It’s hard for me to connect to the baby at the very beginning of pregnancy. It’s easier to focus on the symptoms taking over my body than it is to wrap my head around the fact that there is a teeny tiny soul growing inside of me. It normally takes hearing that heartbeat flutter with that quick and resounding boom for it to click that a new person will be joining our family.
Each time I’ve heard that beautiful noise, my eyes have filled with tears. This time, the tears fell because of its absence.
Recently, we found out that our child whose heart never formed is a girl. We have a second daughter.
We both thought we were pregnant with a girl. My symptoms were similar to my first pregnancy with my daughter and secretly, I think we both wanted a reason to break out our one-too-many bins filled with pink and tiny baby bows.
But after the miscarriage, I didn’t really want to know. Because I knew that knowing for sure would bring on a new kind of grief.
Before, I was sad over knowing pain again so soon after our last complicated pregnancy and son’s open-heart surgery. I was heartsick because I thought this baby seemed perfectly timed—time we won’t get back. I was caught up in my own emotions about this miscarriage, instead of the life that was lost.
I was riddled with the why. Was this always the plan for her life, our lives, or was the extra 4th chromosome a product of living in a fallen world? Why didn’t God save her, save us, from this?
I don’t know. I will never know and I realize that these intellectual questions about God’s role in our lives will never bring us comfort in the midst of suffering.
I don’t know why God allowed an extra copy of her 4th chromosome to be embedded in our daughter’s genetic code—a condition not fit for life here on earth. But I do know He is enjoying our daughter, His daughter, in heaven.
Although we will never be able to tell our daughter that we love her in this life, I know she knows a love far more perfect than what we could have ever given her. And knowing this will continue to bring us comfort until we get to the other side.
We have a daughter who we will one day meet. Her name is Tillie.
*Some of you may be wondering how we know this information. We ordered a products of conception test that told us that our child was a girl and that she had Trisomy 4. Nearly one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage and more than half of them are because of genetic issue.
*Why Tillie? I thought Tillie was a cool old name I found when I was pregnant with Violet. But then I realized that we had a Millie (our dog) and my nieces and nephew called me Jillie and it may be a bit much. I don’t think we have to worry about such trivial things on the other side. I later found out that Tillie was the shortened name of Andy’s great grandmother and I wondered if we would ever use it. I made a list of 10 names to choose from and Andy immediately picked Tillie. So, our daughter’s name is Tillie Ann— a combination of Andy’s and my great grandmother’s names.
