Mom Lindsay recounts how she and her husband Matt were living in the United Arabic Emirates when they found our that their first child, Sadie Amelia, died in the womb due to a cord accident, and how they traveled back to the United States to give birth to their daughter at 32 weeks.
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Full Transcript
Lindsay 0:00
Sadie Amelia
I remember being like in shock that that tiny human came out of me. She was perfect. Her body was perfectly formed. And my mom and my husband remember that her nose, her nostrils were the same like shape as mine, and her feet kinda had a, like the top of them were kind of bumped like my husband’s. So she had his feet and she had my nose. And her hair was exactly the same color as mine, as it is now, not as it was when I was born. Well, I remember announcing her gender with a picture of her face from an ultrasound and just saying that we were so in love with this face that we were pretty sure it was a girl. But when there was a girl or a boy, we loved it.
Winter 0:52
Welcome to Still A Part of Us, a podcast where moms and dads share the story of their child who was stillborn or who died in infancy. I’m Winter Redd and on this episode, Lindsay is telling the story of her daughter Sadie who was stillborn at 32 weeks due to a cord accident.
As a word of caution to our listeners. The story contains emotional triggers of stillbirth and infant loss. Please keep yourself emotionally and mentally healthy and seek help if needed. Also be aware that these birth stories may differ from his or her partner’s, as these accounts are told from their own perspective, through the lens of trauma, heartache and the passage of time. Please respect our moms and dads who are brave and gracious to share their children with us.
So Lindsay, tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do on a day to day basis currently? And then what did you do at the time of this birth?
Lindsay 1:53
So currently, I take care of our two living children. Ruby’s three-and-a-half, and James is one. And our days are pretty much centered around eating and sleeping, and playing and cleaning up. I really love my life right now. But not a day goes by where I don’t think of how Sadie fits into the mix, and how our family would look like if she hadn’t died. And it’s hard because I wouldn’t give up any of them, not even her. If that meant that she wasn’t in her family, I would go through it all over again, just to have her be a part of our family. My daily life also involves waking up early to teach VIP Kid in the mornings. I also have some piano students and I tutor some kids that we know in math and I teach a music class for toddlers. It sounds like I’m busy, but it’s really not.
Winter 2:48
I think you’re busy as it sounds. I think you are busy. Actually. You are a teacher by trade if I’m not mistaken.
Lindsay 2:55
Yes, that’s right. So when Sadie was born, at the time, we were living in the UAE. I had taught for three years in Utah, and we were both ready for an adventure. And this opportunity basically was just handed to us. I had been looking into teaching for the Department of Defense. And I got an email on LinkedIn asking if I was interested in doing this. They were recruiting like 1200 teachers to go overseas. So it was my first school year, and prior to moving over there we really–having kids was always, it was hard because we both really really wanted to have kids. But we were working so hard. And life was just already so complicated and so hard. I couldn’t imagine bringing kids into the mix with how much we were working. I didn’t want my kids to go to daycare.
So we waited, we went to the UAE, we talked a lot about it. I still, I still had a hard time with that idea of having kids. It took a lot of faith for me. And it took actually a really, really strong–a vivid dream that I had, that I had a little boy. I was holding him in my arms in the apartment we were living in and just brought him home from the hospital. And I was feeding him on our short little white majlis couch. And after that, I don’t know, I just felt like it was–trust Heavenly Father, we can do this, we’ll figure it out. So we just first like, first month, we got pregnant right away, it was kind of surprising and a little bit scary at first that it was really happening.
Winter 4:33
Yeah. So you were, you were living abroad?
Lindsay
Right? We were living in the UAE.
Winter
So for those who don’t know where the UAE is, or what the UAE is, it is–
Lindsay
The United Arab Emirates.
Winter
Okay, and so she-you guys were living in Abu Dhabi, if I’m not mistaken. And to even make that decision living afar, abroad, without family nearby, I suspect…?
Lindsay
No family, just really close friends. And we had really good support from our church.
Winter
That’s great. And so it was just you and Matt. And then obviously your support system out there. And you guys got pregnant pretty quickly. How did that pregnancy go?
Lindsay
It was so easy.
Winter
Was it?
Lindsay 5:22
Yeah. I had a weird taste in my mouth. I told my doctor about and she was like, Oh, you just need this vitamin. And she gave me like a different type of prenatal vitamin, and I was like, Yep, it went away. So it was really easy. When I first found out I was pregnant, it was pretty close to Mother’s Day. So our plan was to call our moms on Mother’s Day and tell them. But on May first 2014, oh that was a crazy day. Anyway, I backed up my car, and somebody else was backing up at the same time and we hit. We rear- ended each other, but it was my fault because I was further out than him.
Winter
Oh, oh, okay.
Lindsay 6:03
So anyway, that kind of like put the day in a weird, kind of a weird funk. And then because of that, I called into work and I said, I need to go into the doctor and just check. Make sure everything’s okay. I had taken a pregnancy test. But I wanted to take like the real, the real deal like blood tests, to get a confirmation. So that was the day May 1, I found out that we really were pregnant. And I got home that day. My mom called me and it was maybe noon and Abu Dhabi, so really early in the morning. I just remember being like, What’s going on Mom? Why are you calling me at this time. She was, she was really sad. But she was like trying to be strong. And she told me that my grandpa had passed away in the night. Unexpectedly he had a heart attack. And he was 82. So not really young, but not old either. So I think it was almost, I think it was almost spring break. So I just decided I would take the time off and go to my grandpa’s funeral. It might not have been. I know I had to get some sick leave or a bereavement leave. But I went home, and I was really excited to be able to tell my family in person.
Winter
So did you go home with–was it just you or was it Matt also that came home?
Lindsay
It was just me. Matt had just gotten a job teaching at a school, a private school there and he really couldn’t leave.
Winter
Take the time off. Yeah. So you went home for your grandfather’s…
Lindsay 7:36
So I went home and I was excited to be able to tell my family in person. When I was preparing for this interview, I found the journal entry that I wrote on September 11, 2014, just two months before she passed. And I’m really glad that I did it. I did it in sacrament meeting actually. I just felt inspired to write her a letter. So it said–
Dear Sadie, I’ve been thinking about writing down my thoughts to you for you to read for a while. We found out on August 23 that you are a girl. It isn’t 100% accurate. So if you end up being a boy, I just want you to know that it doesn’t matter to us either way. Your dad and I already love you no matter what. We are so excited to meet you and get to know you. One of the fun comments people have made about you being a girl, included that you and I will be best friends. I know that could seem like a pretty confident assumption, but my mom is my best friend and I have always wanted a daughter, because of the wonderful relationship I have with my mom. I think she was an amazing example. So hopefully I have learned some things from her that will bless our relationship. I already love you so much. And I’m even teary-eyed as I’m writing this, but I’m in church, so I need to get it together.
You are now 24-weeks old or negative 16-weeks old, depending on when your birthday actually is. So far this pregnancy has been very easy on me. I haven’t been sick at all besides a tiny sniffle I have now, which will go away after I take a nap and have some vitamins. I had a weird taste in my mouth for the first month until my doctor gave me some different vitamins. So the lesson is take your vitamins. I know that Heavenly Father wanted you to come to Earth at this time. Your dad and I prayed and felt very strongly that it was time to have kids. As soon as we made that decision, we found out that we were having you. Seemed really fast to me, but the timing was perfect.
On May 1, your Great-Grandpa Ernie passed away. I was all the way in the UAE. But I bought a plane ticket home that day so I could be at his funeral. This was a week before Mother’s Day when your dad and I had decided we would tell our families about you. But it was a little bit sad since we would have to tell them from so far away over the phone. I was able to tell my family when I saw them and mail a little onesie to Grandma and Grandpa Rager, that they received in time for us to tell them on Mother’s Day. Mailing it from the UAE could have taken a long time. Everyone was so excited when we told them. I got alone with each of my brothers, and I grabbed him by the neck and I said, Say uncle! And when they did, I said Uncle Kyle, Uncle Jordan, Uncle Michael. You are making them uncles. So it was so much fun for them to find out.
Another thing about your perfect timing was that it was helpful to me when Grandpa Ernie died to think of you and him together in heaven. If you were a boy, we would have named you after him. His first name was James. Last week at Young Women’s, we sang A Child’s Prayer. And I was so excited to think about you hearing their beautiful voices. I love playing music and singing and dancing and I hope you’re enjoying it as well. Some of my favorite things about being pregnant with you have been 1) being so close to you. I get to feel you and see you moving. Sorry this part is kind of awkward but not having a period. Yeah, I don’t love those. So thank you, Sadie.
Winter
Oh, that was great.
Lindsay 11:24
2) Looking pregnant, although it isn’t very much yet. 3) Getting things for you. So far. We have books, blocks, teddy bears, a crib, a stroller, a car seat, a door bouncer, a chair bouncer, a Bumbo, a walker, a bath, a bottle sterilizer, a humidifier, and lots and lots of clothes. 4) Swimming with you. I am trying to stay in shape. And swimming has always been one of my favorite things. It’s getting kind of hard to do flip turns though. 5) Seeing you on the ultrasounds. 6) aking a picture almost every day to track our growth. I’m excited to see all of the pictures put together into a video. Well, I will write more later. I sure love you Love, Mom.
Winter 12:09
That was I can’t believe that letter. That was delightful. A little snapshot into how your pregnancy was going and what you were thinking about. Thats so cool and special.
Lindsay 12:23
Yeah, besides the daily pictures that we took, I don’t really have many more, specifically, like addressed to Sadie things. So every day I would put on this pretty tight green shirt that showed my shape really well and some black pants. And I would put them on every night before bed. And Matt would have to take a picture from the same place. And we did that and sometimes I look back on those videos, that video and like, see my face and how happy I was and how really oblivious I was–I didn’t know that there was any chance that anything could happen.
I was definitely not having a miscarriage after, you know, first trimester and I was–you know even that, like, I never I was never afraid of having a miscarriage. My mom never did. I didn’t know anyone in my family who had–I didn’t. I was really really healthy. I was playing rugby. Touch rugby.
Winter
Yeah, but just never on your radar.
Lindsay 13:31
Not even unlike the pictures from November, basically that Friday, so November 10th was a Sunday, so November 8th. And I’m still like smiling and I still think everything’s fine. I had no idea that she passed away. So I did want to say that after we found out that she had passed away, we continued to take those pictures. And they’re really bad. Like, not bad. Like they’re very hard to look at. Like, cuz you don’t normally take pictures of someone when they’re in in the middle of a horrible like, unless it’s like a candid like, reporter We take pictures. We smile. Like there was no, no smiling. Those are the hardest pictures. Well, also the ones the few days before she passed away. I didn’t even, I had never even heard of a cord accident before. How can I not know this stuff before getting pregnant? I sometimes feel like I didn’t know enough before jumping into this. Like I–
Winter 13:47
You know, I I think the same thing. Stillbirth was never on my radar ever, ever. And I–it’s not to say that I want to dash anybody’s hopes or anything. But I want people to know that there’s like this possibility that it could happen when you get pregnant. And I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s the–But yeah, it was never on my radar. Never.
Lindsay 15:06
Never. I mean, I used to have, I used to have these dreams that I was pregnant. And I knew I was pregnant. But I didn’t, idn’t like accept it. And then all of a sudden, I was having a baby. And then when I was pregnant with Sadie, I was like, Oh, how could that ever happen? Like, I’m going to be really prepared when she comes. And I really wasn’t, like I really wasn’t. So she was 32 weeks. And we didn’t think we were going to see her for at least another eight weeks. And I thought for sure that she would be born late like I was. And we were going to wait until the last, like the doctors would let us wait till–we were going to just let her come naturally and have a water birth. And our doctor had us do an extra anatomy scan when when Sadie was about 25 weeks, so around the time that I wrote that letter. And she said it wasn’t anything to worry about. She said, She’s measuring a week smaller. We’re going to have you go get an anatomy scan at this other hospital, the one we had gone to for the–around 18-week scan. She said, Don’t worry about anything. We just want to, I just want to confirm that. Everything I got was right.
Winter
That didn’t seem unusual to you.
Lindsay
No, not at all. I have no idea.
Winter
Yeah, this was your first pregnancy.
Lindsay 16:27
Yeah. We were both just like, Okay, we’ll go. We thought, oooh! We get to see her again on an ultrasound. It was a long ultrasound, we have a video of it. We have a video of every visit we had. Matt would take a video as soon as the as soon as the screen was on. And our doctor had like a 3D ultrasound machine. It wasn’t just the black and white, it was like brown and we can see every visit. So like once a month. That was normal for that hospital. That wasn’t for any other reason.
If I had chosen to have another baby there, it would have been the same. But so we went to this other hospital and the doctor said, Yeah, she’s measuring a week smaller, no big deal. But actually, when I was pregnant with Ruby, I talked to the MFM that was in charge of our pregnancy–
Winter 17:21
And Ruby’s your second child.
Lindsay
And he said, Well, let’s look at your–let’s compare you to people in your demographic. So he got more detailed information about me. He asked me my weight before I was pregnant, my ethnicity, like what, specifically like my ancestry like Germany…
Winter
Yeah, like way far back.
Lindsay 17:44
Yeah. So, and Matt’s. He asked about Matt. He put all of that into this chart. And he pulled out data from people that were more like our ethnicity. And he said, Oh, wow, she was, she was like, severely growth-restricted. Severely. Like she was in like the point, I think he said 0.1 percentile. He’s like, if at 25 weeks, she wasn’t just a week small. She was way too small for us, because I was like eight pounds, I think when I was born. Matt was big. We were both pretty big babies. Yeah. So he was like, Yeah, you know, what we would have been if he wasn’t even–he wasn’t even a possibility for that pregnancy, because we had never had a loss, which makes me so upset that you have to have a loss before you can get the right kind of prenatal care. Prenatal care is so, it’s so…what’s the word?
Winter
A crapshoot?
Lindsay
Yeah.
Winter
It really it depends. Yeah.
Lindsay 18:45
Yeah. So anyway, he’s like, Yeah, we would have, we would have seen that and we would have been like, Well, we need a monitor her more. There’s something going on. He said, you could have had, you could have brought her home. We could have caught it. Like, like, Thanks, Dr. Holly. That’s really good to know. But…so I think it’s really important for doctors to be like, charting your baby’s growth based on actual like, not just like, in the world in general, your baby is on track. Like an Asian baby is gonna be smaller.
Winter
Very tiny. Like Lucy was just little. So you went for that scan, and 25 weeks and they said, She’s fine. Go along. Just keep going.
Lindsay 19:35
I didn’t have another appointment for another month, at least. And so beginning of November, I mean, I thought everything was fine. I wasn’t going to be seeing the doctor for a while. I was glad because I didn’t like going to the doctor. I had to like get my schedule figured out. I was always like, I can’t miss work. So I would like push things back. I was pushing back the midwife, because she would only work till like one and I couldn’t ever be there. Well I have to work. And it was really frustrating to me. I was really mad because I wanted to see the water birth facilities. And felt like nothing was working out. So I counted her movement starting about week 27. I had an app that was like, Count Your Baby’s Kicks, but it never got mentioned once by my doctor. She never said anything about it. I was just doing it because the app said so and it didn’t give me like any warnings or anything. It was like just make sure your baby’s okay. So I was doing that. And then Thursday, I was walking down, like in my school, and I felt like a huge flip. And it was really cool. Like, it was like, she really moved and I was like, If you’ve been watching me, you would have seen my belly go. Like I was maybe 31 weeks. So it was–nothing like that had happened yet. So I was I remember passing another teaching. I was like, The baby just moved a lot. It was so cool!
I don’t know–that could have been her last movement. Because Friday. I don’t remember counting kicks, but I think I did. Saturday, I counted what I thought were kicks. It was like 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. Okay, she got 10 movements. I think it could have been Braxton Hicks or it could have been just muscle spasms. Or it could have been her. But it wasn’t good movements.
Winter
Yeah. It wasn’t normal movements that you are familiar with, maybe…
Lindsay
It was just like, Well, that was fast. Okay, she’s good. And Sunday–my work week was Sunday through Thursday–Sunday, I remember I was so exhausted. I was working. I was, I had a workload of two teachers, because we didn’t have enough staff. So I was overworked and super, like exhausted. So I went to bed that night, counting kicks not feeling anything and feeling like, Well, I’ve heard that babies move less when they get bigger. Someone had told me that, which it’s a lot of people say that.
Winter
A lot of people say that.
Lindsay 22:01
So I was okay. I’m exhausted. And I’m sure she’s exhausted too. So I fell asleep on Sunday. And then Monday. I just had this really, like this feeling like I needed to pay attention to her moving that day. So I got home from work, and I was not sure I felt anything. First, I ate a Kit-Kat from a huge stash that Matt got me for my birthday. I drink some water and I laid on my side for an hour with no movement. I even asked Matt to come lay down with me. I didn’t know if I should be worried. So I asked him to Google “No movement for two days, 32 weeks”. I want to read the posts on some Question and Answer forums, I started to worry. But I wasn’t panicked. I asked Matt to give me a blessing. He said Sadie would be okay. And he asked me if I wanted to go to the doctor. But I said no, I need to give it a full two hours. What I was thinking, but I wanted to make sure before we panicked.
So he went to pick up our car from the mechanic across town. So he took a taxi. And I ate a banana and water and I canceled my piano lesson for that day. I cried a lot and I fell asleep. So I must have been worried.
Winter
Yeah, I was gonna say, you were probably worried by then.
Lindsay 23:24
Right? But he was gone. And I had no–like I could have walked to the hospital. That’s one reason we loved it is It was so close to home. I thought Well, we can get there really easily when the time comes. So I, I fell asleep. And I didn’t notice any movement. And Matt didn’t get finished with the car until really late. And by then I really felt like we needed to go see a doctor. So it was way more than two hours later. So while he was on his way home, I call her doctor and asked if we could come in. She said yes, if we came right away because she wanted to go home by 9:15 that night, which is kind of late for a doctor. Our car wasn’t ready. So Matt came home in a taxi and he took us to the hospital. And we were there by about 7:30 or eight. And we got into see the doctor about 8:30 or nine. And she immediately did an ultrasound and said pretty matter of factly, There’s no heartbeat. And she even said something like, You have a dead baby. Yeah. She said, dead baby in that visit. And then she asked me, When was the last time you felt movement? And I said Saturday. And she said no. It’s been a lot longer than that. Yeah. I was really shocked. She was very like–she didn’t mince words. She was black and white. No emotion. No…And I had…But anyway, so that’s how she was. She, she had like, yeah, she had no bedside manner. She told us, I do suggest if you want to bury your baby in the United States go home before you deliver, because she knew of someone who had passed away and the repatriation process was a nightmare. So she was considering like how to make it easier on us.
Winter
That’s good. That is good.
Lindsay
Yeah, she did say, I think you need to go home, but it’s up to you if you want to stay. She said, we won’t start inducing you until Sunday. Because we want to see if you go into labor naturally. And I was like, Okay. I had no idea that here, they basically start the induction right away, so that you can be through the process. And have the baby. And…so…we didn’t….
After that we were we were just in so much shock. We didn’t call a taxi. We were so close, we just walked home crying. I remember, that walk was horrible on that night had–up to that point in my life–that was the hardest night in my life. I changed into the clothes that I always wore for a picture and we took a picture.
Winter
You took a picture…?
Lindsay
I took a picture. I just–part of me just didn’t want to believe it. But part of me just wanted to honor what we were doing for her. So we sat on our bed and we called our parents. Matt’s mom said we shouldn’t try to come back. My mom said, Whatever we decided, I mean, she would be there. We decided to stay. Matt said we should tell our branch president from our church. And I didn’t want anyone to know, I didn’t want anyone to go through that with us. I just was so, like, I didn’t want anybody to be around us. I just wanted to be alone.
Winter
Was that because where do you think that came from? Or just, was it because you want it to be just alone, period?
Lindsay 27:06
I think I miss my family. And they probably wouldn’t have acted like that if I had been here, I would have wanted my mom here. But our church family is wonderful. And Matt did call our branch president. And I think he said something like, Lindsay doesn’t want people to know, so…I didn’t want anybody’s pity. I just didn’t want anyone else to be broken like we were.
So I asked him for another blessing. And he went to put his hands on my head and I said not for me for Sadie. So I told him to put his hands like on my tummy. And I believed and I still believe that God could save her. But I know she’s okay. He said before that, she would be okay. And I know that she’s okay.
My mom called me and she told me that our friend, he was an OB, said that I, if I wanted to come home, he would help us deliver her and he wouldn’t charge me anything. We didn’t have, we were worried because we had insurance in the UAE that was, it was amazing, covered everything. It wasn’t available to–it was not like transferable back to the United States. Couple of years later, it actually changed. And it was, we did have coverage here. Annoying. But we were worried about the cost of flight, we were worried about cost of having a baby in the United States with no insurance. But we thought we might as well just go if he’s going to not charge us and we’ll be close to our family. And we will have to worry about repatriating her body. So we still hadn’t decided that night. I just, I told my parents. I told my mom and my dad on the phone. I told Matt that I just wanted to die. It’s like, what is the point of living? There’s no point. But–
I mean, I actually was like, I mean, I could just go right out onto the road, jump in front of a car. Because those cars drive so fast there. But I–the reason I didn’t, the only reason I didn’t is because I had hope that we would have a miracle. That there would be something like we would go home and the doctor would say, No, she’s okay. And we would have a miracle baby. But you know what the miracle is, is that I didn’t do that. That was a miracle.
Winter
That is. That really is.
Lindsay 29:40
My hope for a miracle was actually a miracle that I didn’t go jump in front of a car. So I finally fell asleep that night around four or 5 am. And then our doctor had told us she wanted us to go check out just to make sure. She wanted to just have a second opinion. So we went back to the same place we went to, to have that 25-week random scan. So actually woke up like 7:30. And we got dressed and we called to make sure we had an appointment and took a taxi over there. And I remember on that taxi ride was when we decided we’ll go home, if she, if it was confirmed, she had died. If there was no hearbeat.
I sent a text to a friend of mine who works for Emirates Airlines. And I told him we needed to go home and why. And he got us a flight lined up with his Friends and Family discount–it was like 50% of a normal flight. And the doctor obviously confirmed that there was no heartbeat. So we had to go back to our doctor and tell her news. So we got back in the cab. We went over there. And I had an appointment that day already lined up to talk to the midwife and see their birthing center. They had a water, yeah, water–what is that? Like water birth facility? And it was much, it was like a couple hours later. So I went and I was like I need to talk to to her and Miss Noreen. She was amazing. She–love her. So I said, I need to talk to her. And they’re like, no, she’s in a meeting. I said, I really need to talk to her for like one minute. And they’re like, Okay, well, we’ll put we’ll, we’ll go get her and like, you come over here and they put me through triage. And they’re asking me all the stupid questions about my baby. And I was like, Stop asking me when my last period was! I said, My baby is dead. Get me out of here and let me talk to Noreen right now. They were so like, clueless.And they kept like, they were like, Wha? No, we don’t know that your baby’s dead. I’m like, You don’t know. You’re an idiot. Just listen to me. And let me see Noreen.
Like, how do you know? I didn’t like–they like–I’m like, Just shut up. And let me go see, Noreen. So I finally got to see her. And she was amazing. She was the first person in the hospital that showed any compassion.
Winter
She was your regular midwife, is that right?
Lindsay
I only really, I mean,–
Winter
It was basically who you saw the entire time?
Lindsay
No, no, she was who, who was going to like help with the delivery, but she wasn’t. I had met her a few times. But I finally get into to sit with Noreen and tell her and she was the first person in that hospital or anywhere really that hospital or the other one who showed any emotion or compassion. She was, she was crying with me. She hugged me. And she gave me some idea of what to expect to–She told me that I should get an epidural, so that I could focus on the emotional pain and not have the physical pain be such a focus. She was wonderful.
My vice principal booked a hotel. She wanted to pay for it. But for some reason they wouldn’t let her and she was going to pay for your hotel. Just that she booked it was so helpful. She, yeah, she was wonderful. The–I had to call the staff support for my employer and ask them what to do. And they were amazing. They told me that I would be able to apply for maternity leave, that they would give me the normal 45 days of maternity leave. A paid maternity leave.
Winter
That is wonderful. That is wonderful.
Lindsay
It was wonderful. So we went home and we stayed through Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Winter
Yeah, that’s great.
Lindsay 34:08
Yeah. And friends from church came, and they just took us under their wings. They helped us get all the logistics done. Like, I was so grateful for them, even though I was so like, anti having anyone help. They were just amazing. Amazing, so they can pick this up. They took us to lunch. They bought us Subway and juice from their favorite juice place. We had to go to the bank and currency exchange. I just had to do things to get ready to go.
My really, really close friend brought me a little bunny that she crocheted for me. For Sadie actually. Not for me. She had been making it and saving it for Sadie. They were so excited. Their kids were so excited. They didn’t understand. They had such a hard time with it.
Our other friends had totally unexpectedly been terminated for really, really bad reasons that–They were really good people. And that’s the reason that he got fired, because he was such a good guy that his co-workers thought he didn’t fit in. So they got fired. And they actually flew home the same time and they were at Sadie’s funeral.
Winter
Really they were home here in the States?
Lindsay
They came to her funeral. So back to getting ready to go home. Just a couple people came by just give us hugs and cry and say goodbye. And the wife of our branch president came. She’s a really good friend. My my co-worker who was excited to get a little granddaughter. She didn’t have any grandkids yet. She came by with her daughter. Both of them are teachers in the UAE. Her daughter and she came by and they were just, they just couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it.
Winter
By this time, did you…they didn’t have any clue what happened?
Lindsay
No, they didn’t know what happened. And they said that we would hopefully find out after she was born. And if not, then they would have to do an autopsy. So we packed up our bags and tried to get our apartment ready to go. We had a friend the, actually the friend who had been fired for–
Winter
Not valid reasons.
Lindsay
Yeah, not valid reasons. He came to wake us up. We didn’t get going until an hour later. And we still had things we had to go do before we could go to the airport. We had to pick up Matt suit from dry cleaners. So you would have something to wear at the funeral. We had to drop our car off at a friend’s house. After we picked it up from the mechanic, we couldn’t leave it there, because we’re going to be gone for six weeks. So by then our friend couldn’t take us to the airport. And he is so sad. They were able to be at the funeral. So it was really amazing. Our branch president drove us to the airport. And when he picked us up, he told us that we had offers from as far as Oman to drive us to the airport, and someone even offered to pay for our tickets, which didn’t happen. But that’s totally–ust the thought.
Winter
Somebody–yeah, that is amazing.
Lindsay 37:44
We had prayers and support from our branch and that. I learned to accept people’s service and let them pray for us. Because that’s all they could do. And it was incredible. Just the feelings of, like being, like cradled, like we’re being carried through. So I remember on that drive calling–I had two co-teachers because I was teaching two classes–and just telling them what happened. And I was so worried, because I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but during my pregnancy I would, I stayed really active. I kept going to touch rugby practice. I was running, I was swimming. I really wanted to be healthy because one of my friends had told me my first baby, I was really healthy. It was really easy. My second one was so much harder, because I wasn’t in as good of shape. So really focusing on being healthy, but every time I walk fast anyway. But everyone, all the Arabic teachers at my school would say, You need to slow down. Be careful the baby, be careful, be careful, be careful. And I was like, Well, you guys just put your feet up and don’t do anything when you’re pregnant. We want to be healthy. You can do it your way. But I want to do it my way. And I was like you know there’s people who run marathons nine months pregnant? There are people who like race Sprints nine months pregnant. So I was just like, we just come from different worlds, but I was so terrified that they were all going to talk about me behind my back and say, Well, it’s because she didn’t take care of herself. She lost the baby.
But I called my teachers tell them and I just felt nothing but love from them. They told me that they believe that God could work a miracle, if it was his will. They say In Shallah. Either way, they told me that everything was going to be okay. That they were praying for me. And that it wasn’t my fault. They told me that I should take care of myself. And they were, both of them, were like, please, please come back. And I just, I love them. And I’m really blessed to have them in my life. I’m grateful that we went over there that I got to know them and their their culture, and everything was so different. But at the same time, we have so much in common. So much in common. They’re my brothers and sisters.
Winter
Yeah. What a, what a cool experience.
Lindsay
So we flew out to Dubai 9:35am on Wednesday, November 12. We arrived here in our little hometown in Idaho at 10:35pm Wednesday night. So if you did the time change it was exactly 24 hours to the minute. And we had a couple layovers, one in Seattle. And on that flight, the there was a flight attendant, I think he was the head flight attendant, he came to us. And he said, Well, because our doctor wrote a permission to fly note–
Winter
Right, because you were 32…?
Lindsay 40:56
Thirty-two, I think she wrote 31. Because of that week. And he said, normally, we don’t let people fly this far into pregnancy. So I’m going to be checking on you. And I was just like, I didn’t want to tell him. I don’t want to–I like I said before, I didn’t want people to know, I don’t want people to pity me or whatever. So he asked if I was okay. So I was like, I’m okay. And I just like laid down on Matt’s lap and I slept or tried to sleep. I pretended I was asleep. So he wouldn’t bother me. I couldn’t tell him I was okay. Actually such a good thing. I didn’t tell him about it, because they probably would have told me to that I cound’t fly. Really, because another friend of mine was flying home for the same reason. And they turned her around after an eight-hour layover in Qatar. They made them come back. They then go back to the UAE to have their baby. Just add insult to injury, it’s the worse, like. They couldn’t even go home. So it’s probably a good thing. I was not into letting people know what happened.
Winter
So you finally got home.
Lindsay 42:15
So we we actually, so..okay, so in Seattle. I had an a message on messenger from a friend. She wasn’t a friend yet. She was just an acquaintance. She knew that I got shipments of essential oils, and she bought some off me once. But we were friends on Facebook, and she said she noticed…She said, Hi, Lindsay. I noticed some comments on your page, and had a horrible, horrible feeling. I pray everything is well with you and the baby. If it’s not, please contact me. And I will do anything that you need, because I’ve been there and lived through this. I pray that this doesn’t concern you, and that my feeling is wrong. My first child Emily was born sleeping, a day shy of 32 weeks. 12/28/10, the day that changed my life forever. If anything has happened, please, please reach out to me. Love you and your baby. God bless you and your family so much. Praying and thinking of you. And I think I called her and told her.
She said she sent me a message. I’m so horribly sorry. Please let me know when you get back. I would love to see you as soon as you’re able and talk to you too. I would also like to hear about your baby and see the pictures if you have any. I’m hoping that you used the same organization as we did, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Love you. Please be gentle with yourself. And when I saw that, I was, I hadn’t had her yet. I had no idea what Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep was, but I was like–it didn’t, it didn’t register to me that it was about photos. And I wish I had looked into do it. But there was a nurse at the hospital who took pictures. And we were so grateful to her for doing that.
So our layover in Seattle was four hours. And I let some of my friends in Salt Lake know that we were going to be there for a layover. And I like some really close friends that I knew that I would–that it would help to see them. So yeah, so three of my friends were there, three, or maybe just two. But when we got to Salt Lake, Matt was just, he was exhausted. And he was like, We shouldn’t go see them. We just need to go to our gate. We just need to sit down. And I was so adamant about doing it. And I was like, No, I’m gonna go see them. I want to see them. They’re here to see us. Let’s go. And he just he wouldn’t He was just, you know–
Winter
You guys had been going for quite some time–
Lindsay 44:46
Almost 24 hours. So I was like, I wanna go see them. So I went through security. And I saw them and I’m so glad that I did. It was so wonderful to see them. And I had plenty of time. It was a long enough layover. I went back through security. But I didn’t get through security. First I had to show my passport or my driver’s license. And I had nothing. I had my, I had my boarding pass. And they were like, Well, we can’t let you through. I said, I just came through here.
And you’re like, sorry, you’ll have to page your husband. And I was like he’s–we’ve been traveling for almost 24 hours. He can’t, he can’t make it here. Can you please make an exception? And they were like, No, you’ll have to page him. Because obviously I wasn’t telling anyone what had happened. I didn’t want to break down in the airport. I just–so I paged him. And he said, He did hear it, but it wasn’t working. And then, I don’t know what he tried to do at that point, because I went back. And I told the head of security what had happened. I explained it to him, I was like, I didn’t want to tell you. This is what happened and and he said okay, Well, you can do a one-on-one security check pat down thing.
Winter
Oh, gotcha. Okay.
Lindsay 46:06
So I went through with this lady who had been giving me a hard time about, like the first lady who had said, Well, you can’t get through unless you have your ID. And she did the pat down. And I was wearing like a puffy coat and so she didn’t even know I was pregnant. Well, I mean, it might have been obvious, but it wasn’t. I don’t know. I feel like I was pretty big looking back on it. But with a puffy coat, I kind of just look straight. So she’s took–like, I took off my coat and she’s goes, Oh, your belly’s so cute. Take care of yourself. You can go slow, like walk slowly. You have plenty of time. I just wanted to punch her in the face.
So we got home, met at the airport by my mom and dad and two of my brothers and Matt’s mom and dad. And honestly, it was amazing that we got to fly into our hometown airport, because the weather wasn’t good. And we could have easily had our flight rerouted and had to come up by bus. So we were able to get home a little bit faster. And we went home and we just crash, fell asleep.
And then our doctor wanted, like, our, our doctor like he, he really like, he really took care of us. He felt more like the doctor for that pregnancy than the other one. But he wanted us to get there as soon as possible. And we were going to be having to go to another town. And that town had a temple, so I insisted on going to the temple before, before we went to see him. I wanted to be as close to heaven as possible before going through hell. So we went to the temple, and I’m so glad we did. We went with Matt’s parents and my parents and my brother and we, we all had a really wonderful sacred experience there. And I really felt close to Heavenly Father and my Savior and Sadie.
And I opened the scriptures just like, Okay, Heavenly Father, what do you want to say to me right now? And I opened up to the scriptures. It says–it’s Doctrine and Covenants, section 88, verses 63 to 65. “Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you. Seek me diligently and ye shall find me. Ask and you shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Whatsoever you ask the Father, in my name, it shall be given unto you, that is expedient for you. And if you ask anything is not expedient for you, it shall turn onto your condemnation.”
And then I was like, Okay, I have to stop asking, because whatever his will is, is what I want. I don’t want to ask for something that’s not good for us. So I was going to just like, humbled and like, accept. Maybe we’re not going to get what we want as a miracle, but whatever is happening, is Heavenly Father’s will for us, so I kind of just accepted it. And I still was hoping, you know. We still like as soon as the doctor did the ultrasound, I was like, So, is she alive? He’s like, No, they were all right. And he also said that, that their adjusted due date was like, they pushed it back. He said, it was, it was still like January 1, 2015. He said that was, so she was 32 weeks. And so after the temple, we went and had some dinner. And my grandma brought me a really helpful book for losing a baby. It’s Called Gone Too Soon. And she brought me a little pillow that says, “Someday everything will make perfect sense…” So I’m still waiting.
We call her doctor. He said go to the hospital. Third floor, Labor and Delivery, check in and we got to the check-in and the lady at the desk, she laughed. And she said to me, You don’t even look pregnant. And I was wearing the puffy coat. I just instantly had this thought, like, “Focus on forgiveness”, and let it go. Like don’t focus on the negative. I was like, I needed as much positive as possible. My mom, on the other hand, was ready to go yell at someone. And I guess she was just a volunteer. So it was okay. Let it go.
So the night before or not the night before–the night before that, I guess, I said it was the worst night of my life, but this next night of being induced, like we got it in there, late at night, and I got induced that night. It was the worst night. So I got checked in and the nurses took my blood pressure and the doctor came in, he did his ultrasound, he said, said the other doctors are right. I already explained all of that. So he kind of told us what to expect after she was born, which included that the bones in her head wouldn’t be aligned. And that–that part really, really scared me. He said he still didn’t know what the cause of death was. But hopefully we will be able to tell when she was born. Otherwise they would need to do an autopsy.
Winter 51:46
And did you guys want to do an autopsy, if that was the case?
Lindsay
Yeah, we would have. So we had some time to talk. And then the nurses came in to give me my IV and it was horrible. The pain–like they couldn’t get it in. So like, I couldn’t even have an easy IV. So they–my dad was standing there, he was so upset about it. He was just like, he was like, Just–come on you guys! Like what can you do to make this better? They put it in my left hand wrisit–it didn’t work. So they put it in my right hand and it hurt so bad, but it worked, I guess. So then about 9:30 they came and started the induction with Cytotec. And after about 40 minutes, I started to feel some cramping and it was the worst cramping, cuz I had only felt period cramps. It wasn’t contractions though, they said. Well, maybe that’s what I thought, that it wasn’t contractions. That was the impression I had. But now I’m thinking back on it, that would have been contractions. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. I was just in a lot of pain. The nurses finally came in and they gave me some painkillers through the IV and it started working within just like a minute. So they came back to check on me 20 minutes later, and I was like, No, I’m fine. I think they said that the maximum was two doses an hour.
So my grandma came, my mom sister came, and my cousin came. And they all left, like around 11 to stay at my grandma’s house. That town is where my grandma lives. Matt, we had brought this book that I was so looking forward to reading to Sadie. It’s called “I Like You” and it’s just a cute book. I gave it to Matt when we got married or when we got engaged. And I plan on giving one to each of our kids, so I had a bunch of copies of it. So Matt read it. And I really felt like she was there to enjoy it with us. Her spirit was there. I held the little bunny that Tara had crocheted for me. And I had it with me all night long. That was also going to be with Sadie’s body. And she made me another one so that I could have a matching one. So that night, we mostly just talked and tried to rest or eat in between nurses coming in. At 12:30, they did more Cytotec, and within an hour, I was asking for the double dose and the nurse came and she said, The pain is going to get like 10 times worse. This is like nothing. And so I decided to follow the advice that Miss Noreen had said to get an epidural.
I–because we didn’t have any insurance. I was asking like, how much is this gonna cost? And they couldn’t tell me. They couldn’t give me $1 amount? And so I just said, Well, I’m going to do it, I guess, and figure out what it costs later ended up being about $5,000. So the IV was, or not the IV, the epidural was… it was okay. It was–it helps a lot.
Winter 55:14
It did. Okay. Was it traumatic?
Lindsay 5
It was not that traumatic. I knew, I can say, even though I knew that we were going to have to pay out of pocket for it, I also knew that I really needed it so I could focus on the emotional part of this. I was a little bit scared, because they obviously they tell you the risks. And I was a little worried about that. But then my baby’s already dead. So who cares if I die? So I was actually scared that it would hurt like the IV. But he numbed my back first and that shot hurt like tiny bit, and then the rest was fine. Just awkward. And the pressure was really scary. But he said it went in fine. And then I know really well on my right side. Not so all my left side. But it was enough to kind of help. Yeah, and as, yeah, as soon as I was numb, and there wasn’t any physical pain. I just like a flood of emotions came and tears just started flowing. And it allowed, it really did allow me to focus on the emotional pain. I cried a lot after that. But I was also able to be a lot nicer to the nurses. I felt like before I was kind of, you know, not–I was short with them. I didn’t–I felt like after that I was able to like have some conversations with them and talk to them. And yeah, I–it was a good thing.
So they came in every three or four hours to put more Cytotec and we didn’t get much sleep. Seven-thirty, I called some of my friends that–really close friends–and gave them updates. And my mom and dad and my one of my brothers came about eight. Everyone had breakfast, our doctor bought them breakfast. He’s just such a kind man, like, yeah, like, I used, I used to babysit their daughter. And he calls everyone “bud”. He was like, during this whole process, and during like the really hard parts of the delivery. He’s like, You got this, bud. You got it. And it was just like, I am so glad that I’m here with him, like someone who basically knew me for years. But I was close, close with his family. And it wasn’t like some strange doctor coming back here and going to a brand new doctor. It was better than, than anything. like it was amazing.
Winter
He sounds like a cheerleader too. I love that.
Lindsay
He’s, he’s really amazing. It’s kind of far away, but I would really consider going to him if we had any more kids. So I got a new nurse at seven. And she, she’s the one that I’ll always remember. Her name is Brittany. She reminded me of my sister-in-law’s sister, Brittany. She was just so sweet. And she asked us a lot of questions about like living in the Middle East. She asked us about what our branch was like. And she was really, really awesome.
And then a woman came in, I’m not gonna say what her name is, but she was with early pregnancy loss. And she was there to help us with the grieving process. She gave us a bunch of stuff to read, which was helpful. And she was nice. And she was well-intentioned, but at some point–it was after Sadie was born, She said, I hope to see you back here again in nine months.
Winter
What?!
Lindsay 58:30
And I was like, this is your job and you say that? Like that’s one of the things I will say, Do not say something like that. And then I just, I said to her, I said, that probably won’t happen. And in my head, I was just like repeating my mantra “Focus on forgiveness.” First of all, we live in the UAE, so we’re not coming back here to have a baby in nine months. But whatever. And Ruby was born a year later, so not, not much off. But still, I was just like, you’re so confident I’m gonna have a living baby in nine months, huh? So I can’t really remember much between like that, like that morning and when Sadie was born. We basically we waited. I tried to rest. Around two, I could tell that contractions were starting. And so we called in the doctor.
And the delivery was really like fast and “easy.” But it was the hardest thing in the whole world. She was born at 2:26 pm I didn’t want to see her until she was cleaned up. I wish that I had. Matt cut her umbilical cord, which had been wrapped all around her and was the obvious cause of death. It was around her neck and around her leg and just tightening probably as she moved.
The placenta came out very easily. That was a huge tender mercy to be done. So knowing that Sadie had passed away due to a cord accident, gave me some closure. But it also made me feel like completely helpless. This isn’t something we can like, Oh, we know that you have a clotting problem or we can get you on medicine and prevent this. But even then, like, even if that was the cause, and we had some sort of like how-to-prevent-it, I don’t think I should have felt like I had any control, because no one can control. what happens in the pregnancy. There can be cord accidents. There can be completely, unrelated, unpreventable at this point–I hope someday it’s preventable–but I just feel like, I don’t I also don’t want to dash people’s hopes. But I don’t want people to think they’re having a baby when they might not. For no, and no fault of their own. Just–
Winter
It just happens.
Lindsay
Maybe. Maybe you’re having a baby. You might, but don’t talk about it like it’s 100% sure. It’s not.
Winter
Yeah, it’s not.
Lindsay 1:01:21
And that was the hardest part of having a baby after this–it’s like, people like, Just have faith. Or people would forget and they’d be like, I’m so excited. I would say, Stop being excited. Stop just–You can be happy that I’m, that I got pregnant that I didn’t have fertility issues. You can be happy that right now as far as we know, my baby’s alive. So pregnancy after loss, it, that’s a whole another ballgame that we could talk about for a long time. So it was it was definitely an act of faith being pregnant again.
So back to her birth. The nurses cleaned her up. And they brought her to me to hold. It was so hard. I’m really glad I did it. I can’t imagine not doing that. Her head was so sad looking because of the skull bones being a lot of place and and her skin was worn where the cord had rubbed it, so she had a little sores all over her body. And her mouth was open and we couldn’t close it, so our tongue was out. And it was actually pretty cute. She had beautiful, perfect little hands and feet. And her nose was so cute. Her hair looks dark at first, but when they cut it, it was the same exact color as mine. She weighed three pounds, four ounces. And she was 17 inches long. She was beautiful. And you can see that even though she was in such bad shape. It had been about a week. So her body was already deteriorating, and we got to hold her for about an hour, they didn’t have a Cuddle Cot, which is something I would really like to get for that hospital. If they don’t have one yet.
My parents and my brother and my grandma, my aunt, and my cousin and Matt. They all came at some point and we took pictures. A nurse came in, took pictures and a nurse named Nancy came in and took pictures as well. Brittany gave Sadie a bath with a damp washcloth. They did it in the room so I could watch after I had–they were going to take her out. And I said no, please do it in here. I wish I would have done it. But I also was so scared to, like hurt her body. That would have been traumatic for me to like cause any damage to her. So we put her in a white dress and took pictures. And so far we’ve we’ve never posted any of those online. They’re just too personal. And I just think people just don’t understand. I don’t want to put it out there for people.
Even this is like–people don’t hear this stuff. We don’t talk about it.
Winter
We don’t.
Lindsay 1:04:23
But I’m glad we’re doing it. And maybe someday I’ll share the pictures. But for now I just share them with with people in person. So her her skin wasn’t the same color as it had been when she was born. It was starting to bruise and be swollen. And so we just had them take her and they took some more pictures. And they got hand and footprints, and they go hand and foot molds. So we have like something. And the hair. We have something to keep from her short life.
Afterward, I fell asleep for a couple of hours. And when I woke up, it was dark outside. It was just Matt and me. Matt was resting and my family had all gone to get dinner. And they came back to get me and take me home. And they put me in a wheelchair and Matt pushed me through Labor and Delivery, where all these people were having babies.
And the funeral home director was amazing. He came in–I think it was snowing–he came to pick her up later that evening so that she wouldn’t be in the hospital.
Winter
Oh, that’s, that’s wonderful.
Lindsay
He’s really amazing.
Winter
You guys had been making arrangements then with them?
Lindsay
Yeah, I think my mom or dad or somebody was doing that. So, as far as like the aftermath of having a baby being stillborn. Do you want to know about that part? Probably.
Winter
Well, I actually do want to know if you were feeling okay when you left. Like, emotionally, we know that’s not probably going well. But were you physically feeling okay?
Lindsay 1:06:09
Physically, like I went to the bathroom. The catheter, they had put a catheter, because I guess you have an epidural in. It like–it stung, but then it was okay. And like, they say that the first time you poop after you have a baby is painful. It was a little bit, but it wasn’t too bad. And bleeding for like, two weeks. And I had a prescription of hydrocodone and some Ambien. And then my milk came in two days later. It was so painful for a few days, and then it kind of went away, but it didn’t fully go away for about two weeks. Like now, you know what I could have done to make it better, because I’ve had kids that I know what to do. But I just had no idea.
I kind of wish that I had pumped and donated the milk in her honor. But I wouldn’t want to delay being pregnant again, because we really wanted, we wanted a baby so bad. Maybe I could have pumped enough to relieve the pain. But we didn’t do that. And the doctor told us we needed to wait three cycles before we could try again, just to make sure I had recovered enough. And I was like, We don’t have to do that. But we did. We followed his guidance.
Yeah. So the grief…in the beginning, it came a lot more often. And now it just comes sometimes. But one night, really shortly after, when we were still home. We had received the hospital bill, it was $17,000.And I was just so done. I wanted I actually like got out of the car, and just started walking. And I was like, I’m gonna to walk to the cemetery in the snow and I’m going to lay down, go to sleep, and never wake up again. I wanna lay next to her. But my family, they didn’t let that happen. They took really good care of me.
But I was able to let myself enjoy little things in life and feel Sadie’s spirit close. And I know that she loves me and that she’ll be with our family forever. And at the time I wrote, I even feel like she and her other kids are helping me want to have more kids. I said I even have a name picked out for next girl, Ruby. So that was her birth.
Winter 1:09:03
Do you want to get into the funeral at all?
Lindsay
Yeah.
Winter
So when was she–you guys had a funeral for Sadie. When did that happen?
Lindsay 1:09:16
So she was born on a Friday, November 14. And we had the funeral on–it was just a graveside service–on Monday, November 17. We went to the funeral home and my mom and my dad’s mom dressed her. I just couldn’t I wish that I had. I remember after they had dressed her, I went and looked and her mouth was open and she was really, really swollen and red and her mouth when it closed. My grandma said it looked like she was singing. But and now knowing how much Ruby loves singing, it makes me think Sadie would have definitely loved singing. And she does.
Winter
That’s awesome.
Lindsay 1:09:59
We drove to the cemetery for a graveside service. And my heart was just like, I felt like it was about to explode with love because there were just people lining lining the road, so many people that I hadn’t seen in so long. Everybody was there. People had come from Abu Dhabi. But really like people were so loving and supportive. And it even snowed, it was like, cold and I wish we had a picture of everyone that was there. Some people left after that. And then some people went to the church and we had a chance to talk to them. I am really grateful that they did. So at her graveside service,
I actually spoke and I said–there’s a blogger that my mom follows. Her name is Adriel Moxley. And she said, “Everything right now is temporary. It’s just an itty bitty blip on the radar. But everything we do now is preparing us for what’s to come next. How exhilarating. We never know what next will be, but life with God is the closest thing we’ll get to knowing the end of the story. Once we choose Him, we are never alone ever again. He wants what’s best for His children. Even in our trials, He always has our hearts in mind. With His warmth comes such hope, such security, such love. Every time you’ve been let down, big or small, you were disappointed because you expected things to be different. It’s easy to have a clear vision of how we think our story is supposed to read. But we are each living the life that was meant for us. Your life was designed just for your heart and your unique capabilities. God’s plan is so much bigger than any of our expectations or disappointments. He knows every detail long before we do. When we open our hands and our hearts, perhaps in that letting go, we’ll discover He had an entirely different plan all along.”
And then I said, We planned to greet little Sadie Mae–which was maybe what we would have nicknamed her Sadie Amelia, Sadie Mae–ometime in early January. But instead on November 14, 2014, we said hello and goodbye to our dear sweet Sadie. Elder Joseph B. Worthlen gives us these words of comfort:
“Each of us will have our own Fridays. Those days when the universe itself seems shattered, and the shards of our world, play littered about us in pieces. We will all experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death, Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation. No matter grief, Sunday will come in this life or the next, Sunday will come. I testify to you that the resurrection is not a fable.” And that’s the end of his quote. I love Elder Worthlen.
And I wrote a letter to Sadie. And we’ve been able to feel her sweet spirit with us. And then I read the letter, which at the time we wanted to keep private. But I’m going to record it here. November 17, 2014. “Dear Sadie, Today is the day that we, your mom and dad, place your perfect little body in its final resting place until the resurrection. We have felt your sweet spirit close to us these past seven months and especially now, as we mourn the loss of your physical body, and the anticipation of raising you and getting to know you here in this life. However, we want you to know that we have strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the possibility of eternal families through the ordinances of the temple. With that testimony is a knowledge that we will be with you again and raise your during the Millennium. We don’t fully understand why you were taken from us, but we trust in the Lord and in His ways, and we pray that you will be close to our family and stay strong and true to our–help us stay strong and true to our covenants. You will always be in our thoughts and prayers. Thank you for bringing us so much joy. We love you so much. Love, Mom and Dad”. And then I closed In the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Winter
That was beautiful. Did anybody else speak?
Lindsay 1:15:15
I don’t remember. I remember speaking. I feel like maybe somebody saying, but I honestly don’t remember. I remember my friend, my friend was at the funeral. And she had her little baby. And my milk was in and I was joking with her. I’m like, Can I just take her in the other room and feed her? Ugh. I must have really been on some drugs because, why would–I just can’t even, like why would I say that? But that little girl and my second little girl are now good friends and it’s really fun.
So when people ask me, How many kids do you have? I sometimes will just say Ruby and James. But for a long time I couldn’t. And recently I’ve thought I can, I can include Sadie without it, maybe maybe without it feeling like too…I just, I don’t know.
Winter
It’s tricky that–
Lindsay
So I like, I think I like to say I have two here with me and one waiting for me.
Winter
Yeah. I like that.
Lindsay
It’s nice to have somebody waiting.
Winter
Yeah. Yeah it is.
Lindsay
To know that, when I die, she’ll be there. I’ll get to see her and hug her and be with her. So death isn’t really a scary thing. Maybe the way I die…
Winter 1:16:54
Is there anything else you want to tell us about Sadie?
Lindsay
I just wish I knew more about her. I wish I, I wish I had more insight into what she was like, her personality. Actually, I did have a pretty cool experience after, after she was born while we were still here. We went down to Salt Lake. And I was on Trax and I was looking at a dog, and I don’t really like dogs. And I felt like Sadie would have loved to this dog. Yeah, she would love animals. For some reason. I just had this really strong feeling like she would love animals. She does love animals.
We have since moved from the UAE. And we came back home. It’s really wonderful to be able to go to her grave whenever, whenever I want. Even though her spirit isn’t there, but it can be with me at all times. And I actually have, I have prayed and asked for her spirit to just be with me. Because I just don’t want her to be anywhere else. But I thought that that’s kind of selfish. Maybe I should let her do whatever work Heavenly Father has for her to do. And so I prayed about it. I said, Heavenly Father, if you have some really important work for her, that’s, that’s fine. But if she could be with me, I would really love that. I just felt, you are so important to me. She can be with you as long as you need her. There’s nothing more important than you. So I felt like she could be with me. And I could always have her spirit like around.
I think I’m getting to the point where it’s okay if she grows up a little and goes and does some other stuff. But I know that if I ever need her, she can be with me. She was with me when Ruby was born. I felt her there so much. Like she was standing at the end of the bed. And I was focused on this one spot and I was like feeling her cheering me on–You can do this! Like she was my doula. I had my daughter in the spirit world. She was my doula.
Winter
She was sending her sister on to you.
Lindsay 1:19:22
It was pretty awesome. And with James, I didn’t feel that so much. When I had James, we were able to do a little bit–well wasn’t, it wasn’t any less–so Ruby was, I didn’t have an epidural with Ruby or anything. Really no pain meds. I just, at first I was like, I was like screaming. Or I was making I was really loud. And they came in and they’re like, Are you okay? You just focus on breathing. And I was like, Oh, I thought this was helping. I really did. They’re like, Just focus on breathing. And then I was like, Okay, oh, oh, that is helping. Okay.
Then with James, right before he was born, my sister-in-law had her baby and she had done hypno birthing and taking classes and read books. She was like, iI was amazing. You should totally do this. I looked into it. And I was like, Okay, and then happened to be one of the, one of the midwives working with a hypno birthing teacher, and so she gave us like, so she gave us like, a full-on, like crash course in it. And James’s birth was incredible. It was easy. Like, I didn’t feel pain. No, I called contractions, surges and waves. And I didn’t use the word pain. I didn’t think of it in terms of pain. I thought of it in terms of my body opening and letting the baby come. And the body, my body, I just–like my body knows what to do. So I just like, I let my brain take a backseat and was just able to like, breathe and let him come. When he came out. It was like, so calm in that room. We actually had Ruby come in to see him come out after he had crowned. Ruby came in and she saw him being born. And I was not not sure if I would be okay with that. I wasn’t sure if I would actually be able to pull it off like not being like traumatic for a three-year old or two-and-a-half year old. I didn’t want to traumatize her. But because I wasn’t really making any noises.
And I was like, She can come in this isn’t gonna scare her. She needs to know, like because he was in my tummy, and I needed her to understand where he came from. So yeah, she she was able to see him be born and it was awesome. And like after he was born, he came out. He came out and he wasn’t crying. But they instantly were like he’s breathing, so it wasn’t like a scary “Oh, no.” He just came out like super chill. Because he was born with like, no trauma. It was just like, he just came out and he was like–he’s been chill his whole life. He’s just such an easy kid. So maybe, maybe he would have been born like that. He’s been amazing. And so is Ruby. And just gets me excited to meet Sadie someday.
Winter
Yeah. That’s great. Thank you, Lindsay. That was so nice to know about Sadie, get to know her as much as I can, as much as I could.
Lindsay
Thank you, Winter. Thank you.
Winter 1:22:31
Many, many thanks to Lindsay for sharing Sadie’s story. That was powerful, and many tears were shed and I’m so grateful that we were able to learn more about Sadie today.
Head over to our website StillAPartofUs.com where you can find the show notes including a full transcript of this interview and any resources that were mentioned, where you can sign up for our short and helpful email newsletter, where you can learn how you can become a patron and support the work it takes to produce the show for just a few dollars a month, and lastly, are you you can find out how to get in touch with us if you want to share your child’s story on the show.
The show is produced and edited by Winter and Lee Redd. Thanks to Josh Woodward for letting us use his song “Flickering Flame.” You can find him at JoshWoodward. com. Lastly, subscribe to this podcast and share it with a friend that might need it and tell them to subscribe. Why? Because people need to know that even though our babies are no longer with us, they’re still a part of us.
Lee 1:23:48
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. Albert Camus