Luke's Birthday- Chapter 3

by Joe and Sarah

To read Chapter 1 of Luke's birthday click here
To read Chapter 2 of Luke's birthday click here

 - Picking up from where we left off....-

Upon being wheeled back into our room, there was a rush and flurry of activity all around me, only I don't remember much of what exactly was happening. I know I had to have been being re-settled and re-hooked up to the monitors and such, but what I know for certain was happening was that I finally got to hold Luke in my arms.  I was face to face with my beautiful baby boy! I was finally holding him!  Words simply cannot express the flood of love and emotion that not only washed over me, but completely swept me away from the rest of the world in that instant.  I was in awe of his physical-ness and in getting to see the little face of my constant companion for the previous ten months.  He was finally here with me and I could see his adorable face, hold his tiny hands, see his little cute toes, feel his soft skin, hear his whimpers, study his features...truly cherish him in person.

My eyes overflow with tears as I write this.  My cheeks are wet and there is a pile of tissues beside me here in our tiny reading room.  Remembering how beautiful Luke was pierces my heart with an ache that is indescribable with words...tears are my only descriptors for my heart's memories of those moments with him. Our little fighter- he worked so hard to survive all of those months inside my belly with no fluid around him.  We remain so proud of his strength and spirit.  He introduced himself to us with his sweet cries and his tender squeaks.  He showed us how having his little hand up next to his face was how he felt most comfortable, and he revealed his brave courage by how his little body worked so hard to live and be with us for those few precious hours.  Our sweet little guy gave us everything he had to give and we were absolutely honored to be able to hold him close to our hearts and in our arms during those amazing hours of his life.  We endlessly kissed him, snuggled him, whispered in his ears, loved him, took tons of photographs with him, studied him, tried as hard as we could to memorize his every inch, expression and tiniest mannerisms.  We were desperate to fit a lifetime of memories and love into an unknown yet finite amount of time.  He was absolutely amazing and every single minute with him was a gift we will forever treasure.

Once we returned to our room, the exact time line of events becomes a tad blurry for me.  I recall that after all of the medical adjusting was completed, Joe and I requested that Harold pray over our brand new family that God had created- and to pray especially for Luke. Following those tender moments with Harold in prayer, Harold went to go get our parents in the waiting area so that we could have a few brief moments together alone, just the three of us- our new little family God had made.  We were a brand new momma, daddy with a sweet, adorable new baby. We were completely awestruck by what God had blessed us with in Luke and were already completely in love with our little guy.

I remember that Luke continued crying throughout this time, only his big cries were settling into sweet little squawks...almost bird-like with each breath he took.  We were so proud and thrilled to be able to introduce our little guy to all of his grandparents who were all obviously instantly smitten with him as well.  It was beyond our wildest hopes that Luke would still be alive for this moment...a complete miracle that he was able to be held by his grandparents while still breathing- let alone crying! The miracle of Luke's life for all of these important moments was astounding...another absolute gift from above!

After Luke got to spend a few moments with his grandparents, Harold invited our parents to step out of the room so that Todd, our wonderful photographer, could come in and get to work.  As we told you, Todd was amazing as he set about capturing image upon image of our sweet, beautiful baby Luke.  He photographed our family together and in his images, he captured so much more than our faces.  He captured all of our flooding emotions- our tears, peacefulness, sadness, smiles, tenderness, adoration, love and joy. We absolutely treasure the photos he took and so appreciate his gentleness with our overflowing hearts that day.  We were overwhelmed by the complete miracle that Luke was still alive in every picture we took with him.  That was something we again, had not even imagined would be possible- yet God gifted us with hundreds of miracles evidenced in each photo taken with our precious son.  We cherish that knowledge when we look at those photographs every day.

After our photo shoot with Luke was over, Todd left to begin working on the images for us so they would be available for our viewing as soon as possible.  Joe and I had some more family alone time together with Luke. We spent these tender moments speaking into his life, telling Luke so many things we wanted to make sure he knew- how proud we were of him and how happy we were to be his parents, how much we loved him and would miss him when he was gone, how strong he was to fight so hard to be with us, how much we cherished him, how amazing we thought he was, how we would always remember him and that we would never, ever forget him.  We told him how much we loved getting to hear his voice and thanked him for working so hard to get to be with us for so long. We held his hands and kissed him all over as we took turns holding him close.  We stroked his soft, sweet head and admired his beautiful face and tried to figure out which one of us he looked like.  We wept and prayed over him and for him and thanked God with all of our hearts for this sweet, beautiful, peaceful window of time we were allowed to experience with our son together.  We also held each other as we held Luke close and cried together too.  I think all three of our hearts were broken whole that day.  We were all profoundly different and changed for the better from who we had been just hours earlier.

After our private family time, we again asked Harold bring our parents back into the room for some more family time.  As the grandparents snuggled, held, cried over and adored their first grand baby, more photos were snapped by Joe and I using our phone and camera.  We wanted to preserve every possible image, memory and moment with Luke that we could.

After awhile, Harold again invited our parents to perhaps go enjoy some lunch while we did what we called "arts and crafts" with Luke.  Heather our sweet nurse also helped us during this time.  In preparing for Luke's arrival and subsequent passing, we had brainstormed everything we wanted to do in order to remember him as much as possible.  We made a plaster mold of his tiny foot, we got his little handprints and footprints in our bibles and on the official birth documents, we made little impressions of his hands and feet in some special clay that dries and you can then frame next to a photo of the baby, we gave Luke a little hair cut, we weighed and measured him...it was a fun few minutes...plus it was an activity we got to do with Luke and we loved every second of it.

Heather was a pro at teaching us how to help Luke be able to do his best during this time...like for example, little babies like to keep their hands in fists and not flat out for hand-print making...and she knew some tricks to help make that a little bit easier for him.  She also mixed the plaster and helped teach us how to get the best footprints and impressions etc.  She was a real blessing to us that entire day, and you could tell she genuinely cared about our sweet Luke the way she talked with him during this process and encouraged us as well.  She made sure we had every little memento all of our brains could think of to obtain.  She was patient and she was so tender; involved but not in an in-charge type of way.  She was lovely.

And Harold, well, he was just everything we needed him to be and then some.  He rolled out the clay, measured it out, got things arranged and did all of the legwork for the arts and crafts so that Joe and I could be 100% focused our our sweet Luke and could continue to be present with him for these miracle minutes that were his life.  Harold's sense of humor kept us all in smiles as we just enjoyed those minutes all together- a real team effort with amazing mementos for fruit.  I recall having Luke in my arms, Joe by my side, the sunlight streaming in through the windows, Heather mixing plaster to my left and Harold at the foot of the bed rolling out clay and smiling.  We were all laughing and talking to Luke and just celebrating his life- it is just one of my favorite memories of that day. I'm so thankful.

After the arts and crafts were finished and the ink was washed off of Luke's tiny hands (we left the ink on his little foot), we settled back into the rhythm of having time alone together just the three of us followed by more time with the grandparents...just alternating back and forth between alone time and grandparent time.  There were two occasions when I was alone with Luke by myself.  I had told Joe before Luke was born that I wanted to have a couple of minutes alone with my son...to just snuggle him and whisper all the love I could into his sweet little ears and heart.  I had one of those times sometime in the early afternoon, and then one again later before we said our final goodbye.

I do not have a reference of time for when this happened during the day, but I know that a few hours after Luke was born, Heather came in and wanted to listen to Luke's heartbeat to determine if he was still with us.  By this time, Luke's crying and tiny squawks had quieted him into a restful sleep.  She placed the little stethoscope against his chest and as we were prepared to hear the news our hearts had been dreading, she let us know that his heart was still beating, but that it was faint.  He was still alive, but he was fading.  He appeared completely peaceful asleep in our arms and we just held him even closer and continued loving on him as much as we could and telling him over and over how much we loved him.

Sometime during the afternoon, our sweet baby became an angel.  We do not know when, but we know that God knows exactly when Luke's strong little heart beat its last.  Joe and I are both so thankful that we do not know when Luke passed into heaven's arms.  Thankful that there was no struggle, no suffering at all, no final strain on his tiny body....just peace.  Peace across his sweet face, peace in his body, peace in our hearts and his sweet sleeping...sleeping in Heavenly peace.  He simply left us and joined Jesus as we held him close and were loving on him and whispering every ounce of our love and adoration into his sweet heart and life.  He knew only love every single second of his life and when I'm having a difficult day, that thought brings me comfort.  It was not scary at all.  It was beautiful.  He was beautiful and knowing we got to share in every minute of his precious life is a truly beautiful gift.

After awhile, we both knew that he had passed as his skin became cool to our lips and touch.  But we continued to hold his body close and snuggle him.  Heather and another nurse came in to officially pronounce his passing, but they did so while giving us dignity in our loss.  They simply took Luke over to a little nursery bed that was in our room (that was the first time Luke was out of our arms the entire day aside from grandparents).  They listened for his heartbeat and did not bother telling us what we already knew.  They just put a little diaper on him and wrapped him back up in his blanket and gave him back to us.  We were not quite ready to let him go.  There was more prayer, more tears, more time alone, more time with the grandparents, and as the sun began to set, we knew it would soon be time to say our goodbyes.  We asked Harold to bring our parents in one set at a time so they could have some time with Luke without having to share him as they said their goodbyes.

Then it was our turn.  We transferred Luke back into the hospital blanket and hospital hat.  We asked Harold to teach us how to swaddle Luke and he gave us a crash course.  Joe swaddled Luke for his final time and then Harold gave us a few moments alone with our cherished son.  This was the moment that we had been dreading since August...the tippy top of the steep mountain we began climbing upon learning our sweet Luke would not be coming home with us.  This was it.  I remember all three of us snuggling together on my bed and Joe and I praying over Luke...surrendering him to God completely.  We thanked God for the blessing of that day and the beauty and miracles He had given us.  We were so grateful and our hearts were overflowing with emotion.  It was impossible to believe that this beautiful, perfect baby "asleep" in our arms would not be waking up...that he was now alive in heaven.  We somehow said our goodbyes to our sweet baby and did some more crying until Harold returned.  We then somehow managed to place Luke into Harold's loving arms and watched Harold carry him away to the cremation people who were waiting.  We had asked Harold to do that for us as we could not imagine handing our beloved son over to a stranger.  We simply could not do that, so our dear friend Harold loved and cared for us in that most tender of ways.  After he left our room, we simply held each other close and cried our eyes out.

Our hearts were completely broken, but miraculously broken into a whole new life.

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There are aspects of that day like I said, for which I have no time frame or reference point- aspects that may seem minor, but we want to remember them all the same. So we decided to make a list so we don't forget anything-

• I remember wiping a real tear away from Luke's little eye
• Sometime during the day, Harold brought Joe breakfast, coffee, and lunch so he wasn't starving
• Harold is also a massage therapist and so when grandparents were holding and loving Luke, Harold gave Joe some great backrubs as Joe's back was all crinked from bending and stooping over my bed all day in order to be as close to Luke as possible.
• The soft yellow blanket we wrapped Luke in on his birthday was made with love by Judy Waugh, a dear family friend.
• The sweet little blue hat that kept Luke's head warm all day was knit by Katie Yeldell another dear friend of ours.
• Sometime in the day, the hospital chaplain tried to come into the room, but per our requests outlined in our birth plan, Harold asked her to leave (I had no idea this even happened)
• There were some NICU nurses who tried to come down and take Luke upstairs to try and preform some lifesaving measures on him since he had survived so long.  But again, per our birth plan, Harold, Dr. Nichols and our nurse, Heather, kept them at bay and they never even entered our room. (we only found out about this the next day)
• Throughout the day, Heather kept coming in and taking care of me medically
• Sometime in the morning I regained sensation in my legs again (!)
• Around lunchtime we learned of the group of people praying for our little family down in the chapel- what a blessing they were to us and how powerfully their prayers and the prayers of so many helped us all that day!
• Harold shared with us later that when he carried Luke away from us, he took a few moments himself to love the little guy and speak into his life.
• Heather our sweet nurse encouraged another nurse to leave us alone so that we could be with Luke and not have constant monitoring that is standardly present following the birth of a baby. We greatly appreciated Heather's sensitivity to our family's desire for privacy and for advocating on our behalf.
• We found out later that after Harold left our room, he ran into our friends Janine (his wife) and Jessica Yeldell, who had been praying in the waiting room down the hallway.  He introduced them to Luke and they were able to love him too that day.  It fills our hearts with total joy knowing that even after Luke left our room, he was surrounded by so much love.
• We asked Harold to return to our room after he had given Luke to the cremation people as we did not want our final memory of our incredibly strong friend to be of him walking away with our son.  We wanted to have a restorative encounter with him.  Those moments we shared with him upon his return were healing, strengthening and powerful.  We prayed together and enjoyed re-telling Luke's amazing birthday story together.
• A short time later, Janine, Jessica and Katie came into our room from where they had been praying in the waiting room and we were able to thank them and share with them some of the miracles and beauty of meeting Luke and celebrating his birthday.
• Harold left and returned with some dinner for Joe so he could have a meal.
• Joe and I were both completely exhausted but also did not want Luke's birthday to be over...we felt so much peace at the end of that day.  Peace with how things had gone with Luke, peace with knowing where he was and peace with how we had handled such an impossibly difficult day.  Our hearts were at peace.
• Sometime that evening, Todd emailed us a link to all of the photos he had taken of our family that day.  We spent the rest of the evening looking at them again and again and marveling at the miracle of our day.
• We tried to say up until midnight...to the very end of Luke's birthday, but we could not make it.  Sleep took over and finally we rested.