Sara Loraine Orton

It is 3 weeks today.

I've been going back and forth on how to tastefully make this post. I've been waiting a while so that I could work through some emotions so that the words don't appear to be angry or too sad and hopeless. I want it to be informative, yet not too intimate as to seem like I had copied the words directly from my journal. It's a rather interesting thing to post about. Something that most other parents will never have the chance to write about, fortunately. Our beautiful baby girl was just a tad too eager to join us. I suppose she knew Spencer and I were going to be awesome parents, and was really excited about it. After an already difficult pregnancy a couple painful internal exams, multiple ultrasounds and a very long MRI, it was determined that I had an incompetent cervix (most likely due to radiation therapy) and that the remainder of the pregnancy would be spent on strict bedrest. The baby had somehow already made her way into the birth canal and was ready to make her debut appearance. The days after the news were spent on bed rest watching FoodNetwork and other mindless TV shows. Our queen size bed was placed in the middle of the family room directly in front of the screen. Divine. On Thursday my doctor requested I head to the hospital to be monitored for contractions. Instead of the 800+ channels in HD quality I lowered my standards to such television shows as Peoples Court and boring Local News. The contraction machine spit out receipt-like paper that reached a mile long. The results were mostly flat lined- which in this case is good- so we felt a little happier. Meaning A) the pain I was feeling weren't contractions and B) the tight pressured belt strapped on my stomach could finally be removed. The idea of option B was short lived since the doctor suggested I spend the night for further monitoring. With that news we were moved to a nice room with a window and a little pull out bed for Spencer. I asked Spencer to pull his béir (a word I just made up to mean bed/chair) closer to my deluxe hospital bed so that we could hold hands as the sky got dark and the streetlights flickered on. We watched the late night comedy shows and chuckled each time someone came into our room, which was every 30 minutes or so. "I'm the public relations person..." or "I'm in charge of the rubbery food we feed you here at the hospital..." or "I'm here to draw some blood". The blood lady came at 5:00am. I'm still confused about that. Our morning was rather relaxing. Hand fulls of people told us that we would be released as soon as the doctor had made her rounds. While we waited for her to come around we had an ultrasound by one of the High Risk doctors where we saw our little baby swimming around. He too told us that we would be going home. With this reassuring news the day flew by- besides a progesterone shot administered right into my hip. Early afternoon Spencer left for work, and around 3:00pm I became very uncomfortable. Sparring you all from details our beautiful baby girl arrived Friday May 22, 2009 at 3:20pm and passed away 3:26pm. She was healthy and perfect, with slightly undeveloped lungs, which is normal when delivered that early. I yelled at everyone to get Spencer on the phone, but before I knew it they told me something about a loss of blood and the need for an emergency surgery. An hour or so later Spencer joined me in a recovery room. We laid together in the hospital bed and cried. Shortly there after, the nurse brought our little baby to us wrapped in a blanket- her features so perfect and ever so tiny. Some family and friends joined us in the room a while later and gratefully had plenty of cameras to treat us somewhat like a celebrity family. The paparazzi flashed and snapped shots of our first family moments together. I look at those pictures everyday. They will always mean so much to us. We named our precious baby Sara Loraine Orton. Sara after moi. and Loraine after her maternal grandmother. We filled out a birth certificate (and a death certificate) then took our baby back to our previous hospital room. Spencer and I shared the deluxe hospital bed that night and our angel joined us in her small plastic bassinet at the foot of the bed. I realized that night that you don't have to be awake to cry. I also realized how grateful I am to have an amazing husband who is my absolute best friend. We together are so grateful that we have been sealed in the temple and know that we will have our baby girl again. We are also so thankful for all the cards, meals, prayers, visits, packages, flowers etc. that we have recieved. Thank you.