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Stories of Lost Children

My Little Angel: Austin Lynn
by Cynthia, Clarksville, Arkansas, U.S.A.

I found out I was pregnant in December of 1998. My husband and I were so excited. This would be our second child. Our first child was born on January 12, 1998, and although she wasn't very old we wanted another child. We didn't want their ages to be very far apart. Since we had our beautiful little girl, we wanted a boy this time to complete our "perfect" family. My pregnacy went great. I had very little morning sickness and felt good. At 20 weeks I went in for an ultrasound and found out that our baby was indeed a boy! We were so excited and happy. Our daughter Katelyn even got to be there to see her brother, although she really didn't know what was going on but we still wanted to include her in the whole thing. My doctor set my due date for August 23. We were so excited! Well on August 18, 1999 at 12AM my water broke. I didn't know that it was my water since my doctor had to break my water with my daughter, so I just went back to sleep and in the morning I went to the doctor and she told me that my water had broke to go to the hospital. I was so excited! I knew that since I was only a week before my due date I was not considered early so I never expected anything to be wrong.

My husband met me there and after 4 hours of labor and pushing my son was born without any complications. Austin was so beautiful! The doctor cut the cord and laid him on my stomach and the nurses dried him off. While they dried him I waited for him to cry but he never did. When the nurses removed the blankets I noticed that he was still pretty blue. He was just laying there looking at me with a very peaceful look on his face. It was like he was telling me everything was going to be ok. At first I wasn't worried but the nurses started giving him oxygen and when they removed it he would turn blue again. My doctor said they had to take him to the nursery to put him under a oxygen hood for a while. I let him go thinking he would only be gone a little while and then I would get him back. Im not too sure of everything that happened after that because the doctor then came in my room to tell me that she had x-rays done and they showed that his left lung had collasped so they had to insert a chest tube and call Children's Hospital so that he would recieve the best care possiable. I cried because they wouldn't let me go. I had to wait until the next day when I was released from the hospital. Well the Angel Flight helicopter got there and found they couldn't stabilize him enough to put him on the chopper. They ordered more x-rays and found his right lung to be collasped, but when they tried to insert the chest tube his lung wouldn't respond. I was told that during this time the doctors had to resuscitate him 3 times. Finally my doctor came into my room with the respiratory therapist from Children's and asked my husband and me for permission to stop working on him, that there was no more they could do for him. All I could do is cry. My husband gave permission, we didn't want our son to suffer any more than he had to. The RT from Children's asked for permission to take Austin to Children's for an autopsy to find out what caused this. We gave permission but told her that we had to hold him before they took him. She said ok, went and unhooked him from all the machines and brought him to us. He was so perfect. He weighed 7lbs 5.7oz. He had all ten fingers and toes. Everything about him was so perfect. We just couldn't believe this was happening to us. We just held him and told him we loved him and cried. I felt like I was in a dream watching this happen to someone else. While my pastor was there praying for Austin, I had my head bent down and I thought I heard him breathe. I hollered "He's breathing! I heard him take a breath!" then the nurses and doctor told me that was normal.

I was devistated. We let our daughter say goodbye, and although she was only 1 1/2 years old she acted like she knew what was happening. It was so sad. We have pictures of all of us together that the hospital took for us. The only thing I regret is that we didn't get any of him in his casket. The only ones we have of him now is the ones with all of the tubes in him and now when I look at the pictures I can't really see his face because of the tubes. He looked just like an angel in his casket. The funeral home even paid for everything. We are so grateful for being able to have our little angel even for such a short amount of time.

We have since been blessed with another little boy. He was born on March 26, 2001. I found out that I was pregnant on what would have been Austin's 1st birthday. We named our son Alexander Austin after his brother.

Austin, we love you and we will never forget you. You will always be in our hearts and in our minds. We miss you so much and I can't wait until the day comes that I will get to be with you in Heaven.


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