Greyson's Gift

When strangers ask how many kids I have I give them the simple answer....three. When someone I know a little better asks I give them the really answer....four, three on earth and one waiting for us in heaven.

Gunner is our oldest child..here. He is 10 and a true miracle! That is thanks to his sister, Shaylee. Shaylee was stillborn at 42 weeks. Yes, I was two weeks over due. There was never any indication during the entire pregnancy that anything was wrong. We went into a routine appointment and the DR could not find her heartbeat.

After a long, difficult birth our beautiful baby girl was born. She was perfect in everyway, except she was no longer alive. We later discovered that I get a condition called IUGR - Intrauterine Growth Retardation. Essentially the placenta quits working at about 5 months. If it goes undetected, like in Shaylee's case, then it often results in the baby dying. Nothing can prevent it. But it can be controlled, with severe bed rest and around the clock monitoring of the baby and eventually an early birth. We did not know any of this with Shaylee, but because of her, we knew about it when we were pregnant with Gunner and Taya (both had the same condition). He was premature and had to stay in NICU for several weeks, but today he is healthy happy 10 year old.

After Shaylee was born, the nurses wrapped her in a blanket and we held her for several hours. When the nurses took her body, they gave me the blanket she had been wrapped in. I slept with that blanket for 3 months. And when ever I fell alone or like the pain of losing her is going to eat me up, I take that blanket out and hold it. I always fell closer to her when I do.

This is still tender and hard for me to share (even after 12 years), because the grief always overwhelms me when I get this far into the store, hence the reason strangers get the simple answer. But I felt sharing my store might encourage some of you to join my mom, sister (I hope all of them?) and I in participating in Greyson's Gift I know how much comfort that little blanket can bring to a mom or a dad when they feel like they life will never be happy again.