Our Annabelle...

Our precious Annabelle was born on Monday, June 6th 2011 at 4:42 pm. She was perfect in every way to us. Even the doctors and midwife commented on how perfect she was. The only thing was even though she was fully formed she just wasn’t big enough to survive on her own. It was a beautiful but sad day, one we will never forget. To hear the news we were going to lose her was something we never thought we would have to go through. We didn’t know how we were going to do it, but we did by the grace of God. His strength walked us through each minute of that day and when the time came for us to deliver her and see our beautiful baby girl, He was right there with us. All we could do was smile at first and cry tears of joy mixed with tears of sorrow because we were so proud to be her parents, to have delivered her and to be holding her in our arms knowing she was ours. It didn’t take us long to start realizing every little detail of her tiny body. Although so small, you could feel her ankle and knuckle bones and each of her ribs. You could see inside of her precious little mouth and her adorable ears. She already had toenails and fingernails too. Her hair was already growing and she already started to have eyebrows. It completely amazed us at how precious she was and how God already at just 20-21 weeks of age had so intricately formed each and every detail of her body.

Within minutes we started to realize the similarities between us and her. Easily we recognized she has a big gap between her big toe and the one beside it just like her daddy. She also has her daddy’s shape of eyes and her feet looked exactly like his but smaller. She has mommy’s nose, hands and lips. She also has a chin with a small dent in it just like we both have. It was so precious to us to see that she was part of us, had our looks in many ways and was already starting to look like her mommy and daddy.

Every single second since she has been gone, we miss her. We miss her more than any word could ever express or say. Through the sorrow, we see little gifts along the way that God gave us. For the first time we were able to feel movement in this pregnancy with Annabelle. We were given the chance multiple times to hear her beautiful heart beat and see her moving and kicking on the ultrasound. The hospital was even so nice that they let us have one more ultrasound before she was delivered just so we could watch her alive in the womb moving around and seeing her precious heart beating, which was such a gift to us. With this pregnancy, we were able to be far enough along this time for Annabelle to show through mommy’s tummy. Mommy loved stopping by any window or mirror to just stare at her belly in amazement knowing the life growing inside of it. We were also able to have her brought right up to mommys chest as soon as she came out so we could spend as much time with her as possible.

Annabelle’s name means grace. We have seen that so much through this pregnancy. By God’s grace, we were able to even get pregnant with her in the first place. By God’s grace, we were able to feel her move. By God’s grace we were able to get as far along as we did in the pregnancy. By God’s grace we were able to spend precious time with our sweet Annabelle. By God’s grace we are slowly, minute by minute, making it through this journey and by God’s grace and because of what Christ did on the cross, we know without a doubt we will see her again one day after seeing our Savior face to face. Until that day, we will have a place missing in our hearts that will only be able to be filled once we see her again and we will miss her everyday but we will hold onto the hope knowing that day will come, we will see Annabelle again and then we will be able to hold her and be with her, our other children and our Savior and all things will be made new and we will all be together forever to worship our Savior. So as these days in the future will be so hard for us that many times it will be hard to breathe, we will cling to that hope and the promises of our Sovereign God and we will thank Him for the little while that we had with her. Though such a short time, it was a precious, beautiful time that we will never forget and we will always treasure.