Jaime’s Story

Remembering Our Baby in Heaven While Honoring Our Rainbow Baby Here on Earth

I’ve learned that grief and joy can live in the same heart. That you can miss one child with everything in you while loving another with that same whole heart.

This is our story about loss, love, Faith, and grace.

Months after Logan passed, I woke up one morning and reached for my phone.

I couldn’t type the words fast enough. Each line flowed perfectly after the last. It was as though my sweet boy was whispering them into my ear……

I found my way to Heaven, please don’t you be alarmed.

I found my way to Heaven, I’m up here in God’s arms.

I found my way to Heaven, please wipe your tears away.

I found my way to Heaven, where we will meet again one day.

I found my way to Heaven, please don’t you have any fears.

I found my way to Heaven, where I will watch over you the rest of your years.

I found my way to Heaven, sending love your way.

I found my way to Heaven… I’m sorry I could not stay.

I sat there reading the words over and over again, overwhelmed with emotion.

Deep in my heart, I knew it was Logan telling me he was okay. He was safe and he was with Jesus.

Our pregnancy had been an emotional rollercoaster. In the early weeks of my second trimester, we received the results of our Panorama screening and I will never forget hearing the words,

“High risk. Fifty percent chance of Trisomy 13.”

It felt as if the air had been knocked out of my lungs, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak.

We had been told Trisomy 13 is a fatal chromosomal abnormality and our baby had a one-in-two chance of having it.

I remember looking at my husband and seeing the sadness in his eyes. It broke me even more.

The months that followed were filled with weekly appointments, endless ultrasounds, five unsuccessful amniocentesis procedures, more tests than I can count, prayers whispered through tears, and no clear answers. Every doctor seemed to have a different opinion. Every opinion contradicted the last.

We lived week to week, appointment to appointment, desperately searching for hope in every ultrasound and every conversation with a doctor. Some days we believed with all our hearts that he was okay. Other days, fear completely consumed us.

Entering into our third trimester, we were still searching for answers. Desperate for clarity, we sought care at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. That day was long and heavy with testing. By the end of it, we were given the news we had feared.

Our little boy was very, very sick.

Thank God for my husband, who held it together for both of us because I went into shock. I barely heard anything after,

“The likelihood of him surviving birth is low and if he does, he will most likely never leave the hospital.”

Through my tears, I asked only one question,

“Is he suffering?”

They assured us that he wasn’t. For now, he was exactly where he needed to be.

Two weeks and four days later, on Friday, May 4th, 2018 at 2:54 p.m., our beautiful Logan John Walter was born. He was 16.5 inches long and weighed 3 pounds, 7.6 ounces.

His face was perfect and I was in love.

The one wish I had carried in my heart my entire life had finally come true, I was a mommy. But as I held my beautiful boy in my arms, my heart shattered.

Time has passed, and yet it still feels like yesterday.

I can still smell him.

I can still feel the weight of him resting on my chest.

I can still feel the softness of his skin beneath my fingertips.

I can still feel him.

And maybe that’s because a mother never truly stops carrying her child, even after she has to say goodbye.

There were nights I would wake up wondering if he was okay. If he was sad or scared. If seeing me hurting somehow made him hurt too. The guilt grew heavier with time.

Then that morning happened. It felt like Logan was whispering those words into my ear, letting me know he was okay.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel so far away from him.

God blessed our lives with Logan. Not for as long as I would have chosen but exactly as long as Heaven had written.

And while my faith was carrying me through the deepest part of grief, at the time I was still struggling to understand how to move forward. I knew I wanted another baby someday, but the thought alone filled my heart with emotions I wasn’t sure how to hold.

For months I wondered, how could I move forward without feeling like I was leaving him behind?

How could I open my heart again when it had been so deeply broken?

But somewhere along the way, through prayer, through tears, and through quiet moments sitting in church, I began to understand something I hadn’t before…

Moving forward didn’t mean leaving Logan behind. It meant carrying him with me into everything that was still to come.

Almost 2 years after we held Logan in our arms, God answered our prayers in a way only He could.

In a time when the world felt uncertain, when everything around us was shutting down, our world was opening back up again.

On March 23, 2020, the same week the world stopped, we welcomed our rainbow baby, Lilliana Grace Walter.

From the moment she entered this world, she brought joy, warmth, and love back into our home in ways we didn’t even realize were missing.

Lilliana is everything you could hope for in a child and more. She is silly, funny, and full of life. She is caring in a way that stops you in your tracks. She spreads love wherever she goes, effortlessly and naturally as if it’s simply who she was created to be.

In so many ways, I know a piece of her big brother lives within her.

She didn’t replace Logan.

Instead, she carries his love forward. A living reminder that even in the deepest grief, God was still writing our story. A story that was filled with both deep sorrow and unimaginable beauty.

Losing Logan changed me forever.

Becoming Lilliana’s mom changed me again.

I have learned that grief and joy can live in the same heart.

That love doesn’t divide. It multiplies.

That faith doesn’t take away the pain, but it gives it purpose.

I miss Logan every single day.

I feel him in the quiet moments and in the happiest of times.

I see him in her smile, in her kindness, and in the way she loves so freely.

In the moments when my heart feels heavy, he finds ways to reach me.

To steady me.

To remind me to breathe.

Lilliana brought life back into our home.