Lucas Charles Wood - Our Christmas Angel

On Christmas eve, our sweet baby boy, Lucas Charles Wood, was stillborn. He entered the world silently, but the echoes of his time here will be heard forever.

We were planning a homebirth with Luke. Two weeks before his birth/death, we were checked by my homebirth midwife, Chris, and everything was fine. Because I have a history of hyperemesis (extreme morning sickness), I was also seeing my CNM, Kathy, so I could be medicated for it. I saw her at 16 weeks, too, and we tried to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. Luke would not cooperate (little stinker). But he looked fantastic and super active. Kathy didn't want me to have to wait a whole month to see if the baby was a boy or a girl, so she told me we could try again in two weeks - right before Christmas. We were going to wrap a present under the tree and let the kids know whether they were having a brother or a sister.

On December 22, I was almost 19 weeks along, and I went in for another ultrasound. I hadn't felt the baby moving around that week, but I had the flu the week prior and was still really dehydrated, and it was still early enough that I was told not to be too concerned about it. As soon as Kathy started the ultrasound, I could see something was wrong. My very active baby was just lying there in a strange position. I kept telling myself in my head that he was just sleeping, that he was okay. I was wrong. After a few minutes of searching, Kathy just said, "Kristen, I'm not seeing a heartbeat." Then she had to call in one of the OBs to confirm what we already knew. My baby was dead.

Kathy was very compassionate. I had come to the appointment alone. The kids were still sick with the flu, so Aaron had stayed home to take care of them. She stayed with me and hugged me until I was ready to call Aaron. It was the hardest phone call I've ever had to make. I had been given a choice to wait a little while and see if my body would go into labor on its own, or to be induced. I chose to be induced. The soonest opening they had was the next morning.

I was induced with Cytotec the morning of the 23rd. I only had to dilate to about a 5 to deliver since Luke was so small, but my body wasn't at all ready, so it took almost 24 hours. I am a huge natural childbirth advocate, but I was more than willing to get an epidural in this case if I needed it. I didn't. I delivered him a little after 5:30 in the morning on Christmas eve. The atmosphere was almost reverent. It was just me, Aaron, our nurse, and my midwife. The delivery was very gentle. He came out still in the amniotic sac. It was opened, and we saw our little man. He was perfect in every way. He had become tangled in his cord, and it caused his death. It was wrapped around his neck 4 times, and around his arm twice. Kathy said she had never seen another baby quite as tangled. His head was a bit swollen from the blood being trapped in his brain when the cord wrapped around his neck, but he was perfectly formed in every way. The spirit was very strong. We felt Luke with us. I know he wasn't present in his body, but we felt HIM - his strong personality, his will, his love, and him comforting us and letting us know that he just didn't need to be here for very long.

We held him and talked to him and cried and smiled at how much he looked like our other kids. Ethan and my dad came up to the hospital and held him. Share, an organization that supports parents during pregnancy and infant loss, came and talked to us, took professional pictures, and made casts of his hand and foot. We were given an outfit, blanket, and teddy bear for Luke. I am so grateful to Katie, Julie, and Pat from Share for taking time out of their Christmas eve to come and talk to us. All the Share volunteers have lost babies, so they really did know what we were feeling and experiencing.

We had to make arrangements with the mortuary for Luke's service and burial. We had no idea how to go about doing that. We had heard that Myers Mortuary donated their services for infants and children, so we picked them. It turned out that the funeral director was a man in our ward. Handing our baby over to go to the mortuary was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life, but it helped that he was going with someone we knew.

We spent several hours with Luke, and since it was Christmas eve, we felt very strongly that we needed to get home to the other kids. We needed it as much for us as for them. Going home and being able to hold my other babies - there are no words. Leaving the hospital empty-handed was heart crushing. Nothing could have comforted me like hugging and kissing and drinking in my other children.

Luke will never be forgotten. He is our son, our children's brother, our parents' grandchild. He is a part of our eternal family. I am devastated beyond belief that we do not get to raise him here, but I have no doubt that he is ours, and we will get to be with him again someday. We love you so much, buddy.