My Day with Maggie

It has been ten days since Maggie was born, a week since we laid her to rest. I want to remember every moment I spent with Maggie. I am afraid that if I don’t write it down, I will forget. This blog represents Maggie’s baby book. Less than a dozen posts represent the span of her life on earth. I want to share everything I learned about Maggie while I carried her in my womb. I want to share everything about the day I held her in my arms.

As I carried Maggie in my womb for over seven months, I had the opportunity to get to know Maggie better than anyone else.  I will do my best to share what I learned about my little girl. I think Maggie was a good listener. I remember when Carson was a baby all the parenting books I read (and there were a lot of them) said that I should begin verbally communicating with my children before they even learned to talk. So that is what I did. As I pushed Carson around the neighborhood in his stroller as a baby I would talk to him about the weather, the trees, and sometimes even about the neighbors (just kidding). I would do my best to explain the world around him. I made no exception with Maggie.  I would talk to Maggie about my day as I drove home from work. I would explain to Maggie my own theories on grocery store aisle organization as I unsuccessfully hunted down hard to find items on our weekly shopping trips. I am sure that I received many curious stares from the other store patrons, but let’s just hope they chalked it up to pregnancy brain.  

I also think that Maggie would have been one of those babies that I could brag about sleeping through the night at a very young age. When I first began to feel Maggie moving around in my tummy, I noticed that she was very active during the day…turning and dancing and kicking me all day long. But as night time approached, and I settled myself down to sleep, I noticed that Maggie often settled too. The kicking would subside and she would rest (as I rested) until about 7am the next morning when she would gently  wake me with her little kicks and turns (but only if Carson didn’t beat her to it…which he often did!).

I often wonder what kind of personality Maggie would have had. If we were lucky, she would have the same sweet and tender spirit of her brother, the gentleness and integrity of her father, and maybe even a hint of humor like her mother. I often wonder what she would look like as a little girl. Would she sport the same (surprisingly) blonde hair as her brother or the brown, curly hair of her mother? I don’t dwell on these wonderings for very long because I know that as a heavenly being, Maggie’s beauty – both inward and outward – is far greater than I can even imagine.

I felt a gamut of emotions on the day that Maggie was born - some of them expected and some of them surprising. When Maggie was delivered, I knew she was stillborn. There were no expectations of hearing her first cry or seeing her first move.  It was a moment tinged with sadness, but now that I recall it in my mind, I also remember feeling an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.  It was a surprising emotion to feel, but I felt it all the same. In that moment, it did not matter to me that I would not nurse my daughter or change her diaper. I had just given birth to my second child and for that I was very proud. As I think back to those few moments after Maggie was born, I really don’t think I acted much different than I had when Carson was born three years earlier.  I felt relieved that the ordeal of giving birth was over. I was hungry and asked for a cheeseburger and a coke (what can I say, I felt like indulging). I couldn’t wait to share Maggie with my family and friends. Maggie was my daughter and I was proud of her and completely and totally in love with her.

When the adrenaline of the delivery began to wear off, I also remember feeling a hint of fear, even a hint of anger.  I was fearful that the cap we placed on her head would fall off and others would see the deformities of anencephaly. I was angry at myself for having this fear. But when Maggie was dressed in a beautiful gown and I placed a pearl bracelet around her tiny wrist, the fear and anger subsided. I was going to celebrate Maggie and share her with the world.

Looking back on that day, it does seem a little strange that I would hold a stillborn baby in my arms throughout the night and on into the next day. I remember how Maggie became colder and colder as the night progressed and I remember wrapping her in layers of blankets, thinking it might help. Though I knew she had died, I needed her close to me. We had been on a long journey together and I was not ready to say goodbye just yet. I am grateful to the nurses and to my family and friends for being gracious with me as I spent my day with Maggie. Maggie had so many visitors the evening she was born and even into the next day. I am so thankful that I was able to share her with many who have been on this journey with me and have grown to love Maggie just as I do.  She received lots of cuddles and lots of kisses. No one could believe how tiny she was. Everyone could believe how precious she was.

As my time with Maggie neared its end, the gamut of emotions continued. There was the joy of holding my baby girl, the sadness of letting her go, and fear returned as well. Fear that the peace I had so fervently prayed for would come crumbling down when faced with the reality of saying goodbye.  Leading up to Maggie’s birth, I knew that the most difficult moment would be kissing her goodbye when the representatives from the funeral home came to pick her up from the hospital. It was almost 24 hours to the minute since she was born that I heard the knock on my hospital room door. I knew they had come for Maggie. We had called them and told them it was time.  She felt so cold and her once delicate pink skin now carried a dark purple hue. Although there were many tears shed in those few minutes of saying goodbye, God was faithful in restoring peace to us once again. Charles and I both understood that Maggie no longer resided in her broken, earthly body, but had been restored to a perfect body and now danced on heaven’s streets of gold.

Leaving the hospital that day, I clutched a teddy bear, baby blankets, and a memory box that had been assembled for Maggie. It contains multiple copies of tiny ink handprints and footprints, a measuring tape cut to Maggie’s birth length of 12 inches, a tiny plaster footprint, a pink baby cap just like the one placed on her head after she was born, a lock of her hair, and the pearl bracelet she wore on the day we spent together. As I sat down in the passenger seat of our van, another mother – a new mother – was also getting into her car; she carried a newborn baby in her arms. The reality of the situation almost took my breath away, but yet, the peace remained. Maggie has blessed my life in so many ways,  just as she has blessed so many others and, for that, I am grateful.