For my first Mother's Day Josh and Evangeline bought me three hanging flower baskets for our deck. I love flowers. I love their vibrant colors,smells and their detail. One day I was sitting on the couch watching some t.v. and I happen to see something moving quickly outside to the left of me. I got up and looked out the window to see a very large bird in one of my flower baskets. I watched what I thought to be a male bird take apart my flowers and then fly off over the lake to a tree. For a couple of days I watched this bird closely but not close enough to know that 'he' was a 'she'. Josh towards the end of my pregnancy would water the flowers for me and saw that in the basket was two eggs! I had a mommy bird! And on top of that she was a Morning Dove. It wasn't shortly after discovering the eggs I went into labor and had Evangeline. When we came home from the hospital Josh had noticed that the eggs hatched and there were two sweet baby doves. I once again sat in a fog looking out the window and watched the mommy bird bring the babies food and sit with them for the night. While in my own little foggy world I became slightly jealous of this mom. YES, I just said I was jealous of a BIRD! I was longing to do the same for my little baby. I told Josh about my thoughts on this bird and as usual he changed my somewhat 'negative' thought to a more positive one. He said to me 'don't look at this type of situation as something that you don't have but for what you will have one day'. He has also said that to me about 'human babies' as well. I'm trying really hard right now to have that faith and hope in the things to come. Josh has so much faith that we will have more children to love on and bring home with us. I'M REALLY TRYING HARD TO BELIEVE!
This past week I noticed that I had only seen one of the baby birds learning how to fly. I asked Josh if he had seen the other one and he hadn't. Josh went outside to peer into the basket to see if the bird was in there. It was. That poor little thing had passed. :( It made some sense to me because the day before I had seen the mommy and other baby sitting on the deck and she was making a mournful sound. I felt so bad that she had lost her other baby. As she sat on the deck with her little one that had made it, I got out the camera and took a picture of them. They are too cute! Take a look!
What a whirlwind these past two weeks has been for us. In the early hours of June 25th I went into labor with EJ. I've never known what a contraction felt like but was grateful that my friend told me the day before what one felt and looked like. I went into the bathroom and saw my belly in a tight ball and I felt the pain so I put two and two together and woke up Josh. We called our doctor and went on to the hospital. I've never been a patient in a hospital before- so needless to saythis was my first pretty hospital gown, IV and random painful checks by the nurses (you ladies know what I mean). As we were sitting there in our room we were thinking about who all was going to be out of town that weekend, Josh's parents, our Pastor, our photographer and our favorite doctor, we felt so overwhelmed. Little did we know that God was going to provide for all of those circumstances. As people were starting to show up at the hospital, in walked our Pastor Terry, who was supposed to be on vacation. This was following a phone call from our photographer, who was in a photoshoot, saying she was on her way. Josh's parents came, cancelling their out-of-town trip. And to top it all off, one of our favorite nurses, Jen, got ahold of our favorite OBGYN (who was also supposed to be going on vacation), and asked her to come. GOD PROVIDES!! As the day went on, I was not progressing. I was dilated at 2 cm and we decided to stay overnight at the hospital. Good thing, because the following morning, I was dilated at 5 cm and in alot of pain.
June 26th:
We called all the family back in to the hospital and confirmed that today was the day. As the day went on and kept progressing, at 05:38pm, after 37 hours of labor, we got to meet our sweet little baby, Evangeline Joy Wilcox. She came out weighing 3 lbs 6.4 ounces and was 16 inches long. We were very blessed to be able to hear her cry a few times, have her open her eyes a few times, and she stuck her toungue out a few times (a trait she picked up from her mommy). She had very light hair and her eyes were greyish/blue and she was just perfect. It was unbelievable to be able to hold this little baby that had been in my belly for 32 weeks. I cuddled with her for her 45 minutes on earth and, while doing so, her daddy and I sang "Jesus Loves Me" and "Happy Birthday" and whispered sweet words into her ears. As Josh would say, it was the most amount of Joy and the most amount of sorrow in one hour that we will probably ever experience. After about 45 minutes, we realized that our little one had gone home to be with Jesus. We called everybody back into the room and had a baby dedication. When talking, our pastor said, "in one day, little Evangeline got to meet her mom, her dad, and her creator". The hospital staff was great to us. We were able to keep Evangeline as long as we liked. Josh and I took turns through the night holding her. I can remember falling asleep but waking myself up to the fact that my head was laying gently on top of hers. There are no words I could type that would represent the love and passion I have for my child. While I knew where Evangeline really was, I still felt connected to her through this little person in my arms. It was one of the hardest moments of this process, but I was finally able to hand Evangeline over that Monday night. While we prepared for the funeral, so many thoughts and emotions ran through me. What is she doing today? Why is she not still with me? How will I move on from this? Will I ever get over this? I never realized how much you can miss someone and I long for her daily. I know she's in a much better place than this world, but I still ache for her.
June 30th.
A beautiful day. I thought that Evangeline had given it to me. We, as a family, got together with a few of our pastors and celebrated Evangeline Joy's life. It was a beautiful service as we laid her to rest with my pawpaw Baston. God provided a good amount of strength to Josh and I and enabling us to speak at her service. Our family sang a song based on Psalm 23 along with poetry and finished with singing "It is Well".
After June 30th.
People call us "stong" and "faithful". We get compliments on how we're handling losing our Evangeline. I love the compliments but there are plenty of times that we feel so lost and confused. There's nothing that prepares you for losing a child. No amount of books or conversations can prepare you for feeling this. The one thing that's provided us peace is knowing that our baby girl is with our loving Father, Jesus Christ. There's also peace in knowing that I will see her again one day. I am not bitter. I am not mad at God. Just heartbroken. Healing comes over time. Peace from God comes over time, as long as we turn to Him for that peace. The following scripture was read at the service:
Romans 5:1-5
New International Version (NIV)
Romans 5
Peace and Hope
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
The following are some photos of our precious Evangeline. She is a beauty;) . At the bottom of the photos is a video collage put together by our good friend Loree Wheeler.
