In August 2002, Mike and Lori Baker anxiously awaited the birth of a baby girl.
Lori, a social worker, was 20 weeks along in her pregnancy. The nursery was decorated. A baby bed was in place.
Mike and Lori talked about the hopes and dreams they had for the baby who would soon join big brother, Austin, in the busy Baker home in Boone County.
But on a weekday evening, Lori placed a Barney video in the VCR for Austin and began to prepare dinner. She sensed something was wrong, then began to bleed.
Lori's father-in-law attempted to rush her to a Cincinnati hospital, but traffic congestion forced them off Interstate 75 and into the emergency room at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Edgewood, Ky. Lori was admitted, placed on bed rest. For a week, her and her infant girl's condition seemed stable, but Lori's water broke and her baby girl was stillborn.
The dreams Lori and Mike had for their baby girl died with her.
The couple named their baby Heaven. They dressed her in a tiny pink dress and hat. They baptized her, cuddled her, took pictures, grieved and said their goodbyes.
"She had blondish, brown hair and fingernails," said Mike. "She weighed less than a pound, but was this perfectly developed little human being."
Mike and Lori decided to bury Heaven in a special plot for infants who die at St. Elizabeth Hospital before, during or just after birth.
The hospital dedicated that plot in St. Mary's Cemetery in Fort Mitchell, Ky., in 1989 so that each small life could be remembered and have an individual, final resting place.
The Bakers held a memorial service at Heaven's grave and purchased a small headstone in her honor, but after months of grieving for her daughter, Lori wanted to do more.
"When we went to visit Heaven's grave, we noticed that a lot of the graves didn't have a headstone, they just had a metal plate with a number on it. We realized that a lot of families couldn't afford to purchase a headstone or the pain was too great for them to consider one," said Lori. "We wanted to help these families acknowledge their infant's short time on Earth."
That's when Lori and her sister-in-law, Susan Baker, a scrapbook enthusiast, decided to host a fund-raiser.
For the past four years, the Bakers, their family, friends and parents who have lost infants, have raised nearly $9,000 for the St. Elizabeth Infant Loss Memorial Fund.
The First Church of Christ in Burlington, Ky., where the Bakers attend church, annually open their doors at no cost. Mike and Lori's family cook breakfast and lunch for the crowd who come to a day of scrapbooking classes and sessions. They solicit businesses for door prizes and donations.
"Sometimes, it is a test of faith," says Mike, who annually fears that not enough help will arrive or donations will be made. "But in the end, everything seems to come together."
For the 34-year-old Bakers, laboring for the St. Elizabeth Infant Loss Memorial Fund is simple.
They want to give back to a hospital, its exceptional pastoral staff and a unique program that assisted them during the most heart-wrenching life experience they have faced. They want to enlighten others about the pain both a father and mother experience when losing an infant, even in the earliest months of pregnancy.
The Bakers also want to remember Heaven. And they want their children Austin, 6, and Rachel, 3, to know about Heaven.
Mike, a computer analyst, wears a ring, symbolizing the hand of God and an infant inside his palm. Lori sheds a few tears as she flips through the pages of a scrapbook filled with condolence cards and the letter she wrote Heaven on the day she died.
Lori's tears are healthy tears, she says.
"One of the most comforting things someone said to me when we lost Heaven was 'that she was special. So special that she didn't have to suffer all of life's hurts. She got to go straight to Heaven,' " said Lori.
"I now know that everything that came about, came about for a reason. We tell people that Heaven has done more on this Earth than some people do in a lifetime."
The fifth "Scrapbooking For Heaven" is 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. April 28 at First Church of Christ. Proceeds go to St. Elizabeth Hospital Infant Loss Memorial Fund. To participate or to donate, call Baker at (859) 525-1088.
Every Tuesday Karen Meiman writes about the people she runs across when she's not home-schooling her four kids at the family's log cabin on farmland in Boone County. E-mail her at [email protected].
Comments