Our Story
Our daughter Nicole was already nearly five when we got pregnant with Angel. We had already endured two early miscarriages and I had undergone surgery to correct a septate uterus (which meant that I had an extra wall in my uterus - the doctor figured that Nicole's placenta had attached properly allowing me to carry her to 36 weeks but my two other babies had attached to this wall and were not able to get the nutrients to grow properly.) After the surgery my specialist assured me that now, there was no reason why I couldn't get pregnant and carry the baby to term.
My pregnancy was going very well and I breathed a sigh of relief when I passed safely out of the first trimester. St. Patrick's Day weekend would mark the half way point in my pregnancy - another milestone. That morning I went to work as usual but by coffee time I made the horrible discovery that I was bleeding.
They called an ambulance and sent me to the local maternity hospital where the doctors discovered that I had already started dilating. They tried stitching my cervix in hopes of stopping any further dilation but by the time they found an operating room I had gone from three centimeters to six and the half hour procedures took two and a half hours.
Nonetheless, the doctors were optimistic and assured me that if my water didn't break and I didn't come down with an infection the pregnancy could proceed.
I was put on strict bed rest but by the next day my water broke. The doctors told us that they could remove the stitch which they had labored so hard to insert and our baby would probably be born and would have a one percent chance of survival or leave things alone and if the tear in the sac was not large it might repair itself. I couldn't explain why but I felt that if I allowed them to take out the stitch it would be like aborting my baby so I asked them to leave things alone. I reasoned that whatever happened would be in God's hands.
Sunday night the nurse came in to do vital signs and though she had difficulty finding a heartbeat she finally found one. She assured me they'd send me for a proper ultrasound the next morning just to make sure everything was ok.
I fell into a fitful sleep. The next morning Peter arrived and they sent us down for the ultrasound. Here we discovered that in her valiant effort to survive our tiny daughter had compressed her cord. There was no heartbeat. Our baby had died peacefully during the night.
They put me on oxytocin and that evening at six-thirty I gave birth to an eleven ounce, nine inch baby girl. She was the smallest, yet most perfectly formed little angel I'd ever seen and so we named her Angel.
She is buried at our local cemetery. I was adamant that I would not go through such heartache again. I would settle for having an only child. However, my own experience as an only child and my strong desire to give Nicole a sibling outweighed my fear and we tried "just one more time'
Today I'm so glad we did for Jennifer just had her fourth birthday. Both my girls know they are my miracle children. Nicole is the child of my youth and innocence when after I passed out of the first trimester I never doubted for a moment that I would bring home a baby. Jennifer is the child that never should have been born yet by the grace of God she was.
Though we miss Angel very much she taught us more by her brief life than any other single experience. Had we not lost Angel, we would never have had the opportunity to meet and help so many other bereaved parents, we would not have had the opportunity to help run our local support group and without her we never would have learned how strong the desire to live can be when you know you are wanted and loved. Had I not lost her at twenty weeks I'd never know how perfectly formed and complete a baby can be after such a short time in her mother's womb.
We have created this page to share our family's story in the hope that in sharing with others we may help someone else as they travel along the road of grief towards healing. Thank you for visiting our page and reading our story. Please sign our Guestbook and share something of your story with us.
Nancy, Peter, Nicole & Jennifer Slinn
In loving memory of
"Chris" miscarried Dec 23, 1993
"Vic" miscarried May 22, 1994
Angel stillborn March 20, 1995
