Owen Vance Brown - Birth and Death Record

I wrote this around the end of February. So the publishing date of this post and the timeline in it are not aligned.

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We lost a 14.5 week pregnancy about 4 weeks ago. Our baby's remains came home about 3 weeks ago. I wasn’t prepared for how many times I would kiss his little tortoise urn. I feel crazy every time, but also entirely unbothered. If I can’t kiss his face, I’m going to kiss what I’ve got. Babies need kisses. I’m so glad to have him back, and so are my other kids. They needed something tangible. We lost him so suddenly. 

This is our 5th miscarriage, but this one had progressed the farthest and was probably the most difficult for a number of reasons. It was very much a surprise. I found out I was pregnant 2 weeks before a scheduled hysterectomy. When I didn’t miscarry with every passing week, it began to feel more “meant to be”. I had already spent the first half of 2023 coming to terms with having no more kids. I made peace with it. It was time. Suddenly having to make peace with possibly having one more kid was a new experience. Eventually, I began to even feel excited. This was an unexpected adventure. 

We waited a while to tell the kids about this one. I feel guilty that we’ve dragged them through so many miscarriages. I know that isn’t really something we have control over, but lying to them never seemed like a viable option either. Kids know when something is going on. We waited until Christmas to tell them, when I was about 10 weeks along. That seemed like a safe zone. 

For a long time, I’ve been keeping score. As long as I had at least a 50% success rate, I could avoid feeling too angry about my body’s inability to reliably grow a baby. Four living kids and four miscarriages. This 9th pregnancy was going to tip the scales in a good way, but now I’ve lost more than I’ve kept. A 44% success rate hurts. Again, I understand that it’s outside of my control, but it’s a real feeling of unfair failure. 

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It was Friday, January 26, 2024. All afternoon, I had felt bloated. I felt somewhat constipated, but that pairs really well with pregnancy, so I wasn’t too concerned. I made homemade pizza, and we had our family movie night, a Friday night tradition. I had been cramping more throughout the evening, but it was still in the realm of normal. After the kids went to bed, I noticed some bleeding. I noted the blood, but tried not to give it too much credit. It was a bit more than usual, but I had also been diagnosed with a subchorionic hematoma at my earlier ultrasounds. My doctor had said that some bleeding would be expected and normal. 

I cramped all night long. I got some sleep, but woke up in the really early morning hours (probably 4 or 5) and decided to take a bath because the pain wouldn’t let me sleep. My bleeding had picked up, but I still hoped it was normal. I knew the pain probably wasn’t normal, but I was hoping for that as well. I called the doctor’s office at 8:15 and was patched through to his cell phone. He was reassuring, but said that if I was concerned, an ER visit was my best bet. Otherwise, I could wait to see him on Monday. I thought about it and decided to check with my primary care doctor. They have an OB in their practice and also run an urgent care, so I thought I might get lucky with an ultrasound there. They don’t have an ultrasound in the office, so the next step was the ER. By the time I decided to go in, I was in horrendous pain. I got dressed, braided my hair, brushed my teeth, and sat on the couch to wait for Darren. The kids were doing their normal routine of fighting every 10 seconds, so I fussed at them to stop. It took all of my energy to speak through the pain. We told the kids we were going to run errands, and then we left. 

A few minutes into the drive, I recognized that the pain was coming in waves. The pain was familiar. The waves were familiar. But we were about 25 weeks too early for any of it, so I didn’t want to acknowledge that I was probably in labor. I was breathing through it. Neither of us were speaking. We were just around the corner from the hospital when a wave of pain hit with tremendous pressure that culminated in a “pop” that made me audibly gasp. Seconds later, my water busted through the gates, and the car seat and my clothes, were a mess. I pointed Darren toward the ER entrance, and he dropped me off before parking. I hobbled in, feeling nasty and terrified. I told them I thought my water had just broken and that I needed something else to wear. The waiting room was miraculously empty. The people behind the desk hopped into action and got me registered and brought me a gown and a wheelchair. I changed in the bathroom, and cried at the sight of my soaked clothes. It didn’t take long for them to wheel me back and get me in a bed. Nurses and the ER doctor visited me and got me on an IV. 

Next, the ultrasound guy came to take me for imaging. I recognized him from a few months earlier when Lillie had appendicitis. He had been our ultrasound guy for that as well, so his familiar face was actually comforting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take any amount of schooling to recognize when there is no baby on the screen. He acknowledged that and said he could see a lot of tissue in my vaginal canal though. He gave us the obligatory speech about how the radiologist would take a look at it and give the official report, but also acknowledged that we could see an empty uterus and deserved a confirmation right away. That was a sweet mercy. 

When we were back in the ER, we sat there, mostly quiet. My mind had been a pile of noisy chaos, hope, and what-ifs, right up until we saw the ultrasound screen. Knowing that hope was officially gone, left me with a sense of numb peace. My mind was quiet. I thought about what the ultrasound guy said about tissue in my vagina, so I gave a little push and felt Owen come out. I was afraid to grab his fragile little body, so Darren looked and confirmed that he was born. We called in the nurse who then called in the doctor. The doctor picked him up and handed him to the nurse, who was ready with a small flannel blanket with koalas on it. She handed him to me. 

Every single feature was present. All of his toes. All of his fingers. Both ears. The cutest little jawline. A whole stack of ribs on both sides of his chest. Arm bones. Leg bones. Visible veins under his translucent skin. The dark shadow of organs behind his rib cage. Eyes behind eyelids. A little penis. A tiny umbilical cord. Everything was in order. Everything was perfect. Everything was too small for life on the outside. He just needed more time to grow. That’s all he needed. 

I held him. Stared at him. I tried to clean a couple of bloody gobs off of his head, but his skin was so fragile, I could only remove one. The other one threatened to take skin with it, so that one got to stay. 

Darren held him and stared at him. I’ve always loved seeing him hold his babies. 

I was sitting up to hold him so I could really take him in. I wanted to hold him forever, but I began to feel uncomfortable. I felt a flash of heat crawl across my entire body, and the room began to tilt. I set Owen down on the bed in front of me and laid my head back against my pillow. I told Darren I felt hot all of a sudden and just needed to lay my head back. 

The next thing I hear is the nurses speaking with each other about how my eyes are rolling back in my head. I heard the word seizure. I dreamed that I threw up. I became increasingly conscious and realized I WAS throwing up and that I felt like my head was concrete. A nurse held a barf bag to my face. I wanted to be unconscious again, stat. The idea of opening my eyes to see someone holding my vomit in their hands was a little bit mortifying. 

I eventually stopped throwing up and began to feel comfortable in my skin again. They laid the head of my bed back down and cleaned me up. The doctor came by to tell me that they wanted to observe me a bit longer before discharging me because of my little episode. In the meantime, the doctor decided to remove any pieces of placenta he could find in me, so I found myself legs up in the stirrups while he repeatedly told me I “might feel some pressure” as he dug around with a speculum and whatever other torture devices he had at his disposal. Once the room was quiet again, I turned my head to Darren and asked him what had happened. He used the words, “straight up convulsed”. He said I had what looked an awful lot like a seizure and then projectile vomited at the end of my bed, pegging a nurse. He had called them in when I began to convulse. He said the nurses kept mentioning a seizure, but the doctor never acknowledged them. 

The nurses eventually brought me hospital literature about my options for what to do with Owen’s remains. It was a lot of papers and a lot to take in. I felt so conflicted about what I wanted to happen, but the most straightforward choice was hospital cremation. I signed the paper declaring my wish for this. 

About an hour after my “episode”, they brought me my discharge paperwork. It was time to leave, which was mostly fine with me. I wanted to bring my baby with me, but there are apparently laws in place about transporting human remains.

They disconnected my IV, and I stood up to change into a pair of giant scrubs that the nurses had found for me since my clothes were ruined. I made my way to the wheelchair outside the door of the room and sat down. That was when I noticed the world going dark again, so I told Darren how I was feeling and walked back towards the chairs in the room. I didn’t want to sit on the bed since it was bloody. I sat in the chair next to where Darren had been sitting. I tried to slump back on the wall, but that wasn’t it. A nurse was in there by then and she told me to get back in bed. I did that, and immediately lost all of my strength for a few minutes. Episode #2 meant I wasn’t going home just yet. The doctor said I needed more fluids, so they put me back on an IV, and I took two bags. Having some sense of pattern recognition, I decided to test out what happened when I sat up. It didn’t take too long before I was totally weak again, so I laid back down. My blood pressure readings were coming in pretty low the entire time, which is odd for me any day of the week. My normal blood pressure is slightly higher than average. I told the nurse I seemed to only feel horrible when I was upright, so the doctor told her to do orthostatic testing. She checked my blood pressure laying down. Then I sat up. After a couple of minutes, she tested it again. It had plummeted. We stopped the testing there and laid me back in bed. 

So that was one mystery solved. 

By that point, it had been several hours since we had been home. The kids were texting us over and over to find out when we would be back. We hadn't told them we were going to the hospital because we didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily. Now that we’d lost the baby, we didn’t want to tell them over the phone and without one of us present. 

We were able to swap out Darren for my sister Julie. He went home to be with the kids for a while and let them know what was going on. I told him I would let him know when I was to be discharged. 

Throughout all of this, my pain wasn’t letting up. I was so sore. My abdomen was beyond tender. Laughing hurt. Coughing hurt. Touching my stomach hurt. Turning in bed was agony. I informed my nurses of this. My doctor was informed of this. Their only response was that the pain is normal. One of them even said, “Well, it’s supposed to hurt.” 

This was literally my 9th time to pass a baby from my body in one form or another. I KNOW how it’s supposed to feel. This was not it. 

They had given me morphine earlier, but I’m not sure I could tell. It made me feel heavier, but it wasn’t touching the pain. I asked them about a D&C, but they told me I would probably have to wait until Tuesday for one unless it was an emergency. I couldn’t imagine continuing to bleed and hurt as I was for another three days.

Julie had to leave eventually to return to her own family. They were literally moving houses that day… could I have chosen a less convenient day to lose this baby? I doubt it. 

At some point before Julie left, the nurses said I might be admitted. A bit after she left, the doctor returned to tell me that he’d been on the phone with my OB who wanted to have me admitted since we didn’t know what was going on with my blood pressure. This was a relief, but also a major stress. Julie had already said she would keep the kids if I ended up staying, so I immediately informed Darren and Julie of the change in plans. Julie asked our brother Edward to bring the kids to her house. After Edward picked them up, Darren returned to the hospital.

I was moved to the 8th floor. When they brought my ER bed into the room and lined it up next to my new bed, I couldn’t even move myself over. The pain increased too much to engage any of my core muscles. I’ve never, in my life, experienced that kind of pain. The nurse and her aid moved me over like a bona fide invalid.

Soon after, I was visited by my own OB. He came into the room apologizing profusely for not visiting earlier. He said that the last he had heard, I had been discharged from a relatively uneventful miscarriage. Then, hours later, he heard that I wasn’t actually sent home because I was having these blood pressure episodes. If he had known that, he would have come sooner. 

Based on my bleeding and the extreme pain I was feeling, he recommended a D&C. This was totally okay with me. I was SOAKING the diapers I was wearing with blood. I’ve never soaked a diaper after a birth until this one. There was so much blood.

He left and then returned to inform me that the OR had an opening at 9 PM, which was less than an hour away. He asked if I was okay with taking that slot even though Darren wasn’t back yet. The next availability wasn’t until 2 AM. Knowing that Darren is a big boy, and knowing that I wanted to be fixed as soon as possible, I agreed to the 9 PM time slot. I had a few minutes to get my affairs in order, so I gave Darren a call to inform him of how things were progressing. I texted the room number to him. I texted my family’s group chat to update them on surgery. At every step of surgery prep, I was asked for Darren’s number so they could communicate with him since he was on his way. 

I can’t remember if I woke up in recovery or if I woke up in my room. Either way, Darren was there. He had already talked to the doctor who informed him that I had a massive piece of placenta still in my uterus and at least 500 mL of blood. When I felt awake enough, I tried to adjust myself in my bed, and it didn’t hurt. The difference between how I felt before the surgery and after the surgery was absolutely insane to me. My pain was all but gone, and my bleeding had slowed down significantly. I took a much needed shower. Darren went out to get me food since I hadn’t eaten since early that morning. I gobbled it up. I was so hungry. We watched some TV and then settled in for the night. I became stronger every passing minute. I didn’t have anymore issues with my blood pressure. I was able to move around just fine, albeit slowly. 

My mom called me before the surgery to inform me that she had bought a ticket and would be arriving on Sunday afternoon. I resisted, insisting that she didn’t need to do that. She resisted right back and said it was a done deal. I realized in that moment that she knew more about how the following days were going to go than I did. She’s experienced her fair share of losses and emergency D&C procedures, so my best move was to say “thank you” and shut my mouth.

My stay after the surgery was pretty pleasant. I slept really well that night. I think kids trained me for nighttime hospital interruptions. Nurses can do whatever they need to, just don’t expect me to do anything. I fell back asleep easily any time they checked on or fussed with me. Sunday was spent mostly hanging out, watching TV, and waiting to be discharged. Dr. Nance came to see us about noon, and we got to leave a couple of hours later. 

Driving away from the hospital was really hard. The finality of driving away from my baby and the entire whirlwind of this traumatic experience hit with a definite force. I hadn’t had any real privacy the entire time, so I couldn’t wait to be alone at home. I’ve always been a private crier. I jumped in the shower as soon as we got home and let the feelings just fly, uninhibited. 

Julie brought the kids home after a while. Edward picked up Mom from the airport and brought her over. A ward member brought dinner. My nephew Jacob and his sweet girlfriend brought us another dinner later that night as well. We received a lot of support. 

I barely slept that night. I was restless and angry. I woke up about 2 AM and couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wish we had not opted for hospital cremation. I researched local funeral homes and read reviews. I doomscrolled social media. I googled other loss stories. Around 6 AM I decided to call the ER and ask about Owen. I thought I was too late, but the charge nurse looked into it and said that his body was still in the hospital and was scheduled to be cremated later that evening. I felt a surge of energy and hope. As soon as the mortuary of my choosing was open, I called and made arrangements. There were a lot of phone calls back and forth between the hospital and the mortuary, but Spring Creek Mortuary was able to pick up his remains in plenty of time to save him from the hospital’s crematory. I felt so relieved when I heard that news. I wanted him home with me more than anything.

Darren and I went to my favorite local antique store to browse for urns, or anything that could work as an urn. We found several contenders, but none we loved. Then we came across a toy tortoise that seemed to scream, “I AM WHAT YOU SEEK”. It was mostly hollow, not too breakable, and beautiful. We brought it home, and Darren drilled a small hole in its belly. 

Several days later, Nanette from Spring Creek Mortuary made arrangements with me to pick up Owen’s cremains. She handed me a small box labeled with his name and showed me a small bag of ashes inside. Less than a teaspoon is all that physically remains of our small, perfect boy. At home, I took pictures of each of the kids holding his remains. I wish they could have come to the hospital to see him in person, but there was too much going on for that to even cross my mind. We moved him into the tortoise, and I took a picture of all the kids together, tortoise included. 

Mom stayed with us for a week. Her presence and help were and are priceless. I was able to rest so much. She entertained Henry, visited with the kids, folded endless piles of laundry, and crocheted an addition to one of our blankets. She was able to attend a school assembly and got to be here on Emma’s birthday. We love and miss Grandma soooo much. 

The weeks since Owen’s untimely birth have been a blur of normal life and paralyzing grief. Every day is different. Every hour, honestly. I’m making it through. I’m not sure how, but I guess each day is coming whether I’m ready to face it or not. I’ve developed a strong anxiety about being in public. I can do it, but I don’t really want to. For some reason, I feel like I’m in a fishbowl, and everybody I encounter is staring at me. I know that isn’t true, but it feels true. Walmart and Amazon delivery have been really helpful for this newfound social anxiety. My doctor increased my antidepressant dose yesterday. Hopefully this helps me function better. I don’t want to medicate or numb my grief (except maybe I do? haha), but I need to be able to cope well enough to take care of myself and my family. My kids still need me. My husband still needs me. He’s been so supportive through this, but I know he has his own grief to process. 

All in all, I hate everything about this. It isn’t fair, but life has never been fair. It’s never going to be fair, but there will ultimately be balance. My greatest hope is in Christ and His Atonement. He will fix it in the end, and I will have Owen and the others in my arms where they belong. 

Update as of April 16, 2024

Since writing the above, I have started therapy and returned my antidepressant dose to normal. Increasing it made me feel too numb, and I can’t process anything if I can’t feel it. Therapy has been a wonderful experience so far, and I'm grateful for it.

I’ve struggled to feel God’s love for me since Owen died. I knew it was there, but it felt out of reach. I finally let myself go to the temple this past weekend. I had been feeling a pull to go, but was afraid to cry the whole time. I went this past weekend, and I am happy to report that His love was waiting for me there, and I only cried part of the time haha. I had been feeling like a part of me died, but that part of me feels a little more hopeful again. Seeking Him is paramount to my healing. 

I am including photos of Owen in this post. His pictures are too precious to blast on social media, but I don't mind them being seen. I want them to be available in case another version of me is out there, desperately googling what a 14 week fetus looks like because she isn’t sure her pregnancy is going well or because she just wants to know what it actually looks like. Throughout all of my pregnancies and miscarriages, I’ve done exactly that. I hope his pictures find the right mamas who need to see how big/little he really is, and how detailed his features are. He’s so perfect.

Every detail. His fingers and toes. His umbilical cord. His round little belly and itty bitty ear.

His tiny cremains. The blanket from the hospital was freshly laundered by the funeral director who coordinated his cremation. That kindness still touches my heart. 

His remains came in a bag, and the bag came in a box. I like seeing his name like this. It makes him more real. Every now and then when I wonder if it's all a dream, I remember that there is official paperwork out there where I signed permission to have him transported from the hospital to a crematory. 

We found this toy tortoise at an antique shop. Daddy drilled a hole in its belly, and we stuffed a tiny bag with Owen's remains inside. I ordered an adhesive trophy plaque with his name and birth date on it to place over the hole. I love having him on the mantle.