I’ve had two dreams about giving birth to a dead baby.

I’m in the hospital, and I know it’s a different place and time. I remember pushing and laboring, then passing out. I have flashes of them wrapping the baby up in a yellow receiving blanket. Louie is with me when I come to, and the baby is gone. When I ask Louie if he asked to see our baby, he tells me that they took the baby before he had the chance.

I remember feeling like I was going to lose it because we didn’t get to hold our baby. I remember feeling lost and confused because we couldn’t confirm whether we had a boy or a girl, and I didn’t know which baby this was. It’s really, really odd, but I felt like I knew who my children were — I just needed to know which of my babies I had delivered. And I don’t know why, but I know the baby in my dreams was not Calvin, but one of our daughters.

I know these dreams are a mash up of my experiences and my fears. But before I had Calvin, when I dreamed of my and Louie’s child, our baby was always a boy. That’s how I knew (coupled with the dream in which Mama – my grandmother who moved on from earth into Heaven in 2003 – felt my pregnant belly and told me I was having a boy a couple months into my pregnancy). And then there was also the dream a few years back in which my pregnancy just disappeared, which I wrote about here: Did my body already know?.

So now, after these dreams, I can’t help but feel scared of what will happen should I become pregnant again. I know it’s in God’s hands, and whether He chooses to bless us with another child, and whether He chooses to take this child sooner than later… I have to lay these fears at His feet. And it’s so much easier said than done.

for Calvin

I will keep you in my heart and carry you there each day. And when I am in my deepest of grieving, my son, I will remember the morning I held you in my arms and saw you in your father’s. In those brief hours, the world stopped in silence and honored us. Time stopped and let our family be whole. And the pain of losing you fell away, like gossamer carried away on a passing breeze. For a moment—a moment that is enough, yes, enough to sustain me through the many, many days of living I must endure without you—I forgot the feeling of loss. You filled my heart. You fill it still.

In memory of Milo Henry Salomonis – MiloSalomonis.org

Bright eyes, keep watch over them, as you dance on clouds above.

“Walking With You” was created by Kelly at The Beauty of Sufficient Grace to help support those who have lost a child.

Together we share our stories, helpful information, scriptures, encouraging words, prayer requests, and more. To learn more and/or to join, please visit Walking with You.

The First Steps

…it is certain that there was a day, a moment when your world changed. There was a loss of innocence that day – the innocence we have before we know that the unthinkable can actually happen. A complete change in perspective.

Threatened Miscarriage and Pregnancy Tissue

I started cramping and spotting just a few days after the positive pregnancy test. I called the hospital after a couple days, and they scheduled a ultrasound and blood tests. I was able to see my tiny, tiny baby, but I was two weeks off (based on my last period), and not far enough along to detect the heartbeat. The doctor told me I could be having a miscarriage, come back in a week.

A few days later, I called to follow up on my blood tests. The nurse said it looked good, that my levels doubled. (It was like exhaling relief.) But then she took it back. (Then having your breath slammed to a stop with a forceful palm.) They hadn’t quite doubled.

The next week came, and we saw our little one’s heartbeat flickering like a firefly on the monitor before us. We were given a picture to take home. I thought we were okay. But before we left, the doctor stopped us to say that the ultrasound technician found the gestational sac was shaped abnormally. So we had to come back again in two weeks, which fell on Christmas Eve.

The following week was my first prenatal appointment. I liked the midwife right away. She was very sweet and nurturing, and continued to be a source of comfort even after we lost Calvin. She started examining me, mentioned she could see the spotting. Then, “I see what looks like pregnancy tissue at the opening of your cervix.” Panic. She tried to reassure us, saying that sometimes she sees this and everything turns out fine, but doesn’t want us to wait until the next week for our ultrasound (which was scheduled on Christmas Eve). went to speak with the receptionist to get us a same-day, emergency ultrasound. She left the room, and I fell apart in Louie’s arms. Together, we cried for our baby, silently beseeching God to let our child live. As we waited, I told him that if we lost this baby, I wasn’t sure if I could go through another pregnancy and risk another painful loss.

We didn’t lost our baby then. His little heartbeat was fine. The developmental measurements were right on track. And the next week, on December 23rd, I received a call congratulating me, and telling me the pregnancy was “viable.” It wasn’t until the end of January that I would learn about Amniotic Band Syndrome.

But ultimately, it was during these first few weeks that I first tasted the pain of losing Calvin Phoenix. As the deep aching love for him lay claim on my heart in that first month of knowing him, in that first month of motherhood, I spent week after week after week in tears and fervent prayer, waiting to learn whether my baby would live or die.

Prayer Request

Tomorrow is the birthday of sweet Milo Henry, who passed away on January 20 of this year as a result of SIDs. His parents, Heather and Nathan, have become very dear to me and Louie, and they have made this request of their friends and family: “At 5:30pm on September 17th, we invite you to share in a moment of silence with us for Milo…wherever you are…do a meditation, say a prayer, light a candle, reflect on the positive things in your life, or what you would like to have for your life.”

If you are so moved, please lift Heather, Nathan, and Milo up in your thoughts along with us. You can visit Milo’s memorial site at: milosalomonis.org.

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I chose these pictures from the Calvin Phoenix Photo Project, because on this The 5th Belongs to Calvin, six months after delivering my 4 1/2 month old baby boy, I want to share the ways in which I know my son.

The top image is from Louie’s cousin, Abby. The image underneath is from my sister, Raquel.

If you would like to contribute a picture for Calvin Phoenix, please read about the Calvin Phoenix Photo Project.

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Just because I never held my living child in my arms, just because I never heard his cry or coos or felt his fingers wrap around mine, it does not mean I did not know him. It’s true, yes, I will never experience the knowledge of Calvin as a boy that grows up through adolescence and into manhood. But in the 4 1/2 months that he lived inside my womb before he went to live with Jesus, my relationship with him grew, and my love for him flourished (it still does).

The first ways in which I began to know my son came with the changes I experienced during my pregnancy; they came because he was being knit in my belly.

Because of Calvin, I craved bacon, watermelon, bangus (milkfish), raw veggies, mustard, bagels with cheddar cheese, oatmeal, and Filipino food on the weekends (I don’t know why this was a weekend thing). He, however, did not let me enjoy the taste of beef. Steak was especially unpalatable, and I couldn’t stand chewing it and tasting the flavor spread across my tongue. Eggs made me throw up. As did orange juice – or any kind of juice, but orange juice especially – unless it was freshly squeezed. Not even Odwalla, which I loved, but that he apparently did not.

And the vomiting. I very rarely throw up. Even when I want my stomach to expel whatever is it that’s ailing me, it’s normally just dry heaves and saliva that my body can force out. But with this pregnancy, vomit would come every 10 minutes at its worse. And at its very worse, it would force its way up and out through my nose as well as my mouth because they were just too much. And yes, that is another I have connection to my baby.

I also know him through the intense lower back pain that was ever present through most of my pregnancy, and that shot through me when I walked up and down stairs, when I got up from laying down or sitting, or when I was on my feet for extended periods of time. This is the most hurtful pregnancy “symptom” to think about (I spoke of it here: the absence of pain), because after I delivered my son, this pain disappeared, without even a lingering ache.

And when he got big enough for me to start feeling his movements, I began to know his touch.

What a precious, secret joy that brought to physically feel him and have this new leveling of knowing him. Of recognizing the way he would flip and tumble inside me in the afternoons, before his early evening nap. Of knowing that he’s a deep sleeper like his daddy. I know because he refused to be awakened by the ultrasound tech’s prodding and pressing and making me cough. And when Calvin was awake, he turned and swam away from the the pressure of the ultrasound wand — so much so that I would have to turn from side to side and get tilted so that my head was lower than my feet, all in trying to coax my stubborn little boy into the positions they needed him to be in.

And after I delivered him, I continued to get to know my baby.

I was able to cradle him in my arms and look at his sweet little face. And thus, I know him through the weight of his head in the crook of my elbow. Through the widow’s peak of his hairline (which he inherited from me). Through the lines made by his shut eyelids. Through the small bridge of his tiny nose (which is still more of a nose bridge than I have, and which he got from his daddy). Through his tiny gums. Through the shape of his head.

I even know him from the remains of his cremation. From the bones that stayed intact. Yes, even that means something, because it’s proof that he existed, that he formed within me, that he LIVED.

Louie and I will never know our firstborn in the same way that parents know their living children, but we are so blessed to know Calvin Phoenix in the ways with do. We carry him in our hearts, and we know him through our love for him. And that means everything.

Happy 6 months in Heaven, Calvie! We thank God for choosing us to be your parents.

While I was on my way back to work from the grocery store, I walked by three women. One of them was talking about a four year old, and said the following:

…and he hit his mom! So I slapped him in his face and said, “Don’t you dare hit your mother!”

I find issue with that woman’s actions (and am reviled by the pride and gusto with which she related them) for several reasons. I believe parents have the right to choose whether to spank their children or not, but to slap a four year old across the face, let alone someone who is not your child?

Even adults find great insult in getting slapped. And how do you teach a child not to hit when you “discipline” him with the same type of behavior you’re trying to change in the first place?

Your thoughts?