After having an emergency C-section to deliver our first daughter, Carson Meredith, we thought the second child would be so easy. We would just schedule a day, have a repeat caesarian, spend a couple of days in the hospital, and bring our new baby home. However, our second pregnancy was anything but easy. After being told twice that our baby had no heartbeat only to find out later that she was fine I became very anxious and knew that I did not feel “right”. My doctor said the spotting I experienced could be very normal, but I knew it wasn’t. I also knew that this baby was different from my first, very active at an early age.

At 17 weeks I was diagnosed with a chronic placental abruption and put on bed rest, bed rest with a two year old! It did not seem to help and the bleeding continued for 6 more weeks when I began having contractions. I was medi-flighted to a high risk maternity center and was going to stay there “until the end”. This was December 8 and I was due April 4. On the night of December 11th the contractions started again and could not be stopped. At 6:44 a.m.on December 12 Chandler Blaire was born at 23 weeks. We had been looking for a “special” middle name for this baby and decided on Blaire because it meant “from a battle”. We had all fought hard to keep her from being born and now the battle was all hers. Around 4:00 that afternoon the nurse practitioner came to tell us Chandler was not doing well and we needed to make a decision about whether or not to continue.

We decided to hold our tiny 1lb. 6 oz. daughter as long as we could, but we knew she was suffering and we had to let her go. The breathing tube and oxygen were removed and our family gathered to send our little angel to heaven. But, heaven’s gates were not open and the longer I held her the higher her oxygen levels became. After a couple of hours we put her back in her isolette to get warm.

88 days later Chandler came home with oxygen and heart monitors. Now at 6 months, she weighs almost 10 pounds and no longer has any need for the oxygen or monitors. She is truly our miracle baby!