We
were all so excited! Our
eighth child was due on April 11th, and we had purchased all
new clothing and necessities, including a beautiful new cradle.
We had not previously been so financially prepared for our other
children, and our family was energized by our new business that allowed
us to provide more than everyday needs.
We could happily
afford extras for this baby.
Dinnertimes
involved discussing names for our expected family member, when our
three-year old son would excitedly jump up and down and insist that his
new sibling would be a boy named, “JESUS!
Let’s name him Jesus!”
On
the due date, we had friends to dinner, and celebrated the child we
would accept into our lives any day.
It was a wonderful Sunday, that April 11th, as we
attended Mass together, then visited and ate with our friends.
It had been a good and healthy pregnancy, expected now to end
with the birth of our new family member.
It
wasn’t until the following morning that I realized I hadn’t felt any
movement for 24 hours. The
doctor agreed to see me to quiet my fears.
When he couldn’t detect a heartbeat, he sent me for x-rays to
see if the placenta was preventing such detection.
After arriving home, there was a call from the physician to my
husband. I already
suspected that the baby had died, but the obstetrician told my husband
to keep me hopeful until the delivery.
Due to my having had so many children, both physicians I was
seeing decided I should carry the baby until birth occurred naturally.
My
husband decided to, as gently as possible, tell me that the baby had
died and we would have to wait for the delivery.
Labor could not be induced in any way, because that would
endanger my life. I agreed
to rest as much as possible, and wait.
As
the days passed slowly, we did our best to prepare the children for the
loss they too would suffer. They,
however, wouldn’t give up hope for eventually seeing their sibling.
Finally, on the evening of Mother’s
Day, although I had been warned not to, I drank cod liver oil to induce
labor. A month had been too
long to carry this dead child. I
felt emotionally drained and physically tired and unable to carry this
baby any longer. It had
been ten months.
On
May 11th, (the month devoted to Mary) our daughter was
stillborn, and named Mary Virginia, for a dear friend of ours.
There was no apparent cause of death, and I was not given the
opportunity to see her at all. I
was taken to share a room with a mother who had just delivered her first
child, a little boy. It was
not comfortable for either of us as she felt guilty about showing her
happiness, and I tried to conceal my sorrow.
I lay awake at night, quietly praying the Rosary, prayerfully
seeking comfort.
My
husband carried the tiny box containing Mary Virginia to her burial
place in the cemetery. A
family friend and church representatives accompanied him.
The evening before I was to go home, the nurse who had been
present at the stillbirth brought some tea to share with me.
As she sat to visit, she said, in her delightful Irish brogue,
“What would you like to know?”
I cautiously asked what I had been wondering:
“What did she look like?”
I braced myself for the answer, because people had suggested that
the baby would be deformed and infectious, etc.
As I took a sip from my teacup, the nurse quietly responded:
“She didn’t look like your other children.
This one was different. You
have always had beautiful babies, but this one absolutely looked like a
perfect angel. Her hair was
very curly, yes, little ringlets; different than the others.
She had a very beautiful little face, with such round cheeks.
She looked like an angel. I
wish you could have seen her! So
beautiful…so angelic…
Our
family prayed together and packed away the baby clothes and cradle. We
were grieving as best we could, but didn’t seem able to recover from
our loss, as a family, or as individuals.
The doctors had warned me that I should never take the chance of
pregnancy again; that my uterus would rupture, that no baby could
survive nine months; and that I would probably not survive.
We eventually had a Mass of the Angels in our home when our
pastor celebrated with us the brief life of the family member we had
never seen or held. The
sadness, however, continued to hang over our home for many months.
Finally,
I convinced my husband that I believed we were to have another child. We
prayed and prayed about it, and it was the only thought that brought us
a feeling of peace. We were
a family that prayed the Rosary each evening, and believed in the
prayerful intercession of Our Blessed Mother.
We increased our prayers when we learned that I was pregnant. The
baby would be born in November.
The
physicians were disappointed, but committed themselves to helping me
through the pregnancy. It
was not a healthy time for me, and I spent most of the time bedridden.
It was also a fearful time for all of us, but we prayed in faith
for this child.
All
of my children were born two or three weeks after their due dates.
I knew that would be the most difficult time of this pregnancy.
Even though the baby moved constantly, the fears were always
present. We increased our
prayerful requests for the Blessed Mother’s intercession until three
weeks before the due date when I began early labor and hemorrhaging.
In the delivery room, I was told the baby had turned into breach
position, and the birth would be extremely difficult.
It was painful indeed, as our daughter was born into the world in
a sitting position.
She
was whisked away, crying, without me seeing her, but it wasn’t long
before a nurse returned to the room.
As my husband stood beside me, the Irish nurse presented our
ninth child to us. I could
do nothing but stare, speechless, at this little girl who looked very
different than all our other children.
I saw the ringlets of her curly hair and the pretty tiny face
with round cheeks.
“She
looks like an angel!” my
husband exclaimed.
As
the nurse stood back, smiling, the doctor came into the room.
“What
do you think of this little angel?” he asked happily.
Everyone
who came to see her called her an angel, and many said she looked like
pictures of Renaissance angels. We named her Rosemary, because she had
come to us early, on October 7th; the Feast of Our Lady of
The Rosary.
Published
in
“The North American Voice
of
Fatima”
