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In loving memory of
Mark Thomas Nation
Mark's Story The Beginning We found out that we were pregnant on October 31, 2006. We had actually suspected it for a little over a week, but we waited until that morning to take the actual test. We were excited and scared. We decided to wait a little while before telling anyone else. We wanted it to be our little secret. First Doctor's Visit My first doctor's visit was on November 20, 2006. My doctor does an ultrasound at eight weeks to make sure everything looks okay. Everything looked fine. We finally decided to start telling everyone. Here is a picture of Mark's first ultrasound.  Next Several Months Everything went according to plan for the next several months. We traveled to Mississippi for Thanksgiving. We told all of our family and friends. We bought a mini-van, since my Grand Am was not going to be big enough for three car seats. We discussed living arrangements, since we are in a three bedroom house. I went back to the doctor at 12 weeks. The nurse couldn't find a heartbeat with the doppler. She was pretty sure that everything was okay, and the baby was just still too small, but we did an ultrasound to make sure. As soon as the ultrasound wand was placed on my belly, you could see his outline and his heart beating away. The doctor gave me a picture of Mark and a picture of his heartbeat wave.
Christmas and New Year's Next, we had Christmas. Some people even gave the baby a Christmas present. Stephanie was convinced this was a "baby sister," so we got some pink outfits, some toys for the baby's car seat, a dresser for the baby's room, and some bibs for their first Christmas next year. I was nervous about the idea of having three children to take care of, but I was also very excited. Doctor Visit in January My next doctor's visit was January 12, 2007. This time, the doctor's office only had one doppler that was working for all three doctors in the office. Since my doctor is pregnant at this time, I think she just likes giving ultrasounds. We go down to the ultrasound room to hear the heartbeat. Everything looks great. This is our first chance to see if the baby is a boy or a girl. My doctor says that if she had to guess, she would guess boy, but she instructed me not to buy anything blue yet, because she was scared she was wrong.  Last Doctor's Visit We went to the doctor on February 8, 2007. We were to have the routine ultrasound that usually done around 20 weeks. I was at 19 weeks, 4 days. Paul was with me. We walked in the ultrasound room and was talking about whether the baby was a boy or a girl. We really didn't care. We just wanted a happy baby. The ultrasound technician started the exam, but she seemed to be moving very fast. I noticed her frowning, but I thought I was being paranoid. Then, she asked the dreaded question, "Have you felt any movement lately?" I explained that I thought I had felt movement a few weeks ago, but I hadn't felt anything lately. I just thought the baby was too small for me to be feeling it yet. Then, I asked her if something was wrong. She solemnly nodded and said she would go get the doctor, but she couldn't find a heartbeat. I was shocked and devastated. My worst nightmare was coming true. Paul and I cried and held each other, as we waited for my doctor. They told us that the baby was measuring about 17 weeks, so apparently he had died two weeks ago. At this time, they still couldn't tell if he was a boy or a girl. To them, it looked like the neck area was swollen, which they told us was a sign of a chromosonal disorder. The doctor explained that we would have to go to the hospital and go through the delivery process. She didn't go into a lot of details, but she just gave us the information that we had to have at that time. Making Plans We went home and cried and cried. We called both of our moms. They both decided to come and help take care of the kids - and us. We e-mailed our church secretary, and we asked her to tell everyone for us, since we could barely say the words that our baby had died. We went to school and picked David up. I told his teacher. Then, we picked Stephanie up from school early to tell her. She just sat and cried for a long time. She wanted to know "why?" Of course, we all wanted to know why. We didn't have any answers for her, but he held her and told her how much we loved her. Our moms got to our house late Thursday night. Delivery We went to the hospital at 6am the next morning. We had to go to the labor and delivery floor. It was so hard to watch the pregnant women coming in to have their healthy babies, when I knew that mine had already died. They took us back to a room about 7. They didn't do anything but paperwork until around 9. They started giving me medicine to cause the delivery. They told me that it usually taked 24-36 hours for the whole process to happen. They also warned me that most people hurt a lot during the process, so they offered me any pain medicine that I wanted. I decided to wait until it started hurting to ask for the medicine. Other than, we spent the day holding each other and crying. I slept off and on, because of the anti-nausea medicine they had given me. Bro. Bobby and Neal came to see us. We also had a few friends drop by. My kids came to see me after Stephanie got out of school. I kept waiting on the pain to start that they kept telling me was coming. I wasn't hurting that afternoon either. I was really beginning to think that the medicine wasn't working. Although we didn't want many visitors at the hospital, we did want to know that people were praying for us. We received so many e-mails from our church family and other friends, telling us they were praying for us. I have never felt people praying for me as much as I did that day. I almost felt like I couldn't pray, so it was nice to know people were praying for me. The baby was delivered around 8pm. I never did take any pain medicine, and I never did hurt. We found out that the baby was a boy. We named him Mark Thomas Nation. Mark is kind of a family name (on Paul's side), but more than anything we wanted two Biblical names. We didn't fully decide on his name, until we saw him, but then it was clear what his name should be. The nurse took the baby and cut the cord and wiped him off. She also told us that the cord was wrapped around his neck three times. Although they are still going to run the chromosonal test, apparently, this was the cause of his death. Everyone keeps referring to it as "one of those freak things." She tried to prepare us to see him. She said that she could tell that he had been dead around two weeks. I'm not trying to be graphic, but at that stage of life, their little bodies are made mostly of fluid. Once they die, the de-composition stars moving pretty fast. Holding Our Baby She placed Mark in my arms. He was so tiny. He fit in the palm of my hand. Even though decomposition had started, he looked so beautiful to me. His face was deformed, but from the neck down, he was perfect. You could see all the fingers and toes. We spent the next hour or so with our baby. We held him and told him how much we loved him and how much we were going to miss him. We took a few pictures. We will have so little to hold onto with him, that we wanted everything we could get. Both grandmothers came to the hospital to see Mark. We decided that it would be too much for Stephanie to see him. It was really hard to leave the hospital and leave my baby there. I wanted so much to see him grow up. Since I didn't have an epidural or anything, my doctor let me go home that night. I just wanted to go home and hold my two precious children at home. Pictures of Mark I didn't actually put the pictures of Mark on this page, because I wanted you to be able to choose if you wanted to see them or not. I explained earlier that decomposition had already started. We even could see a difference in his little body from the time we first held him, until we finally gave him back to the nurse. If you would like to see the pictures that we took of Mark, you can click here. If not, I completely understand and would not be offended at all! What the Hospital Did Our nurse took pictures of us holding Mark. After we left, she also dressed Mark in a blanket wrap that was crocheted. She took more pictures of him. She did his footprints and made us a keepsake certificate with them. If you would like to see those pictures, you can click here. As I mentioned earlier, there was a big difference in the way he looked when we first got him and took our pictures until the time the nurse took pictures. Just to show you how small he was, here is the certificate they gave us with his footprints. I scanned it beside a penny, so you could see just how small his little feet were.  The Burial Apparently, the rule of thumb is that if your baby weighs more than 1 pound, you must do a burial. If your baby weighs less than that, you have the choice. The hospital will perform a cremation for you, or you can choose to bury your baby. We chose a burial. We thought we might need some place to visit later on. Hazel Green Funeral Home agreed to do the burial for free. They located a cemetery, Charity Lane Baptist Church Cemetery, to give us a burial plot for free. We didn't want to have a funeral, but we did have a prayer service for the burial. Only family members and the staff from First Baptist Hazel Green attended. Bro. Bobby led the service. Philip, Paul's brother, took pictures for us. The burial was extremly hard on Stephanie. I think it finally made it "real" to her. Since she didn't get to see Mark - for her to see the casket brought a wave of emotions. She colored a picture to give Mark. The funeral home director placed it in the casket with Mark. The burial seemed so final to us. Our families drove a long way to be with us on this day. Paul's parents came from Mississippi. My dad and sister also drove from Mississippi that morning. Paul's brother, Philip, and his family came from Florida. Paul's sister-in-law came from Birmingham. His brother, Boyd, had a business trip that he couldn't get out of, but he came on Sunday to see us. Paul's sister, Joy, couldn't attend, because she and her family are in South Korea for the year, but she called us. It was special to feel so much love and support from our family! The Grave Marker We went on Tuesday morning to pick out the grave marker. We wanted something simple. Stephanie requested that we have a cross placed on it. They told us to expect six weeks before it would be ready. However, on March 9, when I went by to check on the flowers at his gravesite, it was there. We took Stephanie and David by that night to see it.
 We'll Miss You, Mark We will always miss our baby, Mark. We will always grieve for the child that we never really got to know. It is hard to imagine that you could love someone so much that you never really even knew. We just trust that Mark is in heaven with Jesus, and we will see him one day. |
