A Little Life Inside

June 30, 2018 | 1 Month I walked through a fatal diagnosis & am now on the other side of it. The doctors were right. Our baby Mila did die. May 31st. It was the saddest, most painful experience of our lives. But we are not alone. The Lord is near to the broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18), and He surrounded us with a whole army of support, and with many other broken, bereaving mamas who came alongside me to understand me, encourage me, and give me practical wisdom for the hardest journey of my life. Praise God, we made it through the first month. Some friends came over for a couple of hours this week. I haven't felt very social at all. Being back at church was hard. And I knew seeing local friends again, starting up music classes again, and going back to our regular life would be hard. I didn't want to just resume all our normal activities & pick up where we left off as if nothing ever happened. I have to remind myself that just because we're returning to all of our ...

June 22, 2018 | Week 3 Ever since Mila’s funeral, it has been very difficult for me to experience pleasure. It’s hard to smile and enjoy things while my heart is still in such immense pain. Everything in me wants to shut out the happy and wallow in the despair. I remember one day, soon after Mila was born, I made a funny and made Aaron laugh. I let out a chuckle, too, and it literally made me feel sick inside. How can I be laughing at such a time as this? There's nothing funny about anything that's going on right now. Yet over and over I’ve seen the joy of the Lord seeking us out in the midst of the pain, just like the song we sang at Mila's funeral: 🎶 O, Joy that seekest me through pain,       I cannot close my heart to Thee...    🎶 Our 3 older kids went to family camp for the week. I knew they would genuinely enjoy themselves there. While they were gone, Aaron and I had to choose (force ourselves) daily to open our hearts up to this joy that seeks us....

June 17, 2018 | Week 2 Happy Father's Day, Aaron. You deserve to be celebrated. You have been through so much. Because of that, you now love so much more, and we love you so much more. Having lost a child, we think about all the things we miss about her. But now I think about you...what would we miss about you if the Lord took you from us? We would miss your funny and not-so-funny jokes. Your harps. Your hardy har har outbursts of silly laughter. The kids would have no one to help them walk on the ceiling. Your scruff and fluff (and nothing). Your good taste in wine. Your music that I'm always turning down, but that I honestly do delight in. The way you scribble in all-caps. Your ever-growing t-shirt collection, of which the kids love to pick out which one you should wear. We always save the white chocolate chips for you. We get so busy with life that we don't often realize just how much we love you and appreciate you. I want to soak it all up. I remember our Father...

June 16, 2018 | Week 2 I need to go back and read my own birth story. We left that hospital with no regrets. But weeks later, regrets have crept in. I should have sung to Mila after she was born. I should have prayed with her. I should have read Scripture to her. I should have prayed for her by name. All the time she was in the womb, I only referred to her as "baby" because we didn't know whether we were having a girl or a boy (although, now when we look back at the pregnancy, we realize it was Mila all along). I should have called the kids earlier to come to the hospital so that they could meet their baby sister sooner. I look back at the timestamps of the digital pictures (technology...too much info...sometimes better just not to know) and maybe Mila was no longer alive when they finally came in. Her heartbeat was slow at 4:20. We cut the cord soon after. The kids arrived another ten minutes later. I don't remember whether she moved or not on me once they arri...

June 14, 2018 | Week 2 Yesterday, the first day after Mila's memorial service, Aaron stayed home from work. How was he going to return to work after having just buried his daughter the previous afternoon? So he took the day off of work, and we spent the day home together as a family. We did the most mundane things together, but the point was that we were all together, experiencing life together. We went to the grocery store together, and Tillamook ice-cream happened to be on sale, so we each chose a carton and came home and had an ice-cream party. There was an incident that had taken place in our home at the dinner reception, an incident that left us feeling violated, disrespected, and deeply wounded at the already lowest point of our lives. It added a layer of complication to the grieving. Aaron and I had a lot to process from everything that had just taken place, but we wanted to make sure our kids had the opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings, too, so we did our b...

June 12, 2018 | Day 12 So many thoughts and emotions on this day, the day we buried our daughter. I will update later, but for now, I wanted to share the slideshow video that we had made for Mila.

June 11, 2018 | Week 2 Death is ugly. It took my sweet baby girl's face and shriveled it. It took her delicate fingers and stiffened them. It was hard to see her "embalmed", but I felt the need to take care of her, whether in life or in death, whether in the womb or out. And even though she is no longer with us, I still feel this maternal desire to nurture her and care for her. I guess this will play out by putting flowers at her grave and having remembrances of her throughout our home. Her shadow box, her pictures. Her videos. Talking about her with the other kids to keep her memory alive inside of our hearts and minds. Even in death, I felt like I needed to take care of her body. I wanted to be the one to do it. I'm Mila's mom, and I will be the one who takes care of her. So I went to the dressing yesterday. I'm glad Aaron came with me. I didn't think I would ever see her face again, this side of eternity, after handing her lifeless body over to the ...

June 7, 2018 | Day 7 Today is one week since Mila entered and then left our world. One entire week. The longest week of my life. Thank You, Lord for bringing us through this first week. Tonight, as a family, we watched all of Mila's videos and looked at all of her pictures. The kids hadn't seen these yet. During the day, some sweet local friends offered to take all 6 of my kids to the park for a few hours. I am thankful for the time and space they provided for me to pray, cry, reflect, and have much-needed solace. I spent time going around the house and caring for the flowers we received. I used to think that caring for flowers was a bit of a nuisance, but today caring for the flowers made me feel like I was caring for my Mila. I gave the flowers fresh water, which is like bathing Mila. I trimmed them, which is kind of like changing Mila's diaper. I rearranged them, which is like getting Mila dressed. Being a very practical person, I never really saw flowers as be...

June 6, 2018 | 6 Days I really don't want to be planning a funeral today. I want to be holding my baby, not planning her burial. But this is our reality, and I want to make it as sweet as possible. I bought her a dress, one for her to wear, one to display at home in her memory box. Her dress comes with a purse. I will finally take off my hospital wristband (I've been wearing it since her birth) and bury it with her in her purse. She's my daughter all the way to the grave, and I want evidence of that even in the grave. I don't know how to plan a funeral. Awkward questions come up. How will we dress? Will we wear all black? I don't want to be in black. But we're not necessarily celebrating, either. I bought myself a dress. I call it my Mila dress. I want to be able to wear it again throughout the years and remember her and smile. What will be the mood of the funeral? When an old person dies, people are sad, but people are rejoicing. Someone in their mid-80...

June 5, 2018 | Day 5 Throughout these first few days of overwhelming grief, I've been seeing glimpses of normal. Nothing feels normal quite yet, but I get little glimmers of it, and it gives me hope. Yesterday, I took the kids to Soak City, as promised, and it was good to be able to go, and we stayed for only a couple of hours because of my pumping schedule. I could only handle so much lightheartedness, and then I reached a point where I wanted to cry and go back home. The kids genuinely had fun, though, and I'm realizing that they're just kids and they need to be kids and do all their regular kid things right now. It seems like they've already returned to their normal, but I'm not there yet. Today is Tuesday. Laundry day in the Davies home. So we did our laundry. Sorted it, washed it, dried it, folded it, put it away. Went through the whole routine. Then we made muffins and ate lunch, just like we did in weeks prior. In the midst of all that, for just a momen...

June 4, 2018 | Day 4 I've been pumping for a few days now, and it has its ups and downs. It's comforting to see life-giving milk come out of me. It's comforting to see my body go through the full cycle from pregnancy through delivery to breastfeeding. I've nursed six kids already, so my body knows that this is how things are supposed to happen. Breastfeeding/pumping helps the uterus to contract after giving birth. That's healing. For me, this is something that feels right amidst everything else that feels so wrong right now. Hopefully Mila's milk can be donated somewhere and give life to a baby in need. Pumping gives me phantom baby feelings, in a good way. I like imagining what Mila would be drinking. It makes me feel more like her mommy. It's Mila's milk, I tell the kids. When it's almost time to pump again, I feel like "the baby is about to wake up." In between pumping, I feel like "the baby is sleeping" & I can relax...

June 3, 2018 | Day 3 Today was a hard day as a family. I want the kids to be sensitive, kind, compassionate people, and I'm hoping and praying that the Lord is accomplishing that in them through the death of their baby sister, but they're not always sensitive...they're still children, and I need to be graciously aware of that. Today I asked for help emptying the dishwasher, and none of my older 3 kids wanted to help, and they resorted to bickering. I was a little angry, but more than anything else I was sad. Disappointed. Don't they see what Mommy is going through right now? Don't they know how hard this is? Do they get it? Do they even care? Why don't they ever come give me a hug and ask me how I'm doing? I was afraid for our family. Will this be something that binds us closer together or wedges us apart? I guess it all depends on how we deal with things. I remember after our first baby who died in the womb last year. Aaron and I discovered that we ha...

June 2, 2018 | Day 2 I would love to just go back to Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 3:24 pm and stay there a little longer, but I can't. Time moves forward. Life continues. The sun rises again, and a new day is before us. I have to move forward into the future as well. I feel like I should have a big black letter M for mourning stamped on me so that everyone knows what I'm going through right now, but instead I have to figure out how to move through each day carrying the grief that I'm carrying while the rest of the world continues on as it did before. I know that one day it will be much easier, but it's all so fresh on my mind and raw in my heart right now. Today is Auri's birthday, and we've been talking about his birthday for quite some time now, planning out how we're going to celebrate, what kind of cake he wants, and what gift we would give him. My mommy heart was torn between two children pulling me in opposite directions: grieving for Mila yet celebra...

June 1, 2018 | Day 1 It was strange waking up in the morning without Mila. It definitely feels like something is amiss. I'm no longer pregnant, but I don't have my baby either. Someone is missing. At the same time, it is good to be home with our six little loves again after being gone all day yesterday at the hospital. The kids are really refreshing to be around right now. I need their simple childlike faith & and naive childlike outlook on life. To them, yesterday was a GREAT day. They woke up to Bunicu being here. He took them to the park. He took them to In-n-Out. They came to the hospital (first time ever in a hospital for all of them, except birth) & got to see their cute baby sister. Then back to Bunicu's for dinner, games, and the NBA finals. It makes me smile knowing that they look back on that day as the day Mila was born, not necessarily the day she died. After breakfast today, my dad took the kids to the park (he is one incredible man...thank you, T...

. May 31, 2018 | 31 weeks Our baby Mila was born today. 3 lb 1 oz and 14 3/4 inches of pure bliss. She stayed with us just long enough to meet her brothers and sisters, and then she breathed her last and went home to our Lord. We had been looking forward to May 31 for weeks. I was impatient about it, even. It was the day that our second opinion was scheduled. I was eager to find out more information about our baby. Instead, I got to meet her face to face. The Day Before Wednesday afternoon, just after 3 pm, I noticed that I had some sort of a discharge come out of me, out of the birth canal side. It was only a little bit. When I wiped, it kind of looked like diarrhea (an olive brown color), and I thought I must have leaked something when I passed gas. Super embarrassing. But anyway, when I wiped my other end, there was no sign of diarrhea whatsoever. So I googled it and concluded that it must be the beginning of some sort of infection, and I resolved not to eat any more chocol...

May 29, 2018 | 30 1/2 weeks This morning I met with a volunteer from Journey to Remember , which is part of the Forever Footprints non-profit, which I found out about through String of Pearls , which I found out about through the ARPKD Angels Facebook group. The longer the Lord sustains this pregnancy, the more kind people and compassionate organizations He puts me in touch with. That is a rainbow of mercy in this rain of sorrow. It is truly amazing to me how much support we are receiving from the community of families who have sadly walked this road before us. They know the grief, the pain, the scare of the unknown, the sting of death, and they want nothing more than to turn around and comfort others. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ...

May 27, 2018 | 30 1/2 weeks Some raw honesty, here: I can't wait for this to be over, but I realize that means possibly ushering in baby's death, which I don't want at all. I've never been one to enjoy pregnancy. I love all the cute kids that have come as a result of my pregnancies, but the growing belly, the not fitting in clothes anymore, the aches and pains, the not being able to bend over, not being able to get down on the floor and play with the kids...it's all part of pregnancy, but it's something I've always endured and not necessarily enjoyed. This pregnancy is even harder because I'm told not to expect the joy of having a baby at the end of it. So I make it a point to intentionally enjoy every precious day we have with baby in the womb. I'm full of conflicting emotions, though. This whole thing is hard. It wears me out, this suspension between life and death, between joy and sorrow. I rejoice in the baby's life, but I find myself ...