Baby Bear's STory

On January 10th, 2008 my husband and I found out that we were pregnant with

our first child. We were so excited and overjoyed since we had been trying to 

get pregnant for 7 months. 

We immediately went to a birthing clinic in our area to begin prenatal care. 

After switching to different doctors and mid-wife’s for different reasons we

were led to a hospital were at 16 weeks pregnant I had my scheduled sonogram.

 At that appointment our life was changed forever. We were told that they have

 seen a shadow on the spine of our child, and that they wanted to send me for

 more extensive exams and sonograms. We were also told that they would like

 to do amniocentesis to determine the cause of the problems that they were

 seeing on the sonograms. Since we were aware of the risk of miscarriage with

 the amniocenteses we decided that it was not right for our family and chose

​ not to do it.

From the level 3 sonograms that we received we were told that our little one had spina- bifida to begin with. However, later sonograms informed us that an abdominal wall defect was also present. I was able to find a high risk pregnancy doctor who sent us to a specialized targeted ultrasound doctor who was able to locate the defects and make us aware that the complications were quite extensive and that we would need to go for further testing.

We were devastated to find out I spent the entire day of Mother’s Day in bed crying with the knowledge that we would more than likely lose our child’s life. From the very first sonogram at 16 weeks we were encouraged to keep an open mind about aborting the pregnancy due to the complications. However, every time we informed them that we would not be considering it at any point in the pregnancy. After some weeks spent in bed, loving and talking to each other and our little unborn baby. We decided that if there was anything that we could do to help our little one’s life we would do it. 

We went to the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas for a Fetal MRI. After quite some time of the doctors reviewing the results we were informed that our little one has Limb, Body, Wall Complex (LBWC). LBWC is a rather unknown fetal complex that only affects 1 out of every 14,200 births in the US. They still do not know the cause of the complex. We were told that it could be due to an infection or some kind of glitch in the fetus as it is forming. All they do know if that the baby’s lower torso is not formed completely and that most of the time a child internal organs are located outside of their body in a sac that is from the umbilical cord. And that there was nothing that they can do medically to help her to live. 

We left that same afternoon back home since we had our answers regarding our angel’s health. We were also told that due to the complex there was no external sexual organs that would be able let them know the sex of our child. So we would have to wait till the birth to find out. Upon returning home we were devastated and I was determined to spend every waking moment showing out little one how much we loved her. I spent weeks lying in bed, crying, praying and begging God to give us a miracle and to let our little one live. We were told in Houston to have a natural birth so that I would be saved the after effects of a C-section. However, part of the LBWC is that the sac that was holding her internal organs was attached to the uterus wall…the only logical thing for us to do was to have a C-section so that our little ones last minutes on this earth were not spent in pain with a natural birth.

We had planned a C-section for 35 ½ weeks gestation, since my doctor was afraid that if we went to full term that the C-section would be too traumatic for me and our baby. However, God has other plans and ones that are better than we do. One week prior to my scheduled C-section I went into labor and began contracting. We rushed to the hospital and were informed that we would be having our little one that afternoon.

I was taken to surgery were my husband and I were allowed to be there for her birth. She was born at 1:06pm on July 28th. She was a beautiful 3lbs 12 oz. She has beautiful golden brown hair like her father, long gorgeous eyelashes and pug nose just like me. She lived only a few seconds outside of the womb. But, in those few seconds she took a breath and raised her arm above her head that looked like she was waving good bye to her daddy. We were told that it was not positive but it was more than likely that she was a girl. 

We named her Baby Bear, a nick name that we had given her in the womb. We decided that she wouldn’t know herself by any other name so we decided to keep it after birth. 3 weeks later we had received confirmation by a genetic test that she was indeed our little girl.

I am even amazed by our little girl today! She lived only a few seconds in this world and has done more than most do in a whole life time. Doctors, nurses and staff at the hospital to this day know of our little Baby Bear and how precious that she is too us. We were told during the whole pregnancy to expect her to not make it. At every appointment we were told to expect her to die in utero. That she wouldn’t move that much because of the LBWC. Yet, she kept me awake many nights with her kicking and moving. Especially when her daddy would come home from work and rub my tummy and talk to his little Baby Bear.

A few days before her memorial that we held on her original due date I was reading a book that quoted Oscar Wilde. The last line of the poem says,…how else but through a broken heart may the Lord Christ enter in?” For so long I had been begging God to tell me why he choose to take our little girl? And that day I felt I had my answer. He didn’t choose to take our little girl…He choose to give us a child that had an even greater purpose than just being our daughter. She was chosen for us! And we were chosen to be the mother and father of this little Angel that has blessed our lives as well as others around us. 

And because of that I am the luckiest woman and mother in the world.