My name is Abri, and my husband, Tyler, and I got pregnant with our first baby, Judah Tyler Frees, in October 2021, a few months before our fifth year wedding anniversary (which was in April 2022). We’d been planning for a baby most of our marriage, but had not yet felt financially ready. When we did finally feel ready, to our joy and surprise, we got pregnant with Judah right away, after me getting my IUD out, and our pregnancy was rather uneventful. During my pregnancy, we did make the decision to move into a home we bought with my parents (in the same state but a different city) at the beginning of July 2022.
Judah was born 8 lbs and 7.8 oz on July 24, 2022, and by all appearances, he was perfect and healthy. He was the most perfect and beautiful baby boy, with a VERY round head and face (we called him our “moon baby”) and very long feet (the nurses joked that he would maybe one day grow up to become a basketball player, with feet like that). After a couple of days, we went home.
On day four, he had his first doctor’s appointment for a check-up, and other than some trouble we were having with breastfeeding (which we were seeking out help with), he seemed healthy and normal. However, that night after a short breastfeeding session during dinner, his dad felt that something was “off”. Thinking he was sleeping we tried waking him up, but he was unresponsive. Thus started the most heart-breaking and incomprehensible two and a half weeks (which, as all loss parents know, turns into forever in some ways) of ours and our families’ lives. After spending two weeks with Judah in the NICU, him being unconscious and on a ventilator, his dad and I made the nearly impossible decision to let him go.
After losing Judah, there were so many, very intense emotions. I started having severe anxiety and panic attacks, quit my job because I was unable to focus on it and had a LOT of anger. I couldn’t understand why God would give us a baby so quickly after us having waited for almost five years of marriage, to then take him away from us. We prayed so fervently for his healing while we were in the NICU, and his loss felt like a personal affront on not just me and my faith, but on all of my family and friends, whose hearts broke as well. Honestly, in my mind, it was simply unacceptable and cruel.
Eventually we got the results from his autopsy report back and were told that he stopped breathing due to a patent ductus arteriosous (PDA) or an unclosed hole in his heart. After having raked thoroughly through our family’s medical history, the events leading up to him stopping breathing and other factors, I wasn’t sure if it made me feel better or not, knowing he passed away from something we were told was very rare and didn’t really have a known cause.
In the couple years following our loss (and even during our stay with Judah in the NICU), our friends and family came alongside us to support us in so many ways. When I needed to just be angry and say things that were not easy to say in front of some, friends were there to hear my pain. When we just needed someone to sit with us in silence and even cry with us, the friends we needed in those moments were there too. When I was losing my mind and spiraling into the darkness, when my husband didn’t know how to even process his grief, and when we were in a dark place in our marriage, our friends were praying so diligently for the both of us. Finally, when I was at the end of myself and simply wanted to stop existing (I was praying for God to kill me or simply let me die), He showed up in an inexpressible way and started leading me out of my darkness. It was HARD WORK, but after many months of therapy (which I’m still in and don’t think I’ll ever stop) and many lifestyle changes, I finally felt like I was at a place in my healing where I could see some light again, and my family and I finally began to find hope in a very different life than any of us imagined- one without Judah. Through that process, his dad and I have initiated multiple changes in our lives in an attempt to bring meaning to this loss, or at least to bring out some good for us and those around us, and one of those changes was to start “trying again” (though nothing so intentional as how that sounds).
We were honestly scared to put too much pressure on having another baby and never really came to an official feeling of being “ready” (not at the same time at least), so we decided to just continue to love one another and come together as a married couple and let fate and God deal us whatever hand and blessings it would when it was ready. I got my birth control out for the second time in November 2023, and near the end of June 2024, we found out that we were, again, pregnant.
Pretty early on I remembered that to many, this baby would be considered our “rainbow” baby. So, I wanted to reach out to request the skirt, to be able to tell our story— one of tremendous loss (not just of Judah, but of the particular type of faith we once had, the people we were before losing Judah and of a pleasantly naive view of life and pregnancy that we will never truly get back) and darkness, but really also one of healing, light and hope.
I believe that Judah has not ever fully left us, and that one day I will get to sing alongside him and see him again. I do also believe that he had a hand in choosing this particular little spirit to live life with us, knowing that we all would be perfect for each other and just what each one needed. I believe that Judah does continue to watch us every once in a while, and sends me little spirit winks, and I want to continue to make him proud of me, as his mama. 🩵
Some things that I learned through my loss, that I would like to share is that it is not at all what you would likely think. Things are not neatly wrapped up after the funeral/memorial service/celebration of life, and the loss continues to impact who you are and how you view life until forever, I think. One of my friends explained it like someone dropping a glass bowl. The bowl shatters into a million pieces and is never exactly the same as it was before.
However, I also want to offer some hope, that our pieces can be put back together into something beautiful, even if it’s not the same as it was. I think the rainbow shows that wonderfully (the beauty after the storm), and I hope our story shows that as well. Though we are very nervous and a little scared for this new little one and what life may have for him/her, we are determined to let joy have the last word, and feel so very blessed to welcome him/her into this world and our family and, as I’ve been praying for non-stop, see him/her grow into the beautiful light warrior that we know they will be in the world.
Thank you so much for allowing me to share our story, and I hope it has proven to be meaningful for you as well. 🩵
For Judah,
Abri
Photos taken by Stellar Propeller Studio.
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