We created this page in honor of our daughter’s first birthday. It has been a year of grieving and crying, of hoping and healing, of loving and remembering. In our grief, we have found the Star Legacy Foundation, and in trying to heal, we want to help Star Legacy promote research for stillbirth prevention. We thank you for keeping our daughter’s memory alive by reading her story.
June 1, 2017 was the day our family would be complete, two boys and two girls. That was the day I was scheduled for induction with our second daughter. But on May 16, 2017, our lives were forever changed. I woke up that morning and did not feel our baby move like she typically would. I called the doctor, went to their office, and found that she did not have a heartbeat. As the doctor’s office called my husband at work, I sat there in shock, then cried, and couldn’t breathe when I thought about how we would explain this to our older children, ages 7, 6, and 3, who were counting the days until their new baby sister came home. They had created a list of names for her. We had planned a family meeting for May 31st at which we would vote and finally decide on her name. Now that meeting would never happen. More tears, now with my husband. We decided that her sister’s choice, Naomi, would be her first name, and her brothers would choose her middle name, Lucy.
Naomi Lucy was born still on May 17, 2017, at 4:58 am, at 37 weeks. She was 7 lbs 4 oz., 19.5 inches long, with beautiful dark curly hair just like her older sister. She was perfect. Her grandparents, aunt, great-aunt, brothers and sister all came to meet her and say good-bye. We gave her a first and only bath. We combed her hair and dressed her. We took pictures with her, just like we did for our other children. Daddy dozed with her in his arms on the couch, just like he did with the others. It was peaceful to hold her, just like the others. But we could not bring her home, unlike the others.
It was the hardest thing to leave Naomi. To go out the hospital door with a smaller belly, but no baby to hold in its place. The physical difference made the emotional hole that much deeper. We had excellent care from the nurses, who were trained in OB bereavement. They took footprints, made molds, and had the professional photographers take pictures. They helped our older children make memory boxes and gave them each an angel teddy bear and a blanket on which they can write notes to her over their lifetime. We went home to plan a memorial service and had lots of support from family and friends.
I had more appointments and monitoring with this pregnancy than any of the others, and I went full term for each of the previous three. I had been seeing the doctor for an NST and ultrasound each week, since 34 weeks. I had multiple ultrasounds and more doctors looking at this baby than any of my previous children. It doesn’t make sense. We have not been given any reason for Naomi’s loss, other than ‘placental accident’. We miss Naomi Lucy every day and are helping our older children face one of life’s toughest lessons at such young ages.
Each night, we say our gratitude and prayers and dedicate them to Naomi Lucy. The children say, “We love you Naomi Lucy, infinity, upon infinity, upon infinity times.”
We are looking forward to honoring Naomi Lucy on her first birthday. We will get together with family and friends and celebrate her. We are happy to have found Star Legacy and the Chicago Chapter. Any family who loses their baby should know they are not alone and that there is an organization working to make sure no more families have this experience. We pray for that outcome as we remember and love Naomi Lucy. We will always be a family of 6.
