Little Stargazer

By: Maddy Stahle

 I don't really know how to go about writing this. I have so much on my mind and I hope this will fully express how I feel. Today is Valentine’s day, and while I am so happy and so in love, there is a hole in my heart. Five months ago, I gave birth to my second baby but I didn’t get to take her home with me. But, let me rewind just a little bit to explain. 

My husband and I were married almost 4 years ago, and ever since then, we had wanted babies. We both agreed that we wanted 4 or 5 babies so as to fill our home full of minis that we could love on. I have been seeing the same doctor for almost 10 years and trust him with my life, he did everything in his power to help us get pregnant. I truly see him as a friend for all he has done for me and my family. It took us a little over a year, two surgeries, a lost ovary, two scary diagnoses, and lots of tears, but we finally got our baby. Linc was born and our worlds were flipped upside down. He is the absolute light of our lives. He has the most beautiful curly hair and a bunch of wild child teeth. Linc is so dang smart it’s scary, he picks up on things so quickly and has better hand-eye coordination than most adults I know. He is his daddy’s best friend and wants to spend every waking moment playing with him and throwing a ball around. If you know me you know how deep my passion for being a mother runs in my soul. I was born to be a mom and as soon as I caught a glimpse of motherhood I was hooked. We weren’t exactly trying for another baby, but in the spring of 2020, we found out we were expecting another baby. To say I wasn’t scared is a lie. Linc was only 6 or 7 months old which means they would be 14 months apart. Hello! That was a wake-up call! We were on our way to having two babies under the age of two. Two tiny humans who completely depend on us and also have no means of communication except for crying… yikes. My husband and I both went to the first appointment anxious to hear the heartbeat only to be told that there was only a yoke sac and that I was only 4 weeks along. I should have been 6 weeks along. We went back two weeks later to hopefully see a squirmy baby with a heartbeat, and that we did. All of us were scratching our heads a little bit as to why the baby was two weeks behind but didn’t think much else of it. 

I remember after that appointment I had an uneasy feeling. I like to think that I am quite in-tune with my body, and something just didn’t feel right. That feeling never went away throughout my whole pregnancy. I believe there are enormous amounts of Divine Intervention throughout my life and this feeling was one of those. I was being prepared for what was to come. 

My pregnancy was honestly dreamy. Yeah, I had my ups and downs but overall it was a fairly easy pregnancy. My husband and are pretty impatient when it comes to finding out the gender of our babies so we did genetic testing which also came with the knowledge of what the baby’s gender is. We have a son and really thought either would be so perfect. I just wanted a healthy baby. I would be lying if I said I was extremely excited to find out it was a girl. I have always wanted a mini-me to do her hair and buy matching outfits (yeah, I am that mom). We had a gender reveal party with our immediate family and it was so perfect. My side of the family has 10 grandchildren and only 2 of them are girls, and my husband is the oldest so we were kind of starting things out for them. We couldn’t wait to announce that another girl was going to join the family. 

Fast forward to October and things were going beautifully. We were on the hunt for a home because we were living in a two-bedroom basement and needed something a little bigger to accommodate our growing family. We finally found a home after looking for months, and the best part was it was just a few blocks from my parent’s house in a neighborhood that my grandma lived in before she passed away a few months earlier. This home buying process should not have worked out as well as it did. We got a screaming deal on it; the sellers were anxious to get out of the home. They had no idea who I was (the granddaughter of their neighbor of many years), but they felt that they needed to work with us. Their realtor reached out to ours and specifically said they turned down offers to work with us. Another blessing. We closed on the house a week later and began home renovations soon after. 

By now my obstetric appointments were every week, and so far, that feeling eating away at the back of my mind was still just a feeling that I chalked up to pregnancy jitters. Everything was falling so perfectly into place. I work night shifts at a hospital on a post-partum unit, and one night I remember thinking that I hadn’t felt the baby move in a little while. While that was kind of normal for her I wanted to just make sure because that little jitter in the back of my head wouldn’t let me relax until I heard her heartbeat. I asked one of my friends to check on her and sure enough, she was still there. I could breathe again. The adrenaline had started pumping as it took a minute to find her heartbeat, but now I felt a little peace and resumed my normal work duties. I went about the rest of my week just like normal. I had an appointment coming up on Friday with my doctor and had a night shift Thursday night. I really don’t remember that night very well but I do know I was busy and I was so exhausted that I didn’t think about my baby’s movements. I heard her on Monday, she was fine. I was 36 weeks, she was fine. I felt her moving, she was fine. 

I walked into my doctor appointment with a cloud in my head from being up all night. We went through the normal motions. My doctor walked into the room and asked normal questions until the question “Have you felt her move lately?” I had to seriously think about that. I can honestly say I couldn’t remember feeling her move since Tuesday but I just had a fog over my head and failed to remember that literally, anything can happen in pregnancy. I mentioned Monday and how we heard her heartbeat and I didn’t give it a second thought. He got an urgency in his steps and so sweetly said he wanted to do an ultrasound just to make sure. The adrenaline started to kick in. My hands got sweaty and my heart began to beat a little faster. I laid back and took one look at the ultrasound machine and looked away. I couldn’t find the strength in me to look.

It seemed like 10 minutes had passed and my doctor had moved the probe around my whole stomach, and I still hadn’t heard the sound I so deeply longed to hear. I soon realized that I had heard my daughter’s heartbeat for the final time. I heard the words “Madelyn, I am so sorry… I just can’t find her heartbeat… I’m so sorry…”. I then heard this terrible sound, I was hyperventilating, the breath had been stolen from my chest. The sheer shock hit my chest like a school bus and with that blow, it took my breath. I couldn’t see anything as my vision was completely blinded by salty tears. I was letting out these piercing shrieks mixed with pleading to my doctor to tell me it wasn’t true. Please, please, this can’t be true, she was fine, I just heard her a few days ago. My sweet doctor wrapped his hand around mine and let me sob mercilessly. I knew people could hear me, and yet I wailed. My soul felt like it was leaving my body and it was excruciating. The doctor left and I moved from the table to a chair and soon after, two nurses came in and embraced me. My body went limp. The blood drained from my face, and suddenly my belly felt like a million pounds. One of them quietly asked if they could call someone for me. Suddenly it hit. I was alone, I now had to tell people what happened. I had to call my husband and tell him that our daughter had passed away. I had to get him there so he could help me decide what to do next. Just one of the many decisions we would have to make over the next week. He came running to me tears running down his face. I’ll never forget the pain that replaced his normally jovial and beautiful eyes. His eyes are normally green, but when he cries they turn a deep blue-green color. We planned to be induced that night and were then sent home to tell the family what had happened. 

The labor went perfectly. I don’t remember any physical pain, but I remember the emotional pain I was feeling. There was a daunting task ahead of me. The baby that had been so safe in my belly now had to come out and she would not be coming home with us. Now, I had been up since 8 am on the 22nd and I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open despite the contractions I was feeling. Right before my water broke I fell asleep, and I had a dream. I believe in heaven, I believe that we have a Heavenly Father who watches over us and gives us strength when we are at our weakest. I have no other explanation for this dream other than a loving Father in Heaven who knew I needed the strength of angels to complete the task at hand. 

Imagine the most immaculate sunset you have ever seen. A sky painted with deep reds, oranges, and pinks. The sun has gone down but everything is still so bright. This was my dream, and in the corner of the picture was a little girl. She had long brown hair with a slight wave in it. I never saw her face, but she spoke to me. As if I was having a conversation with her she said “Mommy, it’s okay.” I woke up having a contraction where my water broke and she was born about an hour or so later. How can I deny a God who blessed me with the image of a daughter I will never get to know here on earth. How gracious and loving He is to give me the strength to power through the storm of a lifetime. 

My sweet Stella Rae was born early in the morning on October 24th. We were allowed to spend a few hours with her then she was sent to the funeral home to be prepared for the funeral. I was discharged a few hours later and my husband and I went home empty handed. 

We had closed on our house and were supposed to be moving in that day. Everything had been putt on hold. Our lives had just come crashing down and now we had to tell the family and friends that were anxiously awaiting her birth. 

I didn’t realize how many people made up my support system. Texts, phone calls, cards, flowers, meals, shoulders to cry into, and arms that quite literally held me up when my legs gave out beneath me. Everything fell right into place and her funeral couldn’t have gone any smoother than it did. The weather was supposed to be gloomy and snowy, but the sun was shining all day long. What I had thought was going to just be a few family members was almost all of my aunts and uncles, Clark’s aunts and uncles, family from Texas, family who drove over an hour to come and support us. Friends who knew we would need support. 

We are now moved into our new home. It has been 5 months since we lost her. I won’t lie, this has been the longest 5 months of my entire life. Never did I expect to be a statistic. Never did I expect that my child would be buried in the cemetery a block away from our home. I didn’t expect that my daughter’s umbilical cord would have such a rare defect that my doctor had to do research on it to give us answers. So rare that my doctor who has been in practice for over 30 years had seen it twice before Stella. It was not preventable, it was not something genetic, just something that happened by chance. 

I have found peace in my life. I have found outlets for my frustration. I am not angry with God because he has been so gracious through this all. My heart aches for a baby to be in my arms. I struggle to see babies that are the same age as her. I struggle to see announcements of pregnancies and births. My heart is still healing, which is to be expected. Honestly, I think there will always be a hole in my heart where my baby should be. I don’t share my story to frighten people, or for sympathy. My hope is that heaven forbid, someone will see this and it will give them strength to carry on. You are strong, we are strong, our circumstances do not define us. I know things are different, and unfortunately, people will treat you differently but it is all up to you to decide what to do with that. Will you seek out those who need your support? Will you share your story to give hope to those who feel lost and hopeless? We all have our struggles and challenges, it is what we take from them that truly defines us. We do not have to be victims of our circumstances. It is historically proven that people are inspired by stories of hope and perseverance. But, it has taken me a long time to come to this conclusion. If all you find the strength to do is get out of bed, then you do that. If you can’t even do that then allow yourself to feel how you feel but don’t let it take over your life. I have bad days, I have good days. I have good hours and I have bad hours. I know that things will get better, the ache will lessen. I have done the impossible and even though the giant is taken down, I still have to deal with the giant beanstalk of grief growing in my yard and planting deep roots in my soul. 

If you read this far because you were curious, I hope you were inspired. If you read this far because you needed to, I see you and I feel your pain. You are not alone and your cries are not going unheard. The loss club is a terrible one to be in but the members of this club are loving, supportive, caring, and strong. No one wants to be in this club but when you’re in, you have the most undeniable support system there is. 

I read a poem at Stella’s funeral and it has given me so much strength through this trial, and I think it deserves a permanent place here. It is just a simple reminder that even in the dark there is beauty and you just need to keep your chin up to see it. 

“Keep your chin up little stargazer

At worlds above your own,

You are small but you are stardust

And that’s worth more than you’ve known,

For every sun and solar flare

Is made up just like you,

And if they’re cause for wonder

Then I promise you are too.

Look out little stargazer

‘till nothings left unseen,

And know there’s not a patch of sky

Where no one else’s eyes have been,

That the darkness that enfolds you

Holds countless other starlit hearts,

And with this you stand together

Though you be lifetimes apart.

Be brave now little stargazer

The sky is growing light,

And courage waves like moonbeams

When it’s pulled out from the night

But like those who gazed before you;

Know that when your heart is full of fear,

That it is always in the darkness

That the stars start to appear.”

-Eric Hanson

With Love,

M