Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Brittney

Mom to Logan Wayne 
Born September 17th, 2002

Fort Worth, Texas

When our first child, Landry, was only 11 months old, we found out that we were unexpectedly pregnant again. Not having made that plan myself (control issues) I was very upset by this news. And since I was on birth control, we thought to ourselves, “Well, God has another plan for us--clearly.” Once we found out that it was another boy, and my boys would be only 18 months apart I was ecstatic. However, the entire pregnancy I had this feeling that something wasn’t right. It seemed that nobody listened to me and my doctor patted me on the head assuring me that it was just “mommy jitters.”

It was August 28, 2002 and I was a little over 34 weeks pregnant with Logan, our second son. I had gone to what was supposed to be a routine doctor’s visit when my doctor told me I wasn’t measuring correctly which could indicate that “there may be something wrong…” Later that day we had a level two sonogram with a perinatologist who confirmed our fears and said to us, “I do see something wrong.” My heart stopped beating…David almost passed out and had to sit down on the floor. He proceeded to explain to us that Logan had “skeletal dysplasia” which didn’t sound so bad to me. I kept hearing the word “skeleton” and thought to myself, “Well, that can’t be all that bad…” He told us that our son would be a dwarf. Now, my husband is 6’ 5” and I’m 5’ 8” and I thought, “How can we have a dwarf?” Having been a teacher and having a Masters degree in special education, I had thought about every possible thing that can go wrong with a pregnancy, but let me tell you, dwarfism never once entered my mind. The perinatologist suggested that we go and see his partner the next day for another sonogram and that is the day that we found out that Logan would not only be a dwarf, but would likely not live long past delivery.

What a blow…I thought that after you got past the 12 week marker, all was good. We found out that Logan had a lethal form of dwarfism. They told us, after further testing, that there was a 1% chance they were wrong, so we held on to that 1% chance with everything we had. We prayed and prayed that the doctors would somehow be wrong and that this would be one of those “miracle stories.” We went ahead and went full term with the pregnancy (holding onto that 1% chance).

There I was, 9 months pregnant, walking around a cemetery looking for just the right plot to purchase to place my infant son when he arrived; looking for just the right music to play at his funeral; trying to find the perfect outfit to dress him in and blanket to wrap him in so we could place him in a beautiful casket, and ultimately in the ground. It was completely unfair. I know everyone feels this way when they find out that their baby is not “perfect” and on top of that, their baby will not live. 

Logan was fine as long as he was inside me, he didn’t have to breathe on his own. His lungs had not developed due to the small rib cage and once he was delivered, they told me he would die from lack of oxygen. But on September 17, 2002, I, a young, totally naive woman, walked into the OR all alone, to let them deliver my son, knowing that doing so, would kill him. It was probably one of the most difficult days of my life up to that point.

Logan was born just as they said, he was a dwarf. His lungs were too small to inflate properly, so he would basically suffocate to his death. It was devastating. My husband, David, did get to see his precious eyes opening, looking up at him as if to say, “Daddy, please help me…” To this day, my husband cannot talk about that moment without tears coming to his eyes. He said, “Daddies are supposed to be able to fix things, but I couldn’t fix this.” We, David and I, held him for about 10-15 minutes before inviting the rest of our family and friends into our room to meet our precious boy before he would be gone forever. He died about an hour later. 

We have an amazing picture that was taken about the time that he died that I’d like to share with you. I’ve had many people look at this picture, even professional photographers who cannot say for sure what happened in the picture. But one sweet, older gentleman told me, “Brittney, I think what’s happening in this picture is exactly what you think is happening.” He went on to explain…”It looks as if the heavens opened up for that split second to show Logan exactly where he needed to go.” None of us saw that amazing moment of light, but the camera did. If anyone can give me a scientific explanation of it, I don’t want to hear it for sure.

My explanation is that God knew how angry and unsure I was later to become, and He let that happen so that I would know for sure that HE had Logan in His arms and that He would keep him for me until we could be together again.

Brittney blogs at http://www.thefishbowl.name/logan.html

and can be contacted at brwniefish@aol.com