MAGNOLIA JUBILEE — funeral flowers

On December 12th, 2021, Jared and I found out that I was pregnant. After more than six and a half years of unexplained infertility, many rounds of fertility treatments, an untold number of desperate prayers from us and others on our behalf, I was finally pregnant—without medical intervention. It seemed undeniable that this was a miracle from God, so many prayers finally answered.

While we were overjoyed, I was also worried that after all we had been through, something would go wrong. It wasn’t until we found out that it was a girl at 17 weeks that I finally believed everything would be okay. Of course you have to say you’ll be happy either way, but in our hearts Jared and I had always wanted a daughter and finding out we were having a girl somehow solidified for me that this baby was ours to keep.

Our daughter already had a personality—in ultrasound scans she was often napping, stubbornly refusing to move for the pictures they needed. She always had her hands on her face or over her head. We were able to take her on several trips, and had the joy of telling our friends and family about her, videoing all their reactions. The happiest moments of our lives were spent with her, dreaming of the life we would have with our precious daughter. The joy I felt imagining holding her in my arms is indescribable. As is the pain of what came next.

On Good Friday, at nearly 23 weeks pregnant, I went into labor. We ended up at the hospital where we saw our daughter on the ultrasound—moving, her heartbeat normal and strong, but there was nothing the doctors could do to stop my labor. Because of her gestational age, the doctors said there would be nothing they could do to help her unless my labor stopped on its own. They still don’t have a clear explanation of what happened to cause me to go into labor so early.

After a few moments of absolute panic, we moved into prayer mode. I was so sure that God would intervene. The number of people intensely praying for us and our confidence that this was our miracle answer-to-prayer baby convinced us that even against this horrible prognosis, she would be kept safe. That confidence haunts me now.

At 12:54am that Saturday, our daughter Magnolia Jubilee was born and passed into Jesus’ arms after only a few moments with us. She was absolutely perfect, you could see our features in her face and her super long arms and her ballerina feet—she would have been tall like Jared. But she was too small to make it on her own. She was two days short of the hospital’s cut off for prenatal resuscitation.

We named her Magnolia, after the first flowers that bloom after the long New York City winter—that was always our plan, but because she was born in April, all the magnolias in the city will be blooming on her birthday every year. And her middle name is Jubilee, after the year of Jubilee in the Old Testament—a year of celebration, restoration, freedom, and fresh beginnings. Jubilee was a name that came to us days after we found out I was pregnant, another thing we thought was a promise for us. Now we can only hold it as a promise for eternity, when there will finally be perfect restoration and our family will be whole again.