The Turning Point in My Life
A personal story about the loss of my baby daughter and the meaning of life
This is a story about the turning point in my life, in hindsight. In my mid-thirties being pregnant with our twin, my world suddenly came to a standstill after the 24-week pregnancy ultrasound. One of our children was severely behind in growth and would die in my womb within three weeks. The prediction of my gynecologist. Hospitalization followed and the waiting began.
Waiting for the passing away of an unborn child, while having two babies in my belly. So surreal, I was shifting in and out of hope and despair.
After two weeks it became clear what I suffered from, HELPP-syndrome. A life-threatening pregnancy complication for mother and child. No cure available. Only getting the children out before I became too ill to be saved myself. That could be a matter of days. Just being in my 26th week of pregnancy with the legal term being 28 weeks before performing any kind of medical action on premature infants, a rather unsettling prospect.
It was a miracle in itself I made it pregnant till 28 weeks. All those weeks our smallest child - a daughter - stayed alive in my womb. A few days before, a doctor prepared us for their birth. Because of my health, they wanted to get the children soon. He predicted that our daughter would not survive it, and as for the chances of our other child - a son - it was hoping for the best.
After their birth, nothing went as planned, an emergency cesarean section on a Sunday evening, 10 people were gathered around our son who was in trouble. Our daughter - half his size and half his weight - on the side, with just one nurse holding an oxygen mask in front of her face. Against all odds, she stayed alive.
So she was also prepped in an incubator for transportation to a hospital with a specialized intensive care unit for premature infants. During that very intense time - weeks in a row - and at several intensive care units, she kept giving us hope, while especially her brother was having a very hard time.
After 44 days - to be exact - she let life go and died in my arms, while her brother made big jumps forward into life. The day after she passed away he was transferred from the intensive care to the high care unit. Extraordinary was that nurses who took care of our daughter, in different hospitals, testified on several occasions about her power. Calling her an old soul.
Later on, much later, it felt as if she had come to accompany her brother but didn’t need to be here herself. That being the purpose of her very short time with us.
Soon after she passed over, she started sending us messages.
We will never forget the big thunderclap - just one stroke, no rain, no lightning - during her funeral. Just when my husband and I were bending through our knees to lower her little white coffin in her small grave. For me a moment of big, nearly euphoric, revelation. A sign that she had arrived safely on the other side of eternity. And I was so grateful there were witnesses to that.
That spring on numerous occasions white butterflies landed on the bare arms of my husband. Me she often touched with ladybugs in and around our house. For us heartfelt moments of consolation, which we will never forget for they are engraved in our hearts.
In the years that followed I struggled with feelings of guilt, about not having been able to deliver full-term healthy baby’s, for all the hardships they had to endure.
I was fully absorbed with the care for our son - our only child - who encountered many life events so early on his path. Somewhere in the back of my mind a notion of a presence and energy so much bigger than life itself, that I had felt since childhood but had suppressed. It was a period of surviving and fighting for the prospects of our son.
After ten years finally, there was some space for me to start my soul-searching journey. In subtle ways, my daughter had kept calling me. On this journey I discovered I’m an empath, an intuitive. But first I had to declutter the route to my heart, to the essence of my being. It has taught and brought me so much. The senselessness of existence that I had felt for so long transformed step by step in feeling the meaning of life.
The revelation that nothing shows up for nothing. That even in my biggest loss, my deepest grief or pain, there is a message of light. It led me to reconnect with my daughter on a spirit level, who’s guiding me from the other side.
Would I have found this consciousness if I had not lost her?
Is a question I sometimes still wonder about. In a way, my biggest loss turned out to be the greatest gift, but also a scar in life I will never lose.
How proud I was in 2019 to present my self-published poetry book (in Dutch, my native tongue), inspired by her, in our local bookstore on the exact date that she had passed over 20 years before. Today I’m so grateful for being blessed to be the mother of a wonderful son and beautiful angel-daughter.
Thank you so much for reading this very personal story.
©️ Sabine Vekemans 2021. All Rights Reserved.
PS. A poem I wrote in honor of my deceased baby daughter.
PS. I also write Poetry on Request, tapping into the energy of a loved one who has passed away.
