsteps of dozens and dozens of people, running headlong behind us, to meet up with us there.

And to surround us. All around.

We thank God that people – like sheep – follow one another with such devotion.

So, though we are here in the valley, God Himself remains our rock, and our family and friends remain our companions, hovering all around, even as Christ is with us here.

And our baby – a sweet darling if ever there was – is in Heaven (and didn’t even have to read the Bible to get there).