By Lily LeeAnn Garis
Mommy to Miles Jesse Lee
Stillborn
April 2024
I had a happy and healthy pregnancy until about six months along. My child’s father and I broke our engagement and split up. Two weeks before my baby shower, I moved in with my grandmother. I was under an incredible amount of stress and emotional pain. I know my son felt that stress too.
I was eight and a half months pregnant, just a few weeks away from my due date, when I went to Mercy Hospital because I hadn’t felt my baby move for an extended period of time. After examining me and trying to find my son’s heartbeat on the monitor without success, they performed an ultrasound and discovered that his heart was no longer beating. His umbilical cord had become wrapped around his neck.
They gave me the option to go home for two days and think about how I wanted to deliver him or to be induced. Thankfully, my grandparents had the strength to help make that decision for me because I was so emotional and heartbroken that I couldn’t think clearly. We decided to go ahead with an induction on April 7, 2024—the day after my baby shower.
I labored for about 12 and a half hours, and thankfully the Mercy Hospital staff took wonderful care of me. I didn’t feel a thing. They broke my water at 12:10, and at 12:50 I gave birth to my son, Miles Jesse Lee, after only two pushes. He weighed 5 pounds, 10 ounces and was 20 inches long.
I am so grateful that, on such short notice, On Angels’ Wings was able to come and take photographs. At the time, I wasn’t thinking about whether I would want those moments captured in the future. Neither I nor my family could think about anything except trying to see through one of the most heartbreaking moments of our lives.
If On Angels’ Wings hadn’t come to take photos, I wouldn’t have those precious memories of my son—memories I know I would have regretted not having. The nurses also took hand and foot molds for us.
I stayed for about an hour and a half afterward, holding my son and crying before I was discharged.
The last two years have been one of the hardest times of my life. My child passed away before I ever got to hear him laugh or see him open his eyes. But I do find comfort in knowing that he never felt pain and went straight to Heaven. I spent a long time trying to find every possible way to forget or fill the void of losing my baby. Now, I am finally starting to learn how to grieve him in a healthy way.
This past year, I fell in love again. When On Angels’ Wings found out that we were expecting a rainbow baby, they offered to provide free maternity and newborn pictures as part of their ongoing support services, recognizing how difficult it is to carry a child after a loss. We were paired with Tiana again, the kind photographer who came to the hospital when I lost Miles. It was such a full-circle moment to have her be part of our celebration too.
I’m still trying to get an urn for Miles, but I have a candle that I light for him and a small memorial set up in my room. I talk about him often, and I’m finally at a place where I can keep him alive by talking about who he was and what life would be like if he were here and I was raising him today.
On Angels’ Wings has continued to remind me that Miles hasn’t been forgotten. They gave me a flower to plant in his memory. They provided keepsakes for both me and his father at Christmas. They sent me the beautiful photographs they took after his birth. They even gave me a book about child loss that has helped me as I’ve slowly begun to heal.
I don’t think I’ll ever fully heal from losing my son, but On Angels’ Wings was there for me during one of the darkest moments of my life. They continue to keep Miles’ memory alive and remind me that, even when it feels like everyone else has forgotten the child I carried, they haven’t. And they are there for the continuation of our journey, through the grief and the celebrations.
On Angels’ Wings makes sure you won’t miss something you’ll wish you had in the future.
