Should-Be Birthday

Today was my estimated due date. I am 40 full weeks not pregnant. 

Mason should have been born today. Or yesterday. Or last week, or tomorrow, or two weeks from now. I know babies always come on their due dates, right?

I know it shouldn't be a huge deal that today is today but my heart feels the heaviest it has since the last time I held his little body. It's almost like my body knows it, too. I am tired, achey, and irritable. My arms hurt- they feel so very empty. I didn't plan to remember today, but mamas just don't forget things like this.

I don't really have much to say- I am just so sad. But I did want to write a little about him for his day. 

This surprising boy. I didn't think it was even possible that I could be pregnant with him when I found out I was. Then, we truly believed he was a girl from the beginning. His pregnancy was so much like his sister's. 

I was sick and I could only enjoy a few foods. My middle was growing fast. I was feeling him move sometimes. And it felt good. He brought with him feelings of expectation and security. I was believing that we would bring a baby home this month. 

But then I was laying there on the table, trying to erase what I had seen out of my mind: a still heart. My baby was not moving on his own accord. And there was no longer life inside me. 

So I called my husband before I even sat up and I told him what I saw and he told me he'd be home soon. (Thank you Red Cross & U.S. Army for getting him home THAT night). 

Two days later on May 19th, I was induced. At 9:50 p.m. we were shocked when this little boy was born to us. He weighed only one ounce. He was 4 3/4 inches long. His fingernails had already reached his fingertips. His nose was his dad's. Ryan's only words were "Mason Gregory" and then he was blessed by the chaplain. I'll never be able to replicate the sounds I have made when I've held my children, realizing they had died.

We spent time with our son until the next morning. We got fingerprints and footprints. We held him close, and then after meeting with the geneticist, allowed him to be taken from us. We went home shortly after that where we were loved on by our friends and family with meals and cards and flowers and scripture and prayers. And somehow, we lived. Somehow, I'm still alive. Looking back on these moments it's such a wonder to me. How I can go on living when my children don't get to is just beyond me. It isn't fair. It IS more than I can handle. God has handed me more than I can bear. I am so thankful that He bears it for me. 

Today we'll be going to see the movie, "Trolls" because Mason's size was closer to the troll doll comparison on my fourteenth week of pregnancy than the canary comparison on my fifteenth. Again, the bird is always a symbol for me that my children are safe and he was winking at me before I even knew. 

We'll eat some spicy food- I'm thinking buffalo wings since that was his favorite flavor. 

We'll be picking up a quilt made by a sweet woman using his baby blankets. 

We'll light his candle and take out his pictures. And we will remember all the joy he brought us, even if he only stayed a little while.

I wish I were holding him today- a big fat baby that filled my arms. I wish I were singing "You Are My Sunshine" to him again. I wish I could feed him, rock him, and be up all night with his cries instead of the nightmares that remind me that I can't do any of this. 

Today should have been his birthday every year for a very long life. Instead it is another missed due date for me and another day to honor a baby that isn't here. I can't explain how much I miss him and can't wait to hold him again.

An Update and a Note on Disabling Comments

In the past few weeks my open letter to Kristin Keel has resurfaced and made the rounds again, opening my blog up to many questions about the situation. I wanted to share with those of you curious what has come of the whole ordeal since January.
We pushed pretty hard down many different avenues to have her and her husband punished for, at the very least, identity theft of our child. Since there was no record of gifts and money they received as a result of their fake child's death, it has been impossible. There are, unfortunately, no proven laws broken against us personally. Maybe one day we will have the energy to initiate a bill that would make sure that online identity theft of a deceased person is a crime. We don't have that energy right now.

We've done what we can. I wrote the truth and published it here and it made its way to the eyes of all the people who grieved for a child that didn't exist. It helped loss support groups kick Kristin out so that she could not also prey on their children. It gave a name to the face that has tried to keep scamming so many more people. I said my piece. So, really, I've done my part.
It has been a really hard 18 months and it's just time for us to try and regain some kind of normalcy. The anger and bitterness that Satan tried to plant using Kristin really have no room here in the grief we are trying to tend to. Ryan and I consciously stepped back from the drama in an effort to keep a hold of our sanity and we have decided that forgiveness is the only way to free us from the hurt she caused. And we are also praying genuinely for a change in the hearts of Kristin and Troy. We are super grateful for the kindness and love and support we have received from the whole new wave of strangers brought into our lives by this and that's what we have to focus on.

Thoughts on a Missed Due Date

Our second child was lost at five weeks.

We learned I was pregnant on New Years Day.

I tried to celebrate this baby, and I did with an early announcement and a "big sister" book for Eden. But the sight of the positive test was ominous for me. I told Ryan immediately, "he's a boy, and he isn't ours to keep either". We prayed that I was wrong, but I knew.

Four days later we found ourselves in the emergency room receiving the news I expected.

I was two days into the miscarriage when I was called by the CHERUBS president and informed that someone had stolen pictures of Eden to pass off as her own deceased fake baby. Enter the hell and drama that was my baby girl's identity theft... and exit the opportunity to truly grieve for the baby we were presently losing.
It wasn't until I was at the Hope Mommies Retreat the next month that I realized that I had not absorbed what had happened- I had not recognized that I lost another child until I saw only one name beside mine.

So when I came home I told Ryan I felt he needed a name, and a few days later he suggested "Errol". It means 'to wander', and it fit because that is what he did. By the time I knew he was here, he was on his way back Home. From then on our second child became known as Baby Errol. It got past me that Errol was also the Weasley's owl in Harry Potter, until my best friend reminded me and it comforted me as HP will always be my favorite story (I mean, who doesn't like HP?).

But I still did not fully grieve that loss even with giving him a name, because at the end of February I found myself pregnant with our third child. It happened so quickly and surprisingly that I just had to move forward and press into the good feelings that this pregnancy brought. When Mason also died at 15 weeks in May, Eden's birthday followed shortly after...

Baby Errol was almost ignored through it all (in true middle child fashion), until suddenly it was July and someone said the word "September" and my heart immediately dropped- I should have a newborn baby in September. On September 7th, to be exact. And that unexpected punch to the gut- "It'll be September soon," is when I really started to grieve that loss.

Today I am reflecting on what that grief looks like- it is so different from that which I carry for Eden and for Mason. I had no chance to get to know him. I am missing what might have been rather than what actually was. Does that make sense? The pain of early miscarriage is so ambiguous- so much possibility, just disappeared.
I have nothing for Errol. Not a footprint or a picture. His body is not in a plot or an urn.  The pregnancy test is in my drawer and that is all I have to show for his brief existence. When I miss my daughter I can hold her weighted bear. When I miss my son I can snuggle his blankie. I can grab things from their time with me and cling a little to the past. I can recall their personalities. I don't have things like this for Baby Errol. So missing Errol is purely missing the future. There's nothing left behind, just this gaping hole where this child I never knew should have been.

He's not less meaningful to us because of all this. He is my child. This baby came to us after we thought we could never even imagine having another. He made it real to me that I am not exempt from loss after loss- no free passes for anyone. It is just far more complicated to be intentional with so much unanswered grief.

The summer weekend for the Mara Hope Project sessions just passed. As he was helping me set up the studio, I told Ryan I really wanted a complete family portrait. He asked how we would include Errol and neither of us could find an answer. So we didn't participate this time. And that made me really sad. But it also rustled in me the desire to purposely honor his life as we approached his due date.

I felt lost and still do... but for this tiny little being and his tiny life, small and simple things seem appropriate.
We cuddled and loved on the little boy that would have been his best friend.
We went to the fair this week and Ryan won me a small owl, one that caught my eye just for Errol.
We went out this morning and brought home a plant to nurture.
I'll finally linger again in the room of unused baby supplies. Perhaps I'll even clean it.
I'll write my photography proposal for the charity interested.

And suddenly it'll be tomorrow, but I'm not sure I'll feel any less lost than I do today.
And that's okay. Two years ago last month we began praying for a child and now we have three in Heaven. It's a tough pill to swallow and one that I can admit I have a hard time accepting, as anyone would.

But oh, I bet this kid is just smiling at me. I know this all seems so trivial to those babies. The joke is on me, because every day is a happy one for them, even if it's a sad one for me. There's the only peace. I know he's glad, healthy, and whole and just waiting there for me with his (yes, or her) brother and sister.
So, happy due date to you, Baby Errol. Your Mama is missing all that should be today.

Manila Envelope

My last post was about my son who was meant for November but came to us much earlier. Today is his three month birthday.
He was the third baby we've lost. So we got the ticket nobody wants to get- the one where they screen us for everything that could be wrong.

We asked the geneticist to run every possible test on Mason and on us. He did. He ran every test and sent them off to the big lab. We waited a month and a half to get the results and I just knew that something was going to come out of them. It had to.


I was believing that Mason's purpose for dying would be that Ryan and I would get answers, would get some direction on how to prevent another loss. I was believing that something was definitely wrong somewhere or else we would not have had to say goodbye to all of our children. Mason, I thought, came to make a way for answers. If we hadn't lost him, there would have never been the open door to every test under the sun.

So while we waited for these results I was most impatient. I emailed my doctor every day. I knew she was checking every morning and the afternoon reply would come, "nothing yet".

All through this time, my inbox kept filling up with the same questions: Have you gotten the results back? Did you test for xyz? What did the doctor say? Any news yet?


When you're transparent about your life, pain and grief included, even people you aren't close with begin feeling entitled to you. It's not bad or wrong of them, they just begin to relate to you and they grow familiar with your life and feel as though your answers are their answers too. It isn't bad, but it is extra hard on you.

There was enough pressure from the expectations Ryan and I had for these tests. I quickly recognized that others were relying on these results too. Other people are banking on a happy ending for us and that was a lot of extra pressure even at the same time it was encouraging. The part that goes over the line though, was when people began assuming they knew the answers.


Listen, I know how it looks.
It looks like I can't produce a healthy baby.

I know what is being said behind my back.
Hell, sometimes it's even said to my face. I was told to get find someone else to carry a child for me.

I know that everyone is wondering what I did wrong.
Let me tell you, I have been wondering myself.

But I was careful. I got the green light from doctors before conceiving. I ate well and supplemented the protein I was missing out on. I limited my caffeine and I did follow every single healthy guideline because no one on earth wanted our children to have the best chance more than we did. And I had healthy, textbook pregnancies- one of them to term. But my pregnancies did not produce healthy babies. My babies died. I know of many unhealthy pregnancies that produce healthy, thriving babies. These things are out of our control! Still, you don't know the guilt and fear that's carried with a pregnancy after loss.

We knew we would eventually share the results with you all. I choose to be open about these things because its healing for me and it might be healing for someone else that I don't even know.
But we have not been ready to open ourselves up again to all of the speculation.
We've been grieving deeply. We've been trying to not remember how many weeks pregnant I would be. We have been packing away baby items. We have been surviving. That's what we've been doing for the past year since we arrived in WA. We are still very much grieving all three of our children, not just the most recent one, because time has no power over grief or the love that causes it.

When we got the results back, do you want to know one of the first things I said to Ryan? In the middle of the grief and confusion and the pain and while the concrete around our loss was still drying, I asked, "What will people say?"
And that's when we realized I needed to take a break from being so public.

I know everyone wanted answers, including us. I can understand the eagerness. And you have all been doing your very best to support us. We are supported. We are loved. And we are thankful.

But I also want everyone to understand that we need time to process things before letting others process them too. We are not obligated to share everything, and especially not before we are ready.

Instead of the questions concerning medical records, here are some helpful ones to ask in case you all find yourselves seeking to comfort newly grieving parents:

-How can I pray for you?

-Have you been eating?

-Do you have any errands that need running?

-Will you tell me about your child?

-Would you like me to sit with you?

-Would you like to get out for a while?

-Would you like to be alone?

I'm sorry for nagging. I just really want to set the tone for how we expect to be treated in light of this news that we are now ready to share.

We were on the way to the beach in S.C., the last leg of our visit home which was meant to be relaxing and fun. But, my phone rang and I saw the Tacoma number. It was my doctor.
Ryan turned the radio down but she was still very quiet when she said, "He was positively a little boy, and he was positively perfect. Everything came back normal."
We talked for a few more minutes and I could hear her crying with me. We made an appointment for when we came back to WA. and I hung up.

It made the end of our vacation a lot more sober than it already was. The day before was Eden's first birthday. One year after losing our first child, we are told that we just had really bad luck with all three of them.

So we came home and a few days later went into her office so that she could hand me a big yellow manila envelope of test results. It was heavy. "Lots of medical, cold terminology in there... you don't want to read it. It's just for future doctors' reference."
Sitting in the pharmacy I took it out and began to read it anyway. Pages and pages and pages with the words 'normal' and 'unremarkable' typed on them.


I sat there in disbelief and just cried and cried. I was so hurt. I am still hurt. I am still confused. I am still afraid.


My whole life I have been concerned with why things happen. I used to believe that everything had a reason. My world has been rocked by these kids. Everything I believed before has been challenged and altered. After Eden passed, I began to let go of asking why. After Errol passed, I touched it but quickly retreated. This time, I demanded that God make it known to me. And initially, because I had invested so much hope in the contents of that envelope, I thought Mason had died in vain.

I did not necessarily want to be told something was wrong with me or with Ryan or with our child, but I did want to know WHY. I kept opening that envelope for weeks, thinking maybe we missed something. I even went back in it today. It's the same. Same words. Same paper. Normal. Unremarkable.

I have to put this envelope away and put this energy into honoring my son. I'm beginning to think Mason came to make a way that I could tear down the "why" wall for good. That I could maybe one day toss reservations and guilt and shame and worry to pick up only the bare necessities: love and grief. I'm still working on that. But I think he finally broke me for good of the innate need to be given a reason.

I repeat it over and over in this blog and in my home and to other loss moms: there's no reason that our babies die, not a good enough one anyway (if you think you have one, I'm not interested in hearing it). I fell back into the trap of believing that everything had a reason. But Mason did not have a "purpose for dying" like I was foolishly believing he did, contrary to everything that I already knew.

There are a lot of reasons that our babies come to us, though. One of them because we are the only ones that can build legacies for people who were here for such a short time. He chose me. Thank God He chose me for them. They are mine and I am theirs and there's so much painful good in that. I will love them and do good things where they could have if they had lived.

Today is also the International Day of Hope for bereaved families. It is a day to share about our children and remind others that they are still very loved people, not just sad events in our lives. I did not create a prayer flag this year but I am spending so much time reflecting on what a miracle really is. My babies died, but they are still miracles. I asked for them and they were given to me. Ryan and I still being here and living an abundant life is a miracle. The promise of being a complete family again one day is the ultimate miracle. How amazing is the thought that I'll be as innocent as my children when I finally hold them again in front of the Father?

I wish I had answers for you all. I really do. It's been a long year that we are thankful you have supported and loved us through. I want a happy ending pretty ribbon tied around this story for you all as much almost as much as for myself. But life is messy. It's not fair and it's not pretty all the time. That doesn't make it any less miraculous.


I know that there are more questions after this, the most pressing one being what we do next.
We. Don't. Freakin'. Know.
Right now, we are recuperating. We are full of grief and my body is drained. We are so tired. So we are resting. And I am sealing this envelope and putting it in the safe.
Please don't recommend we grow our family by way of another pregnancy, or surrogacy (BTW, that's super rude- if you think I'm a dud, just say it behind my back), or adoption, or fostering. And when we are ready to grow our family, please don't discourage us from being brave enough to pursue a living child-whatever avenue we are led down.

We're praying for peace to sleep and patience to complete simple tasks and grace enough to get through every moment missing our babies. For now, we just ask that you encourage us to rest. And go to the throne on our behalf and intervene, send your vibes, give us thoughts... whatever it is you do. And remember who we are when you want to complain about your kids directly to us. And be patient when we tell you certain events are hard. And give us grace when we bail. And join us in letting go of the need to know why this happened.

May Baby Mason

I'm going to write the fluffiest introduction here to be sure I make the point: I'm going to tell you what I'm going to be writing about. I'm going to write about my baby son dying.
My child died for the third time and that is what I'm going to write about. I'm going to write about it because I need to and I want to and he deserves to be talked about. I want to shout him from the rooftops.
This may make you uncomfortable, so that is why I'm telling you that I'm writing about it. I will be including pictures in which my dead child resides. I don't worry about making you uncomfortable because I am going to be uncomfortable for literally the rest of my life, but if you worry about being uncomfortable over babies dying you can stop reading now and go back to your cat videos.



So anyway, yeah.

My son died. I am mourning once more. At a routine check up last month when I was 15 weeks pregnant, I could see as clear as day before the doctor could... my baby had no heartbeat. Again again again. I look back and there were no warning signs this time, no intuition or flashing signals. With Eden, I anticipated something was wrong before her diagnosis. With Baby Errol, I had a feeling he wasn't mine to keep. With this one, though, I believed so strongly that everything was all fine.

From the moment I even thought I was pregnant I just had a good feeling. A strong feeling. Heck, the hormone showed up on a pee stick when I was only three weeks along. The symptoms were immediate. They were so similar to those I had with Eden, only earlier and more intense. Everything looked great. They even gave me a five week stretch between appointments. I had a little bump by 8 weeks. I felt movements as early as 12 weeks. Everything about this pregnancy made me feel sure that this time we would bring a healthy child home in a car seat.

But alas, he came home in an urn. Because he died.
And so I switch gears from "pregnant" to "grieving" like I have done before.
Only I figured maybe I'm a pro by now, maybe I know how to do this kind of thing... but the God's honest truth about that is I am not and I do not. I am just as freaking lost this time as I was the first time. All I know to do is to keep being honest.

I'm trying to write well but I'm sure that I'll have to come back to edit later as I have not slept. And when I say that, I mean I have to take two prescription pills to achieve 4 hours in which I continuously sit up straight from the nightmares. There is nothing funny about sleep deprivation. There is nothing sexy about being tired. I don't know why people romanticize exhaustion.
(And speaking of things people romanticize, why are panic attacks also one of them? The internet is flooded with articles about how anxious women love differently, how we should be handled, etc and basically every person I know has posted them... We can't all have anxiety can we? Trust me when I say it's not cute, it's not fun, and seriously nobody wants it.)

So, yeah. I'm tired, I'm anxious. I'm worn down. And I'm waiting for the moment when I 'come to' and realize that this is all just in my sick and twisted imagination. I'm waiting for the moment when my therapist breaks the news to me that it's time to face the facts, none of this ever happened. That woman who stole Eden's pictures last year has made me jealous that she's just crazy and I sometimes find myself thinking seriously ugly things: if she wanted my life so bad, I'd be happy to trade her.
I will be so glad to wake up from this dream. Until then, I guess I will keep writing about it and the very realness that it is to me.

Death isn't something that I really had to deal with head on before my children, but I can still tell you that it is a different pain than losing anyone else. It's the ultimate backwards fate. Because mothers and fathers don't outlive their children. And I am learning that there isn't a single right way to be sane through that kind of pain, except the way that is right for me, and again...that changes every day.
Either you need to be out and around other people, or you need to be under the covers, or you need to go out and be under someone else's covers. And the non-grieving are so finicky when you're grieving anyway, they expect you to be well enough to come out and play or they just stop inviting you to play altogether... so you may as well do whatever feels good.

Today, to keep sane I just need to say that he died.
I am so sick of writing about this. I am so sick of this experience.
But I have to say it.
My boy, my sweet son. His name is Mason Gregory and he died.

And it's different from the first time and it's different from the second time, and it's true that every child is different. Weeks after losing my Eden there was a sweet sadness that settled in, a content grief very early on, knowing that it would be a lifetime of ebbing and flowing. Shortly after my early miscarriage I needed to be important and busy and pregnant with things to do rather than a baby. I channeled Errol into work and then my first two children's legacies became my ministry. This time (am I really saying "this time", have I really done this before?), I am so restless and I have a million responsibilities but the only one I want is to carry my child and grow him. I want to go backwards now and that's never been a place I was interested in. I'm missing him. I know I'm moving towards Heaven, but I fear there is much more time between now and then than there is between my babies and now. I am moving away from them and I don't want to hear about how soon I'll see them again. With each week that passes I ache a little more for him, for the sibling that made a way for him only two months before, for the sister that placed the mother heart in me first. All I've ever wanted to be was a mama, their mama. Not like this, but I still wouldn't trade.

So he died then he was born and we held his little body, and he barely took up the palm of Ryan's hand and Ryan's eyes were so sad as he wrapped his son in the tiniest baby blanket I've ever laid my own eyes on. My heart breaks because not only are my babies dead, his babies are dead too. So on top of my dreams, his have also been crushed. I've never been more in love with him than when he has a broken heart and still does all he can to make me smile. He is good. I am blessed that he is the father of my children and the grieving man beside me.

Still, we are wrecked. Stop asking about our family planning. No, we don't yet have answers. Stop suggesting we run out an adopt. Realize adoption is a plan for us and we will have a family with living children one day, but its not anyone's business right now that we just don't know what the heck is going on. We have no freaking clue. We haven't even thought about it, because our baby just died. And please, for the love of everything pure, get your nose out of everyone else's womb. I actually had someone comment on the last blog post I wrote: "get a surrogate".


...


.....


..........


Here is the thing a lot of people don't get. Here is what they're missing out on. They think it is as simple as getting something fixed when a baby dies. In this case, it's me that needs fixing? Anyway. They're losing sight of what has to happen for someone to die.
My babies are dead. They died. The very first time any of them opened their eyes, they saw the face of the Lord.
I don't know what caused it the last two times.

But I do know this: in order for someone to die, they must live.

They must have once been alive.


And they were. Or else doctors wouldn't say, "I'm sorry, your baby has died."
A person's life can't end without it being life.

My babies were alive.
They lived. Their little hearts beat inside me. One of them, outside.

Where life is, there is also love.
Life and love begin in the same place.

My kids were loved from the moment they existed. Every baby is loved. Every child is wanted. All of them needed. Mine were cherished.

Did my love for them die when they did?

Did my adoration cease the moment I knew she wouldn't live?
Could I withhold devotion though I felt this one wouldn't stay?
Did the love that caused me to hope and dream diminish the moment I saw his still heart?

Obviously not. Life and love don't end in the same place. If they did, nobody would be walking around with a heart this broken.

Love doesn't end. It takes a new form and that is grief.

And so that's the reason I can't run out to the surrogate agency today, three weeks from picking out Mason's urn. That's the reason we're not rushing off to band-aid fix our loss with "another". Another baby doesn't heal the pain of losing mine. That's the reason we will just have to make people uncomfortable with our flavor of parenthood for a while. The reason is that he died but our love didn't. We are grieving instead. We will be grieving forever.
The day I fall out of love with my kids will be the day when it's okay for people to talk like that.


Besides their spirits (which are still very much alive, I'll have you know), I have to put this love into something tangible. Finding somewhere to put that love takes all the energy I have. Finding something to soothe the ache of the empty place my children left just drains me. Today it's this blog. Tomorrow it'll be myself: washing my hair and putting lotion on and eating a decent meal. Maybe soon it'll be that book idea I keep toying with. Anyway.

Mason died.
They all died.
But that is only because they lived. And because they lived, I loved them.

And because I loved them, I'll love them endlessly.

Three Lessons from a Third Year as Mrs. Coker

I can't believe that another year has passed. It's our anniversary again? We went up the mountain for the weekend and slept in a log cabin without tv or service and watched the snow and <tried> to hike, but the weather stopped us. We will, of course, commemorate our actual anniversary by having Taco Bell for dinner. It's tradition. :)

It has been another year indeed. A long, trying year. Harder than the first and second put together, for sure. Hopefully the hardest we will ever have.
Yet, it has been such a confirmation of our love and and validation of our choice to do life together.. This year, while most certainly hard, has been a blessing. Is that okay to say? It's true, the hard moments have blessed my marriage.

And we can't have an anniversary without adding a post to my marriage blog. The truth is, I have about 29384 things I learned this year. But I couldn't bring it down to twelve like my traditional anniversary post. So Ryan helped, and said we could sum all of them up in just three. And then we decided together what we learned in three short lessons:

Family is "relative". (Pun Intended)
My favorite lesson of the past year is that you can choose your people. Family has so much less to do with biology and marriage than it has to do with the people who love you in your crap.
Ryan and I walked the crap this year. Not just loosing Eden but carrying her after diagnosis, burying her, moving to a dreary climate, spending time apart, and being so far from "home" on top of all the normal difficult marriage things.
It was a scary hard year. And some of the people that we thought would be on the other side of all this crap... well, they aren't. And some even consider themselves to be and still aren't. Those relationships became secondary losses, and we were surprised to find that even strangers can become more like family in the crap. People we never even knew came into our lives and loved on us so deeply and intentionally that it is undeniable that they are our family. Some family relationships and friendships have become strained, but then most have become equally strengthened. The bottom line is, we can decide who we want to call family. Anyone can. You're not stuck with what you start with. You can choose. We choose the people who share in our joys and our heartaches and everything in between, and we choose to share with them in all of theirs. Ryan, Eden, and I are family. We have blood family. We have family friends. And we have stranger family members too. Meaningful, soulful connections make family. We are thankful.

Marriage isn't about love.
Well, it is... but it also isn't. Because sometimes, the truth is that love is not always enough. Ryan and I could have loved each other all day long and it wouldn't have maintained our marriage.
Marriage is about commitment. Marriage is about the vows made to be kept. Marriage is renewing the vows every morning even when things suck. When Ryan wouldn't say more than 6 words a day, when I wouldn't get off the couch for weeks, when it was just plain hard to love each other... we still had a marriage to take care of. That's where intention comes in.
Say the kind thing, do the thoughtful gesture, be as present as possible. Meet each other in the middle. Communicate exactly what you mean. And get some damn help. I found myself struggling with postpartum depression a few months after Eden's birth (and I still am) but it really took us both saying that I needed some help outside of our house. That's important. Go to the therapy. Be open. Be flexible. Commit. Give grace.
And then, love. It cannot hold a marriage together, but it can tie up all the loose ends and fill all the cracks.

You don't lose until you quit.
This is where I begin to cry as I write. At the end of our quiet weekend, these are the words Ryan spoke as his most important lesson from the past year of marriage and they were so loud because they apply to it all.
We lost a lot this year. That's undeniable. We lost our daughter and an early pregnancy and innocence, and friends and family and our otherwise easy relationship. We lost a lot.
But we aren't losers because we have not quit. We didn't give up when things got tough, though statistics would have had another way with us.
We don't want to take this for granted. There will be more hard days in the many years of marriage to come. There will be another season of strife down the line. Prayerfully, not the same season as this, but it would be ignorant to believe there won't be another hard moment in our marriage. And we will not deny that it will be difficult and that we will walk through more crap... instead we will be able to say that as long as we don't give up, we will come out together on the other side. And that's all I could really ask of my marriage. That it doesn't downplay the crap, but keeps on trying.

Another thing we will not give up on is our love for our children. Eden and Baby Errol are so loved and cared for in Heaven. We will get to hold them again there. It will be so joyous. We also love our other children, the ones that have yet to come. Fear would tell us that this is an unfruitful journey- as I've been pregnant twice now with no living children. But faith tells us that we don't quit yet. And that brings me to the announcement that we are expecting our third child.
We are so thrilled. Things feel different this time. Things feel hopeful. While it is still very early, we believe a life is a life and I have been bursting at the seams to share. We personally don't call children that come after loss "rainbow babies", but we are finding so much joy in this pregnancy already. Thank you all for walking this year with us and being our village.

I am ready for another beautiful year with this precious man, being a family and building one together.

An Open Letter to the Woman Using My Daughter's Pictures Online

Kristin Keel Of Minot;

I keep blinking to make sure this is not a nightmare. I have refused to believe that people like you and situations like this actually exist in the world. But I have to admit the truth to myself- you do. You are real. As real as my daughter is, though you have attempted to make her un-real. Shame on you.

I was lying on the couch and resting on Wednesday. I had spent all of Tuesday in an ER testing for a miscarriage and would be going back for a last test on Thursday to be sure that is what was happening. A miscarriage of pregnancy, that is. It was my first since loosing my daughter. I was emotionally drained and physically exhausted. Then Dawn called. I didn’t know what a CHERUBS coordinator could be calling me for, but I was eager to take the call and talk about the daughter that they had helped me prepare for and say goodbye to.

MY daughter, Eden Olivia Coker. We learned we were expecting her on October 15, 2014. We learned she was a girl in February 2015. She was diagnosed with a severe and fatal Bilateral Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia in March 2015. I carried her to induction on June 25 2015 and birth on June 26 2015 at Fort Carson, Colorado. She was born at 10:40 am and died at 11:20 am. She took a few breaths, her last one in my husband’s arms. She never cried. She never opened her eyes. She saved every bit of her energy for those breaths. She went peacefully and quietly into the arms of Jesus. She smelled so good. And she looked like her father, her real father. If you'd like to know more about her actual birth story, you can click this. My little Cherub, that raised awareness to thousands of people about CDH. Over 300 people attended her viewing and saw her body in the casket. She was buried on July 2, 2015 in Sumter South Carolina. Her real Nana goes to visit her body there every day. She resides in Heaven with Jesus, her great-nana, and her cousins. She also resides in the air I breathe and the birds that visit and the faces of every other loss mama I have met on this journey. 

You know who’s face she isn’t in? Yours. Not at all, not one bit.

Dawn said, “I have some disturbing news...” and the rest was a blur. She cried with me and we sat in amazement at this development: someone in Minot, North Dakota had apparently faked a pregnancy and a stillbirth and was using Eden’s pictures to pass the baby in them off as their fake daughter, “Parker Ann Marie Keel”.

I hung up with Dawn when I became hysterical and I called my husband, my mother, and my photographer (by the way- Kahva Photography owns ALL of the rights to all of the images you printed and many of the photographs in this blog post). They joined me in tears. I sobbed so hard- how could the world just keep heaping all this crap on me? Who would do such a thing?

Not wanting to be hasty, Ryan and I waited and let this sink in before we decided we would be taking whatever actions possible against you. So I told Dawn that I would like to know who you are. She sent me screenshots of my baby’s face in your life. Printed and put up on your wall, printed and taken to sit in a Santa’s lap at Christmas (or photoshopped?). Google images for your ultrasound picture and another bad edit job. The memory of my very real Eden Olivia defiled to be fake “Parker”. A nursery prepared and posted on your mother’s facebook. My thoughts went to your poor mother, Kristin. Has she been grieving a granddaughter that isn’t even hers, or does she help you with this façade?

I don’t know if Troy is in on your game. But what made my stomach twist in knots was the video Troy posted of you two sprinting out to a “grave” to make snow angels, smiling and laughing and jumping around. The cherub with this name “Parker” engraved onto it. The wreath made to look like a turkey.  Nothing but toothy grins plastered all over Facebook. Lies. All of the sickest types of lies.

Your smiles are wicked. And my heart breaks for every person who believed this charade.

It’s been suggested that you could have had many different motives for using my daughter’s pictures… for stealing the identity of a deceased baby. Maybe you did loose a child and could not get any pictures for whatever reason… I don’t believe you lost a child. Because if you had, you couldn’t have done such a thing. I know too many people living after they have lost their babies to believe that after going through such pain, you would be able to make a mockery of it by using another parent’s pictures of their child.

I dug, but I did not have to dig far. The people around you had been keeping tabs on your lie ever since it began.

After adding up more information and learning about you, your past plagued with fraud, theft, and many other offenses to include suspected poisoning and taking advantage of those with disabilities… I can say that I know in my heart that you were never pregnant and there was never a baby.

I’ve heard multiple versions of your story- showing up to the ER, sending your husband home for clean clothes, birthing this baby and then leaving the hospital, walking down the street before he could even return to pick you up, then telling him that a hospital employee took your baby’s body from you, dug up her own son’s grave and put your baby in with him (all while neither one of you calls the cops) is outrageous enough….  Then I’ve heard the one where you claim the baby’s body was donated to science… Then I’ve heard there is a grave with a baby in it and then I’ve heard there is a grave with a casket of toys in it, then I’ve heard there is no actual grave. None of it adds up. Nope, you are a liar and I don’t believe there ever was a baby.

Other offerings of motives came. Maybe you were never pregnant but needed Troy to marry you and locked him in with pregnancy and solidified it with loss? Maybe you were both looking for money so you told all of your town your situation and started a Caring Bridge campaign to exploit the hearts of people around you over the saddest situation on earth. All of these possible reasons sounding like plots from a Lifetime movie.

Then, when asked in a personal message from me, all Troy could say was “we immediately questioned the amount of hair”(yet you kept using the pictures?)… and “the pictures were given to us by a local nonprofit”… so when I spoke with the local NILMDTS photographer and the only photographer the hospital calls in the case of stillbirth and infant mortality and she told me she’d never taken the pictures I showed her… well. You know. But I was told by Troy “there’s no need for you to be involved anymore, as I’m sure my wife has already messaged you, we now know we were given the wrong pictures.”

No, Kristin (and I never did receive a message from you). You weren’t given the wrong pictures. You took the pictures. Not only that, but you sought out the story behind the pictures and you made that true story your tall tale. You took advantage of the CHERUBS community, of your community, of every babylost parent that ever reached out to you in solidarity, and of my sweet, precious, innocent girl.

You are a morally bankrupt woman and if your husband was aware, he is just as bad. There is all the need for me to be involved. I will stay involved.

Do you know what you’ve done to me? To my husband?

In the middle of loosing our second child, your actions have broken our hearts. And for what?

We have never done anything to you. I had to make sure I haven’t lost my own mind… that this all really happened to us and not you. I have had to check my own crazy a few times this week.

Did you ever stop to think that there was a real person behind the story you have been scheming? That a very real little girl existed for those photographs? That her true mother and father have spent all this time in agony living without her and then they have to see you playing pretend with her? I’m sure you didn’t stop to think of the people Eden belongs to- her parents, her family, our friends, and every person her little life touched.

But you have messed with the wrong mama.

I prayed so hard that the Lord would show us what to do about this. So he sent these sources- people that know you and the havoc you leave in your wake. We are so grateful for them for encouraging us to do what we feel led to do, for them telling us exactly what type of person you are.

If the only thing I can nail you on is pain and suffering, I won’t. I don’t want your money. There’s no amount of money that could make what you’ve done right. But I won’t stop.  I will read every law every concerning identity theft. I want you put away. I want you unable to reproduce. If you can kill off a fake child, what would you do with a real child?

Some might say that taking legal action is going too far, that it is tainting my daughter’s memory. I say that I must do all I can to protect it fiercely. Her memory is all I have left! I’m not sorry for pursuing those avenues.

Some might also say that exposing your name publicly is going to far, that it is ruining your reputation. I say that you did that to yourself when you decided to do this to us. I’m not sorry for putting you out there or any embarrassment this causes you. When I finish writing this, I'm going to snitch everywhere. 

There are some things I am sorry for. I am so sorry that my beautiful daughter isn’t here living and breathing and growing. I am sorry that she died. It’s not fair.

I’m sorry that any babies die. And I’m sorry that people like you exist to exploit how unbearable and unthinkable that experience is.

I’m very sorry for your family and friends and coworkers, the ones who unknowingly ate your crow and mourned your fake daughter in very real ways. They do not deserve this any more than I do.

You are a sick, despicable human being. Really. I mean that. You owe my baby girl an apology.  You owe Ryan, and I (her actual parents) an apology. You owe my family and friends an apology. You owe your family and friends an apology.

And I hope that you get some mental help. That’s what you owe yourself.

I will choose forgiveness. Not today, Lord knows it. I’m not ready.

I have accepted that I will probably never receive an apology from you, but I know that unless I forgive you, your awful actions will only eat me alive. They will consume parts of me that exist solely to honor my Eden girl. And I will not allow that.

Her life was too damn beautiful for me to allow her death to be hijacked by you. She raised so much awareness about CDH and child loss, and she even raised a little awareness about that as “Parker”, but that isn’t her name. Her name is Eden and she was not a baby doll or the play-thing you tried to make her into. She lived, she was real, and she was OURS.

   

Anyone who attempts to water down her lasting impact in the world by claiming her as his or her own will receive the full wrath of our everlasting love for her.

Eden’s Mama,

Megan Coker



**UPDATE**
THANK YOU all for sharing this post and making sure it gets out there. I will not stop until I'm sure she is kept from being able to do this to another family, and I appreciate you joining me in that quest.

Please also note that I am extending forgiveness as well as I can. This is a very hard situation that Ryan and I have prayed over and we just need time to work through these very human feelings. Thanks for the encouragement. However, we will never "forget" what she has done. And we don't believe that forgiveness requires forgetting under any definition of grace. We will remember. 

I initially turned all of Eden's album to "private", then to "friends only". But after thinking about it, I decided that I would not let one crazy stop me from sharing Eden's story with the world. I will not let fear win, because Eden still has a purpose and raises so much awareness that would be stifled if I just hid it all away. I encourage you all to be vigilant about who can see your baby's pictures, but I also urge you not to let these twisted few individuals have the last word. 
Please, please do not drag family, exes, or employers into this. It's hard enough to learn you've been duped or used, and it's even harder when all these strangers are confronting you about it. Also, I knew there would be a select few who would stand by this couple and their story, and that is fine. I don't want to believe people can be so deceptive and sick either. Let those people be.


One extra sassy thing:
In the United States, there are approximately four home burglaries per minute (that's one every 15 seconds). Does that stop you from living in a house, apartment, dorm, whatever you live in? No? Oh, because you still like shelter and a place to put your things, rest your head, and be with people you love. I see. It definitely wouldn't be your fault if someone broke into your home and took something of yours.

Then why would the remote possibility of a crazy person stealing my kid's pictures stop me from sharing her and her story with anyone that would look or listen? It wouldn't. Because she is worth sharing and I can't begin to imagine the number of people's lives she touched that wouldn't have been touched if we kept her to ourselves.

Please stop saying "what you're going through right now is exactly the reason why I don't post my kid's pictures online." It makes you sound paranoid and ridiculous, and it also places blame on me for what this woman has done.