I was 18 weeks and just had an anatomy scan with the ultrasound technician on the morning of August 16th, 2019. It appears that I was fine and most importantly, our baby boy was fine. Why then was I being rushed to the hospital with abdominal pains later that evening? We got checked into the Emergency Room and the doctors started a series of tests. Another ultrasound was performed and there was our baby boy just kicking at my cervix and active on the screen. The pains were getting worse and I had no idea what was going on at that point. The test all came back negative and did not indicate that there was a problem. The doctors were ready to discharge me. Meanwhile, my husband was questioning their decision based on the fact that my pain became unbearable at that point. Feeling thirsty, I asked for a drink of water and that was when our worlds came crashing down.

After drinking water, I began to feel dizzy and nauseous and began vomiting all in a matter of a minute. Then all of a sudden, BOOM!!!  A gush of water drops on the floor. I screamed, “my baby…my water just broke…my baby!!!”. At that point, my husband starts yelling in the hallway to get the attention of the nurses and doctors to come help. I felt like I was on an episode of one of those medical shows where all of the nurses and doctors rush in to start helping out their patient. In the back of mind, I knew this could not have been good and that this could result in the loss of our baby boy.

So now I’m being wheeled up to the delivery section of the hospital where to be examined. It was then that we learned the fate of our situation, were told we had to let nature take its course, and that we’d be losing our baby boy. In retrospect, it hit me that I was having contractions all this time but my mind did not realize it. The nurses got me situated in my room as my husband and I realized at some point either that night or the next morning we would be delivering our baby boy.

Throughout the night, Rodney was now texting our close friends to share the news and had made calls to our parents to give them the updates. My family is from Pennsylvania/New Jersey area and Rodney’s parents are on the West side of Florida. Our parents didn’t have the opportunity to rush to my bedside to help us at that moment. While Rodney was handling all the communications, the nurses put an IV in and gave me medication to help me relax.

Our Pastor came to be with us, pray for us, and to hear our hearts in the middle of the night. How blessed were we that our selfless Pastor was willing to be with us in our darkest hour. As minutes turned into hours, we waited and we waited some more until it was finally time for me to push. Around 4:30 am on Saturday, August 17th, 2019 our precious yet lifeless baby boy, Nehemiah David Noel, was born. We held him and thought of the aspirations we had for his life and the milestones we wouldn’t get the opportunity to experience with him. Our hearts were shattered that our firstborn did not survive and how we knew life was going to look different from this day forward.