My husband and I became loss parents after a blighted ovum miscarriage in 2015. Because we were young, and still trying to finish college, we decided to wait to try again until we were closer to my husband's graduation in 2020.
In October of 2019, we started trying to get pregnant. I was surprised that it didn't take us long to conceive a second time. On December 16th of 2019, I took two positive pregnancy tests mere hours before I was supposed to go to work at my job. My excitement was short-lived, as I started bleeding in the middle of my shift more than I expected from implantation bleeding.
I was sure that I had experienced a chemical pregnancy and went into the holiday season with an angry and broken heart. As the weeks progressed, I continued spotting, and my mental and physical health plummeted. I was experiencing several pregnancy symptoms, but I could not let myself hope that my baby had survived, and explained the signs away as after-effects of miscarrying.
In early February, I had what I thought was my first real "period" since my miscarriage. It lasted longer, and was heavier than normal, and I struggled with recovery. A couple of days after the bleeding stopped, I went swimming and the exercise made my bleeding start up again, this time worse than before. I bled for weeks on end and I could not understand what was happening to my body.
Near the end of February, I had a retreat with my mother set up at a little Airbnb an hour away from home. In the middle of one of the nights I was there, I started cramping and bleeding again, and my stomach was hard to the touch. Alone, in the Airbnb bathroom, I started playing a worship playlist to help me get through the pain. It was that night that I gave birth to our perfectly intact little boy, Matthias Bruce Miller.
Seeing him was quite a shock, but it made everything I had been going through up to that point make sense. All the health issues, the sickness, the weariness, the bleeding, it was all because this little baby was still inside my body. He was, and still is, the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. His tiny, perfect fingers and toes were so intricate, and his nose looked exactly like my husband's.
We ended up going to the emergency room at the closest hospital we could find. At Longmont United Hospital, we were given a tiny blue cradle from Bridget's Cradles to carry his body in until we were able to bury him under the stars that night. We named him Matthias because it means "gift of God."
Getting to see and hold our son, even for such a short time, was such a gift to our grieving hearts after we had prematurely mourned his loss in December. Sometimes I wonder if we had known that he was there, if we could have done something to prevent the loss from happening; but we know that even when we did not know about our son, that God knew he was there.
God saw his little body and formed it in my womb, writing down every day of life that he had on this earth before they came to be. We miss our son every day, and we are thankful for the promise of Heaven where our new bodies will be remade, we'll be able to worship God together with him, and we will never have to be separated again.
At Longmont United Hospital, we were treated with the utmost care. The staff that cared for us, gave us a tiny hat for our son, two little blankets, and a blue, crocheted cradle from Bridget's Cradles to hold his body inside.
When we were given the cradle, I thought Bridget's Cradles was merely a local group that had donated to the hospital. It wasn't until a year and a half later that I found out on social media that Bridget's Cradles donates to hospitals all over the U.S.
As a knitter myself, I wanted to volunteer to contribute cradles to the organization that helped us as we went through one of the hardest days of our lives. I have become a member of the Bridget's Cradles knitting team and I'm looking forward to donating cradles in the future to help other families facing similar kinds of loss.
Written by Rachael Miller, mother of Matthias Miller, born into Heaven 2/27/20 at 12 weeks
Please leave some love and encouragement for Rachael in the comments below. We appreciate your prayers for their family.
To read more stories, visit here.
For more information about Bridget's Cradles, visit here.
For hospital staff looking for bereavement resources, you can request a free donation of Bridget's Cradles here.
Follow Bridget’s Cradles:
#miscarriagematters #infantlosssupport #grievingprocess #stillbirthawareness #miscarriagesurvivor #pregnancylossawareness #grievingmother #infantlossawareness #angelmom #miscarriagesupport #iam1in4 #stillbornstillloved #pregnancyandinfantlossawareness #bereavement #childloss #1in4 #stillborn #stillbirth #griefjourney #miscarriageawareness #lifeafterloss #infantloss #babyloss #pregnancyloss #miscarriage #bridgetscradles