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I am sure of the future. I have married my Prince Charming, we have
two little boys, I am pregnant and sure it is a girl and I am on my way
to having the two boys and two girls I have always wanted.  We have
heard the heartbeat and we are on our way to have an ultrasound to see
what we are having. Just the routine 20-week ultrasound.

We are taking the two boys and we have invited anyone that wants to
come, so my Mom and Dad are there, my sister and sister-in-law, and my
mother-in-law. A full house. The tech comes in and asks if we want to
know the sex of the baby and we say “sure,” and she tells us it’s a
girl. Cheers go up, a baby girl!

Then the tech gets real quiet and rushes out. It seems like it takes
the doctor forever to come in. He seems pretty serious, and the boys are
getting restless so my sister takes them out. The Doctor tells us that
our baby’s head is not completely formed. She has anencephaly, which is a
cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect. t occurs when
the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close resulting in
the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp
(Wikipedia).   My first thought is, “Okay, how they are going to fix
this?” The doctor goes on to explain that there is nothing that can be
done. If I carry her full term she will probably die en utero, or I can
deliver her. Most anencephalic babies do not survive birth.  At this
point I just said to my husband, “I will not do this.” They send us on
our way and we stop by our Doctor’s office and he explains what we just
found out. We call our church leader, looking for something, someone to
tell us what to do, and give us some peace of mind on how we could ever
do this. We find out it is our choice. We can deliver early or carry her
until her due date, or until she dies. The peace we are looking for
will have to come from within.

We pray and pray. We talk to the Doctor about whether she could be an
organ donor. That is not a possibility. I want a sign. I am just
starting to show and harmless questions are now very painful: “Are you
expecting? Do you know what you’re having? Are you just so excited?
Plus, we are trying to figure out a way to explain to our boys who are 5
and 3 what is going on. I become a little obsessed about being able to
give her a name and a blessing, because it seems to so important to me
to have her name on our church records. I don’t want anyone to ever
forget she was here!

Eventually, we decide to deliver her early. My Dad goes to the
cemetery and finds out that we can bury her with my Grandpa. That
somehow seems so comforting to think she would be buried with a
Grandfather I love so much. They schedule the day and we go in. We have
tons of family who want to support us, so they are planning on being
there. They tell us it will be about 6 hours. After about 3, I am
starting to have contractions. Most of our family have visited, and we
can’t seem to get the nurse to come back. Finally, my sister goes out in
the hall and grabs a nurse that just happens to be in her church
congregation, and she literally comes in and takes over. Her name is
Kathy, She know I am going to deliver soon and called the Doctor. In a
short amount of time they wheeled me into the delivery room and we had
our sweet angel Bailey. The Doctor was most concerned about me, but
Kathy said that Bailey’s heart was still beating and Greg (prince
charming) was able to give her a name and blessing. They wrapped her up
and we went back down to the room, filled with our family. What to do,
how to handle the whole thing? What I really wanted to do was to curl up
in the fetal position and drop out of life. What happened was, Kathy
walked us through it. We held Bailey and Kathy unwrapped her, and
pointed out her long fingers and long toes. We noticed that she looked
like her brothers, and we were able to enjoy her. Later we would receive
the molds they had made of her hands and feet.

Bailey would be 13 this year. We hang a Christmas stocking for her
every year.  We have ornaments on the tree that her brothers have picked
out. I really don’t like the cemetery, it hurts to much, even now. So
my Mom goes out in the spring and cleans up. We usually go by on
Memorial Day. My Mother-in-law goes by and leaves things on holidays and
my Dad drives by and lets me know all is well out there.  We ended up
with three boys to raise on earth and an angel daughter.  It still
hurts, and I still miss having a giggly girl in the house, but I never
doubt that she is close by. I feel her all around us. I always pray she
knows how much we love her and what an important part of our family she
is. I know she knows.  And when people ask me how many kids I have, I
say, Three boys,” because it’s easier.  In my head I always add, “and a
girl.”

The thing I really hope for when I get the chance to be with her is
that I can do all of the things that only Moms and Daughters get to do.
I’ll learn to do her hair, go shopping for shoes and clothes--you know
really cute girly clothes. We’ll laugh about girly things, get our nails
done and talk. Mostly just talk. People wonder, “how it can be so hard,
you didn’t even really know her, and how can you miss what you didn’t
get to have?” That’s one of the things I miss the most, not getting the
chance to know her here on earth. But I know her spirit and I am glad
that I get to feel her close by.

On her headstone it reads, “Some people only dream of angels, we held one in our arms.”

-Trudy, Mother of Bailey