Because of the time of its blooming and the rose-like shape of its flower buds, The Pink Lady Spotted Hellebore is often called the Lenten Rose.
In its center there are five pistils which can remind one of an in-utero baby’s five tiny fingers and toes.
A number of years ago, a friend of mine related to me how in March of that year he and his wife were expecting twin girls.
“Five delicate tiny fingers on each hand, five little toes on each foot – yes, in the wonder of it all, our first pregnancy, we counted them.”
In the distance between the tips of their fingers and the tips of their toes their hearts beat.
Also appearing on the detailed and soft five pink petals on the Lenten Rose pictured here, there are spots.
“Like the spots on the petals of the flower, our pink ladies would one day sport freckles of their own,” continued my friend.
With the twin girls on the way, the soon-to-be-parents matched wallpaper to paint to prepare nursery; a second rocker was purchased as dad would join mom those sleepless nights; and knowing that at five months of pregnancy that the twins could hear – hear! – their mother sang to them, talked to them, and told them how they were wanted and loved.
Then their hearts stopped; at five months a miscarriage occurred.
“The nurse asked if we would like to hold them,” my friend continued, “and I could hold them both in one hand.”
His hand held two hearts and twenty tiny toes and fingers.
My friend and his wife went through one of life’s most dark and terrible tempests.
As the years have passed, they were blessed with four rainbow children.
“Like the Pink Lady Spotted Hellebore and rainbows, our children and grandchildren are constant reminders of the miracle of both born – and unborn – life.”
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
What a beautiful reminder that life is a miracle in all its beauty AND its pain. Thank you, David.
This is beautifully written, but is exquisitely painful to read, because it so closely parallels my own life experience. While I did not have or lose twins, I lost four babies. My first pregnancy was severely complicated, but thankfully resulted in the live birth of our precious daughter Evelyn Alice.
Following that, my next four pregnancies all resulted in miscarriages — just as in this tragic story you shared — right up to the fifth month. Baby showers had been held each time and all of the thoughtful, precious little gifts returned.
It seemed hopeless that we would ever have a second child to join our little girl. Incredibly, with my sixth pregnancy, but not without major complications and predictions that the baby would not be able to breathe on his own and/or would be born dead, he was delivered by C-section and survived. He was breathing on his own and was full-term, normal birth weight, as healthy as could be.
I had a near-death experience (NDE) due to the anesthesia and was without a pulse or heart rhythm for approximately 30 minutes while they worked to resuscitate me.
After that ordeal when I was in the Recovery Room and they were telling me to open my eyes to see my baby boy, I did not believe them that it could be true.
It seemed an impossible dream that after all of the heartbreak and losses of the four previous babies it was a phenomenal miracle that our baby boy Jonathan had survived and was going to grow up to be healthy and strong.
Thank you for sharing Jaynie what was a most poignant, precious and powerful memory.
Grief, someone said, is a given.
Never, however, does grief appear as a gift.
But what you declared most powerfully culminates in that last sentence of yours:
“It seemed an impossible dream that after all of the heartbreak and losses of the fur previous babies it was a phenomenal miracle that our baby boy Jonathan had survived and was going to grow up to be heathy and strong.”
To be presented with such a gift; to wake up from your own crisis and receive a life you believed would not be possible; is indeed a miracle in the plural.
What a miracle is life.
And how precious.
four previous babies.
Thank you, David. Over all of the intervening years, I’ve often wondered ‘what would have been’ if those four babies that we lost would have lived and made it to full-term and been born: what would they have been like, who would they have become, how would our family have changed and turned out? Yet, to have had my first and sixth pregnancies miraculously have made it to full-term — against all odds — and resulting in live births was miraculous each time — a whole series of miracles each time.
When I wrote my original response to Ben Sclair’s touching story about those precious little twin babies that didn’t get their chance at a full life, I forgot to mention that when I was pregnant with Jonathan (my sixth pregnancy) I herniated a disk in my lumbar spine when I tripped on a seatbelt getting out of our car.
I needed spinal surgery, but because of the pregnancy, that could not be done. Instead, a hospital bed was moved into our home and I was strung up in lumbar traction with one of those huge metal frames mounted above the bed for the final several months of the pregnancy.
Back then doctors actually made house calls and the obstetrician would come to see me each week and check on the baby’s progress. But he was also keeping me on Demerol (narcotic pain medication). The orthopedists at the University of Washington sent him a letter advising him that if I went into labor it could result in permanent paralysis resulting from straining against the damaged lower spine.
The orthopedists told the obstetrician to schedule me for a Caesarean section in order to protect me from paralysis. When the obstetrician came to our home the following week for his next visit, I gave him the letter from the University of Washington physician. He stood there beside my bed and read it.
Then he laughed out loud.
And then he tore it up into little pieces and let it flutter down to the floor in our bedroom and proclaimed, “I WILL DECIDE WHEN AND IF YOU NEED A C-SECTION.”
And with that, he walked out and left.
My husband and I were shocked that he would (apparently) let his ego potentially put me at risk of becoming paralyzed. It was only weeks before the baby was due, but I discontinued my care with that doctor and transferred to the OB/GYN Clinic at the University of Washington.
It was there that I learned by him having kept me on Demerol for MONTHS that the baby would likely be born addicted to the narcotic pain medication, weigh less than five pounds, not be able to breathe on his own, and most likely be born dead. It was a grim prognosis — especially after months of being strung up in lumbar traction in a hospital bed at home.
But I thank God for ALL of the doctors at the University of Washington who put a plan in place for an emergency C-section and that they saved our baby.
Jonathan’s live birth was miraculous in so many ways — and he was a gift from God — just as Evi was seven years earlier.
Jaynie,
Yours is a story I’m so glad you relived here for all those who hopefully read it.
There are three of us working on a coffee table book comprised of short articles and accompanying photography.
Like “The Miracle of Life” here that generated such painful but precious memories as yours.
It is our hope that when people hold that book in their hands that what they read and see will resonate in their hearts.
Like yours.
Blessings!