Dad Jonah recounts the events of his wife Danielle’s first pregnancy, and how he remembers Danielle asking the doctor about whether she should be monitoring the baby’s movements. Danielle noticed decreased fetal movements, and when they get to the hospital, they are unable to find Lydia’s heartbeat. Lydia Jaelle was stillborn at 30 weeks due to an umbilical cord accident.
Watch here (YouTube):
Listen here (podcast):
Time Stamps:
00:00 Lydia
02:42 Pregnancy and finding out
07:28 Going to the hospital
10:52 Birth
16:25 After birth
19:46 Going home
30:37 Funeral arrangements
You might appreciate these other episodes:
- Watch/listen to Jonah‘s advice episode of daughter Lydia: Click here
- Watch/listen to Danielle‘s birth episode of daughter Lydia: Click here
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Full Transcription:
Jonah 0:00
My daughter’s name is Lydia.
Jonah 0:07
When she was born, and we got to see her for the first time, I was at an absolute loss of words to describe how beautiful I thought that she was. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life. It was– I’d never experienced anything like that before, where I just could not comprehend how beautiful that she was. So I remember she had curly hair, dark curly hair. Which was a bit of a surprise that she had dark curly hair. We always thought that she would have blonde hair. I think my wife was hoping that she would have blonde hair like her. Then blue green eyes like me, but we never got to see her eye color. She had big feet. Very similar. I think Danielle said that she thought that her feet reminded her of my feet. That was the thing that I just remembered the most about her. I just could not comprehend how beautiful she was. I mean you see babies and people talk about babies all the time. About how cute they are, and all that. I will be the first person to admit that when my son was born there was a period of time where I was like he’s a little bit scary looking. But once she was born, she was absolutely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Winter 1:42
Welcome to Still A Part of Us. A place where moms and dads share the story of their child who was stillborn or who died in infancy. I’m Winter.
Lee 1:49
And I’m Lee, we are grateful you joined us today. Please know that this is a story of loss and has triggers
Winter 1:55
Thanks to our loss parents who are willing to be vulnerable and share their children with us.
Lee 1:59
If you’re listening to this podcast, just know that on our YouTube channel, there are pictures and videos that are related to the stories that are being shared.
Winter 2:06
Subscribe 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 2:20
Well, wonderful, thank you so much, Jonah.
Jonah 2:22
Yeah.
Lee 2:23
For this podcast tell us a little bit about the time period leading up to the pregnancy of you and your wife, Danielle? And then where were you guys at? What were you guys doing? Was this a planned pregnancy, or was it a nice surprise or?
Jonah 2:42
So we had just moved to South Carolina in 2013. It was actually in April when we found out I think it was April 15th. So tomorrow I believe would be the anniversary, I guess. If you want to call it that of when we found out that we were pregnant. We had been discussing definitely wanted to have children. At the time, I kind of wanted to wait a little bit longer. Just because I mean, we had only been married for maybe two years. So living together was all new and all that to me. You have a wife, and you’re still trying to figure out how to live with one person. Then not even 10 months later, you get another person come in here. It’s difficult to figure that all out.
Jonah 3:42
So we had been talking about getting pregnant. Then it turns out that we were. So at the time I was working at a hospital in cardiac rehabilitation. Then Danielle was working remotely. So she worked from home full time. She’d occasionally have to travel for various meetings and whatnot, or presentations. So back to Virginia or Maryland or various other places.
Jonah 4:16
So we were renting a home at the time. So it was in August of 2014 that we had purchased our first home together. It was just two months after that when we found out that Lydia was not going to make it and she was stillborn. So that was very difficult. Because only being in our home, two months in a brand new home and then having to go through that experience. That was like not starting off on the right foot or so to speak and whatnot. So we had some, I would say negative–
Lee 5:04
Probably negative feelings yeah.
Jonah 5:07
Yeah. But we figured that out. I remember details about the evening very clearly, so. I believe, so that time, obviously this was well before COVID, and all that craziness. I went to pretty much all of the doctor’s appointments.
Jonah 5:29
I remember very clearly, my wife asking the doctor, if she should be counting kicks. Monitoring movement, maybe, the baby’s movement patterns and whatnot. He hesitated for a second, and then said, No. There’s no need for you to do that. I can remember it very clearly like it happened yesterday. That was seven plus years ago.
Jonah 5:59
So one night, we were watching TV, and it was actually we’re watching The Walking Dead, it was on a Sunday night. So it was kind of later; it was after nine, around 10 o’clock or something like that. And Danielle noticed that Lydia wasn’t moving much. And I could see that she was getting pretty frustrated or pretty concerned, we were at 30 weeks at the time. So I think she had called into the doctor’s office and the doctor’s office suggested that we go to the emergency department. So we went upstairs to get ready.
Jonah 6:37
I remember praying about the situation and never having considered for a second that we would find out that our daughter was gone. It was quite the opposite. I remember when I was closing the door to go out of the garage to get in the car. I was thinking to myself, I was like, I looked and looked into our home. And I was like, when we come back from the hospital, we’re going to be bringing a baby back home with us. And that was absolutely not the case. So we jumped in the car about what to–
Lee 7:16
About time was this? You were watching The Walking Dead?
Jonah 7:23
Yeah.
Lee 7:23
You called, got ready. Was this about midnight, that you started to leave for the hospital?
Jonah 7:28
No, it was a little before that. So it was before 11 o’clock, and all this stuff started. So we got to the hospital late. That’s about a 45 minute drive, something like that from where we lived at the time. Couldn’t figure out what entrance to get into, we were on the wrong side of the hospital, I had to go around to the other side. Then we got in there, they got us back into one of the rooms.
Jonah 7:54
They started off doing a Doppler and I can remember, there were two or three nurses in the room. They just kept trying to do an audio capture of the heartbeat and they couldn’t find it. Then they got the doctor who was there that night. He came in for an ultrasound, I can remember as clear as day seeing our daughter inside of my wife’s belly. Seeing her face, I can remember her face. She was laying on her right side. You could see the outline of her rib cage, all of that. I remember clear as day. You could just see her heart that wasn’t beating. So that’ll be something that sticks with me the rest of my life. It was absolute shock, disbelief. The doctor said I’m sorry, but your baby doesn’t have a heartbeat.
Jonah 8:58
It’s just the exact opposite of what I was literally thinking when we left .I was fully expecting that something would happen and we would deliver. Even though it was at 30 weeks I was still expecting somehow that we would deliver a baby that night. And in a couple days we’d come home and that you’d be home and my wife would be fine. Our baby would be fine. So it was definitely not the exact opposite so.
Lee 9:27
Yeah, no. It seems like it’s a running thing with parents. It’s always like, you never expect that. You never expect to not come home with a child. I remember cause we were sitting in church and my wife’s like, Oh, I haven’t felt him move in a while. I was like, No, he’s just getting big. It’s no– there’s not a lot of room in you for a baby. So we went up to the hospital. The whole way there I was like, yeah, I’m glad we’re going because it’s going to put her at ease. I never expected like what you said, I never expected to hear those words. That your child, your child’s not alive.
Jonah 10:11
Yeah.
Lee 10:12
About what time was this just to sort of set? You left about 11 o’clock. You got up to 45 minutes ish to get to the hospital?
Jonah 10:22
Yeah, it was probably after one o’clock. When they actually did the ultrasound and they determined that her heart wasn’t beating.
Lee 10:33
What are the next steps after that? Did the medical staff give you options? With us they said we could start the delivery process right now. We can hook you up to pitocin and get you guys going. You can go home? What were the options in the steps that they told you?
Jonah 10:52
Yeah, they did, I guess, give us the option. I do remember them saying something about, you guys could go home and come back for delivery, but you’re gonna have to deliver the baby. So we did not do that, we stayed there. So at the time, we had a dog. So I think we had to call a neighbor or friend to take the dog out that kind of stuff. So we stayed in the hospital, though.
Jonah 11:23
They moved us to another room. The experience and I guess this is kind of like a bittersweet thing to say. The experience that we had and the care that we received in the hospital was spectacular. The nurses were amazing. I would say as bad of a situation as it could have been. It was great to have the care and the staff that were taking care of us.
Jonah 11:53
Still to this day, my wife is friends with a couple of the nurses who were there. So, each year we try to go back on her birthday, October 13th. We try to go back and take doughnuts over to the labor and delivery or something. Treats or something like that. We’ll see some of the nurses that had been there that night and talk to them and whatnot.
Jonah 12:20
Anyways, we decided to stay there. They put us in another room that was kind of away from the rest of the other rooms that had mothers and babies in them. Extremely difficult. Slept in the room and Danielle probably didn’t really sleep a whole lot. Then it was late. I think they induced the next morning and she was in labor for several hours. Then we delivered the next day later in the day early evening. That was on the 13th we went in on the 12th. So on the 13th we delivered in the evening. Then I think we stayed a day after that.
Lee 13:06
So let’s go back to the labor. Was it an extremely hard labor for your wife Danielle? Was it like, with our situation winter got an epidural. She was already in a lot of pain, mentally. She’s like, I don’t really want to experience it physically. So we had an epidural. It was yeah. It was good for us to do that. But how was it for you guys? Was it a long?
Jonah 13:38
Yeah.
Lee 13:39
Or?
Jonah 13:39
Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. I mean, obviously the mental state of my wife at least was not good. Understandably so. I believe she tried to go without an epidural. It was either with Lydia or maybe one of our next children. But she did get an epidural. So yeah, so I’m pretty sure they induced in the morning. Then it was 10 ish hours, maybe around 8 to 10 hours of labor.
Lee 14:20
You mentioned that you guys had moved from a different part of the country to the Carolinas. Did you have family that had come in? Or do you have family in the area or friends that came in to support you? Or did you guys just want to be alone?
Jonah 14:35
At that time we had my mother in law and her husband were there as far as family goes. Then we had friends from our small group from church. People were still in contact communication with at least via social media like today.
Jonah 14:58
So I had called people to let them know. I called my family, called my wife’s family, and let them know. Her family was there pretty quickly. Her dad flew down from Virginia, which was awesome. He made the sacrifices and did what he had to do to get there so quickly. Then my mother in law and her husband were there, not too long, and then our church group friends were there very, quickly as well.
Jonah 15:35
That made a big– that had a significant impact. Just the negativity, the weight of the negativity that comes with the loss of a child. It’s necessary to have friends that are supportive, and want to help. And want you to not hurt and to be in pain and, and all that. So, they were, it was great support that we had was awesome.
Lee 16:05
That’s good. That’s good to have support and people who love you, around you, so.
Jonah 16:11
Yeah. It’s necessary.
Lee 16:13
And so you said that you were able to be with Lydia for about a day?
Jonah 16:19
Yeah. Yep.
Lee 16:21
How was that stay in the hospital for that day?
Jonah 16:25
So it was obvious we had no expectations of how it was going to go. I was battling internally about what to do. How to handle the situation, as far as I have my firstborn child here that I am never going to get to see again. In a matter of hours, and I kept debating or battling within myself about should I take pictures of her? Is there something wrong with that? Is that acceptable? Is that not? Is that normal? Is that not normal? That kind of stuff. Fortunately, one of the nurses had mentioned something to us about an organization called now–
Lee 17:14
Lay me down to sleep?
Jonah 17:15
Yeah, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. They said that they have a photographer that can come in and take pictures. We were definitely like, Yeah, absolutely. So, I took a few pictures on my phone. Then we had her come in, and that was awesome. We still have those pictures of her up still at our home. So that we see her every day.
Jonah 17:38
But it’s just the people you don’t know what you don’t know. Then when you’re in one of those situations, you have all these thoughts going through your head and the emotions of it all. It’s just, you don’t know which way is up. You don’t know which way is right thinking, or which way is wrong thinking. To have somebody be able to say we have somebody that can take pictures, so that you can remember your daughter. It was something that was in my head before they had mentioned it. Then I kept battling with myself about whether there’s something wrong with wanting to take pictures of my daughter, even though she’s not alive.
Jonah 18:25
So, fortunately as I said, before we had a nurse that mentioned that to us, and they came in and we took several pictures. That was, again, as bad an experience that it can be there was good. We now have pictures that we can have forever, and our children, after Lydia will be able to see pictures of their big sister.
Lee 18:49
It really is one of those weird things, nobody in the hospital really knows what to do. It seemed in our situation, nobody really knows what to advise you to do. I sort of sometimes wish somebody was like, yeah you should do this. Or you should think about doing this. You should think about doing that. And it really was like, fly by the seat of your pants and you hope you’ll never regret it. There are things that I personally regret that I didn’t do or that I did do or that I didn’t ask. I don’t know. Yeah.
Jonah 19:02
Yeah.
Lee 19:02
I’m glad you guys were able to get some photos.
Jonah 19:29
Yeah.
Lee 19:30
What happened after you guys left the hospital? Did your wife Danielle, have any complications? Or I don’t know how to say this. Was she released on a clean bill of health? And you guys had to go home and figure out stuff?
Jonah 19:46
Yeah, I think we stayed like, at least part of an extra day. So that we could get, I guess. Well, our time that we had with Lydia was limited. Just due to her state decreasing.
Lee 20:05
Yeah the body is decomposing.
Jonah 20:07
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So our time was kind of limited. We had to see her for like kinda periods of time. She couldn’t stay with us the entire time. She had to go back into where the nurses were. Back in the room. So, after they were like, we have to take her. She’s not in a good place right now and it’s gonna get worse soon.
Jonah 20:29
We stayed a little bit, like at least half a day longer just because I think it was best for Danielle. She needed to have other people around her and that sort of thing. Because it was just her and I at our home. Being very new in the neighborhood and living there only two months. We hadn’t made a bunch of friends and all that. Both of us are, for the most part, pretty quiet, not like super extroverted. I’m quite the opposite of extroverted.
Jonah 21:16
It was just the atmosphere was good, because of the things that the staff had done for us there. So it was, I think that was the best place for her. She was released with a clean bill of health and all that. Then going home was difficult, we had painted the nursery, gotten everything set up and all that. So she really wasn’t comfortable, and wasn’t able to go into the nursery. I think we closed the door for a period of time. Then as time passed, she was able to get into the nursery and start going through the clothes and whatnot.
Jonah 21:55
One of the things that I think that I kind of battled with a lot was life afterwards. I had spent hours and all possible time that I was able to just thinking about that scenario of not really moving on, but moving forward. The thing that I had kind of thought of, or that came to me was that life was, there was a new normal that was created by this event. I think that I had read some things about that afterwards where that was something that other people would say that you’re not moving on or away from that experience and whatnot, but you’re moving forward. Creating a new normal with the memory of your child. So it’s not you’re not forgetting just moving forward which we know we have to do that’s what life is.
Lee 22:59
I’ve heard that phrase moving forward not moving on. That is a good way to put it. That event is such a the event of losing a child is such a life changing, life shattering. You’re not able to put it behind you and say that it was a good experience. But you have to move forward, so.
Jonah 23:24
Yeah, that was difficult. Danielle being at home by herself. Working at home. All of the alone and kind of secluded time so to speak I think that maybe made things more difficult.
Jonah 23:43
We did go to some– found a support group through one of the hospitals in Charleston. That was really good. Met some friends and some families there. Got to hear others talk about their experience and whatnot.
Jonah 24:03
My I guess kinda grief process. I took– I was off work for about a week. Then I went back to work. My grief process kind of unfortunately had to deal with anger. So that was kind of my main reaction: anger and impatience, that kind of stuff. None of it was towards Danielle or anything like that. It was just kind of general impatience and anger about everything or anything.
Jonah 24:39
So we were in our group for pregnancy and infant loss. Then I started seeing a counselor through work as well. Sure talking about the extent It’s that’s. I guess that’s fine. It wasn’t, I didn’t feel that it was super beneficial. But it’s always good to have somebody that is there to listen to your thoughts on things that you’re going through. Sometimes it’s difficult to talk about all your problems with somebody that you’re in the middle of this kind of a situation with, because it’s like, obviously, you’re both down low, and then the PAL, you’re bad or you’re low, from your day on to the other person who’s already low can make things a little bit worse.
Lee 25:39
So sometimes it feels unfair to be like, Oh, sure, I can’t, I can’t do this, and I can’t have you do that on me too. So?
Jonah 25:47
Yeah, yeah, we both are, I guess, kinda introverts. So we literally had to tell each other to talk to me. Tell me how you are doing. Tell me where you are. We have to make sure that we’re not doing the things that we feel we want to do. Make an effort to do the things that we know, that we should be doing.
Jonah 26:14
So we had some friends and family come to our home. One of the small groups kind of arranged things. We had people from out of town come in, and it was great, but still being very fresh off the loss of a child. Both not being big people, people. I guess, we kind of had to take breaks from things and kind of get our time. Where it was the two of us and get our thoughts and minds back in order.
Jonah 26:53
So, but it was, yeah, I mean, it’s necessary again. My natural tendencies are to just push everybody away. Go off by myself, figure it out mentally. Decide on how I’m going to proceed and get through and make it happen. Being relatively newly married, and having done those things throughout the course of my life. Then going through this experience, and then my wife is almost the opposite of how– handles things almost the opposite of how I handle things. There’s a whole bunch of consideration and thinking that has to be done to understand that she doesn’t handle things differently. Her experience with this loss is much different than mine, or having carried a child for 30 weeks, and the child living inside of her. That’s something that I’ll never understand, just to respect and support, so.
Lee 28:04
The experience of each individual is so unique to them. And you mentioned that you felt the anger and frustration. I felt those exact same things. I had to, and I couldn’t, I didn’t, like you said, I didn’t show the anger to people, or the frustration. It was all internalized. It just ate me up. Until I– and counseling helped me quite a bit to understand. I could feel those basic feelings of anger and frustration. But I didn’t have to hold on to them. Like, I could feel them. I didn’t have to act on them. Then I could release them. It was like, until I could understand that I always had– I can’t pin it on anybody, so I’m just going to pin it on myself. But yeah, the individual’s experiences are so unique to themselves. So yeah.
Jonah 29:09
I discovered that for me my outlet or release of anger was managed by doing something. Being active using my hands to do something, refinishing furniture, building something, fixing something that was broken like whatever. I mean, something along those lines, and that’s how I figured out that kind of my release of anger. And that helped me tremendously.
Lee 29:46
You were able to parlay that anger and that frustration into something that you could release it into something so.
Jonah 30:16
Yeah.
Lee 29:53
That’s good. Did you have a service for your daughter? Did you bury her? Did you have I was that being a young husband and father? For myself, I had no clue what to do. I’ve only been to funerals that were planned by somebody else. And it was– So I had a one track mind. I got it done, but I had no clue what I was doing. And it happened. There was a lot of help from the people around me. But I didn’t– I don’t know how that funeral ever got planned. Nothing, I really did myself. How was it for you? How was it for you guys?
Jonah 30:37
Yeah. So we did, we did have a viewing or memorial service. Then also a funeral where she is buried in a mausoleum, so she’s not like down in the ground. So she’s on a structure above ground. So we had a chance to remember who I guess it was somebody from the hospital, who had given us suggestions on different funeral homes or whatnot. They literally had a list of five different places. Their list was like, this places the nicest, this places the next nicest, this is the next on then the bottom one. The bottom one, basically, they said, this is the one that’s the least nice. It was the closest to our home. That’s what was important to us. So that’s what we went with.
Jonah 31:05
At the time, I would pass that cemetery every day, twice a day minimum, when I drove to work and took my kids to school. Then when I drove home from work and brought my kids home from school it was less than 15 minutes from our home. Early on, after we put her in the mausoleum or buried. We would get over there more frequently for visits.
Jonah 31:54
So as far as planning everything. We had family members present to help with planning and organizing. My parents were there, my brother, one of my brothers was there, my father in law, and maybe my mother in law and her husband as well. So we had input from family as far as how things were to go. How we should kind of proceed with things.
Jonah 32:42
We were completely blessed by our, my father in law, and my brother who and this is just a horrible thought, but you know, horrible thing, but it’s something that’s necessary. All these things have to get paid for. So we were completely blessed by my father in law and my brother, and they paid for everything. So, a blessing that was to us that we didn’t have to pay for any of that. It’s just an absolute, it’s mind boggling to think that parents should be paying or parents have to pay for their baby’s funeral. But I mean, when reality is that there are things done, and people have to, unfortunately get paid. In that situation for that.
Jonah 33:31
So our family was a huge part and helped to organize the funeral service. We had a viewing and it was an open casket. That was something that we debated as far as where we’re going to barrier, or cremation. We didn’t do the cremation. We got a casket and buried her. Again, as we were talking about earlier, you don’t know what you don’t know. Just how odd and unreal the situation is of carrying your daughter out in a tiny casket into the back of a car. Then riding to a cemetery and then putting the casket inside of a tomb, or whatever they’re called the mausoleum. It’s just yeah, it’s difficult to describe.
Lee 34:33
I got to carry my son in his casket. I’ve been pallbearers for a couple of other funerals. It’s usually with six people. I was able to carry my son by myself.
Jonah 34:47
Right.
Lee 34:47
It was such a juxtaposition to how small and delicate it felt. To pick up and carry my child to his final resting place. It was like, Oh, thank you for talking about that.
Jonah 35:08
Sure.
Lee 35:08
Is there anything else that you would like to talk about?
Jonah 35:12
I would say the impact that this child still has in our lives, six and a half years later, it’s indescribable. I mean six and a half years later, I’m talking to a stranger that I just met about an hour ago. We’ve been talking about our children for the past hour plus. Like I mentioned early on, I’m always trying to find the good in situations. Again, has terrible of a situation this is it’s created new ways of seeing things and life and value. In things that I never would have considered before or would have just taken for granted.
Jonah 36:08
Giving thanks for every single thing that we have that I don’t deserve, and all these things. So it’s her life. While it was brief, in terms of, from when she was conceived till the day that she was born. Just that 30 weeks time frame has changed my life and so many other people’s lives. And will continue to change until the day I’m no longer on this earth. So I’m thankful for that experience and thankful for being able to see things from that perspective. To allow them to change me as a man to be a better man, a better father, a better husband.
Lee 37:00
It is amazing how impactful the situation is.
Jonah 37:05
Yeah.
Lee 37:05
As you said, the brief life of Lydia for 30 weeks has impacted you and will impact you and your whole family for the remainder of your lives.
Jonah 37:16
Yeah, absolutely.
Lee 37:18
It’s all awe-inspiring and sad.
Jonah 37:22
Yeah, there’s no single word. I don’t think there’s any single word to define all the emotion. From all the different directions, the highs, the lows, yeah, it’s very difficult to describe or define.
Lee 37:43
Well, Jonah, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on the podcast and thank you for talking about your wonderful daughter, Lydia.
Jonah 37:52
You’re very welcome. Thank you. I appreciate your time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai