While our Nation seems at war over what rights women do or do not have,
my Twin sister was fighting a battle all her own.
One that ONLY women can do.
This is a true women's right movement,
The choice to be strong when you feel broken,
and bring a baby forth you know you won't be able to bring home.
Whether you are Pro-choice or Pro-life is not the issue in this instance,
All that matters is a baby's heart stopped beating and a mama who loved him had to make choices.
D&E, induction, or go into labor on your own?
All risky, all a heartbreaking end to pregnancy.
I have always been absolutely proud of the mother my sister is,
Any child born to her is going to be cared for, healthy and loved beyond measure.
But I do have to say, until this moment I didn't realize I could be MORE proud of her.
2 miscarriages for her, Multiple for our younger sister and one of my own have taught me she is a fountain of reproductive knowledge and support.
But a stillbirth?
This is something completely different.
You knew for sure the heart was beating, body moving, baby growing...
You had made it past the supposed "scary part" where everyone is just counting the weeks until the magic #12...
The part where you can for sure tell friends, family and shout it from the rooftops
"We are having a baby!"
But to be in an appointment past the magic 12 and there be no heart beating where you knew there was one before?
That for a mom is the stuff nightmares are made of...
and I believe was in the top pregnancy fears for my sister as I know it was in mine.
Well she has now lived it.
She has handled it with a grace and peace that I have never seen,
She is the one keeping other's strong and consoling them when she should be consoled.
She is proving that when a woman makes a choice she can move mountains.
And that a woman of faith is not a weak and cowed person,
they are strong because they have hope for the future weather it be here or in heaven.
She has done this all despite being alone with her other children because her husband is away training for a medical alert dog.
When she told him about the loss of their unborn son he wanted to come home.
She told him No, not because he didn't need to be here with her.
But because she knew that watching and waiting for her to deliver this child would be more painful for her whole family, and the dog was needed more.
Yet another choice my strong sister made that impressed me in this tough circumstance.
In the days preceding the news she made the choice to deliver her son WHOLE.
I only say this because at the gestational age he was his body wouldn't have survived a D&E.
She wanted to see her son, Hold him, let him be born with dignity and love.
To use this to heal her broken heart and mend herself.
Having done what she set out to do,
Be his Mother,
Something she had dreamed of from the first moment she knew he was coming.
Something she had prepared herself and her other children for with anticipation, now never to be.
My own daughter asked me "why did God take the baby away?",
My only answer was "Heaven needed this baby more..."
How else do you explain life and death to children?
It's a hard subject for Adults.
I have seen more teachable moments in this circumstance,
More times where Nicole could have been angry, lashed out,
but instead she has shown her children a loving example of how to deal with dashed hopes and tough circumstances.
She herself has drawn strength from the compassion of her kids and the child-like faith that they will see their brother in heaven.
SHE knows she delivered a child,
but to those outside they don't know that...
- No maternity leave to recover from her 16+ hours of labor,
- No healing time from the daily marching on of life to grieve,
- No baby in her arms to distract her from the after pains that leave you exhausted and on edge.
- Back to school just one day after, and back to work at less than a week.
McCleod Eugene was born the day our nation was Marching for Women's rights, and my sister "marched" right along with them in another way,
her own way.
She may not look "fine" but she will be.
She said it best...
Nicole:
The day I went in to deliver my child, many other women were marching at capital cities across the United States.
They say they were marching for women's rights, reproductive rights, the right to choose what happens to their bodies and the right to abortion.
My heart on many of those subjects are vastly different than the women who participated, but I was expressing my own reproductive rights, the right to choose what happens to my body, and the right for my son to be born whole, no matter his gestational age or what the medical community considers him.
The point is that we have rights as women. Some of us choose to stick up for the opposite side and it doesn't make us oppressed. I believe if many women saw the masterpiece I got to hold in my hands on Sunday morning that they may feel the burden I do. I was a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and most importantly a woman that day doing something only a woman can do...bring forth a child from my own body. In all it's painful, heart-wrenching glory it is going to be one of the top 6 blessed and WOMANLY moments in my life. #iamfree #allwoman #daughteroftheking
