Naomi Hope's Story

“I’m so sorry. There is no heartbeat.” Those are the most painful words I have ever heard. I heard them first in May of 2018 when we learned that our second child had died at our 12 week scan and I was suffering a missed miscarriage. The second time was nearly six weeks ago on Tuesday February 16, 2021 when I found out we lost our precious baby girl. 

This is the space where I will be sharing the story of our sweet and forever cherished daughter, Naomi Hope DiCicco, who unexpectedly passed into eternity with the Lord at just 24 weeks in my pregnancy. It has been the hardest six weeks I’ve ever endured, and I wanted to share with those who have reached out and I haven’t had energy or even words to respond amidst the weight of grief. I want to share Naomi’s story because we love her and so proud to be her parents. I want to share Naomi’s story because her sweet life and unexpected death have forever changed who I am, who we are as a family. I want to share the way that the Lord has truly carried us -- even though I have and still experience anger, doubt, and intense bitterness daily. I can’t deny the way His hand has been literally carrying us through each day since Naomi died, and even preparing us beforehand in ways I couldn’t see then. Even amidst that precious nearness to Him, I have cried out so many “why’s?” and questioned everything I believed about Him. I still am questioning and yet I am firmly in His hand. I firmly trust He is good. He has not forsaken us. He loves us and is with us. And yet he didn’t stop our daughter’s death. I will share the rawness, messiness, and provision in this journey so you can continue to lift us up in prayer.

We had joyfully found out we were expecting another child this past September. When I found out she was a girl at 14 weeks, we were absolutely elated. Visions of a little girl toddling around with and being loved on by our two sweet boys, Louie and Jude, quickly clouded our heads. She was such a sweet addition to our family and I will forever cherish the twenty-four weeks I was able to carry her. Our beloved daughter. As I reflect on my pregnancy and have spent time reliving the precious moments I had with her --kicks, ultrasounds, places we got to carry her, silly and sweet things she heard her brothers say--I am hit for the thousandth time of the shock of her death. It had been such a healthy pregnancy and when I saw her on her 20-week ultrasound, she was so healthy and perfect and waving. She was alive and moving. I saw her heart beating. They confirmed that I had an anterior placenta with this pregnancy, which posed no risks but meant that I essentially had a placenta that was acting as a cushion between me and Naomi. This meant I never was able to feel her move early on, or consistently or regularly. Often it was on the outer edges when I could feel her feet or hands moving. This is an aspect of my pregnancy I have found myself crying out to my God and asking “Why? If I only got twenty-four weeks with my sweet little girl, why couldn’t I have felt her move lots every day?”. Joseph only got to feel her move two times before we lost her. It crushes me that her brothers never got to feel her kicks. 

At twenty-four weeks and half weeks, I was feeling movements often but never consistently. So on Monday night when I went to bed and realized that I hadn’t felt her move since Saturday, I honestly didn’t think much of it. Nearly two day blips had passed where I didn’t feel her movements but then I would based on her position. But I started to feel anxious and thought I would wait through the night. Neither one of us slept well that night. I called my doctor early on Tuesday morning and let him know I hadn’t felt her move and was worried. He told me to go to the hospital as soon as I could in a matter-of-fact tone. Even then, I was worried and teary and sent out a prayer request to my mom and friend, but neither one of us honestly would have thought that she had died. 

It was quick and so Joseph dropped me off at the hospital and waited for my call while he was at home with the boys. We still didn’t think it was anything to worry about. After having a healthy twenty week scan, I felt I had been in a safety zone that has forever disappeared from my reality. A zone in which I would tell myself “everything is fine or will be fine. We are past the twelve week scan...the twenty week scan”.  I went into a triage room where they hooked me up to heart monitors and after nearly five minutes of not finding it, I knew the words would be coming soon. I sat teary and numb at the same time as another nurse tried to find her heartbeat. I squeezed the hand of a stranger, the nurse Kate, and wished Joseph and I had expected this so he could have been right there with me. I felt a quiet and yet violent sense of despair and disbelief come in as the doctor came in with an ultrasound machine. Seconds later, I saw my daughters lifeless body on the screen with no heartbeat. And then those awful, heart-shattering words “I’m so sorry. There is no heartbeat.” As I’ve lived through those moments again and again and invited the Lord in to show me where He was, I have remembered the very real sense of the room shattering around me. It was the hopes and dreams of welcoming our little girl into our family and bringing her home coming to an absolute halt. It was the vision of God that I held in which there were certain realms of suffering I would just be protected from. I didn’t realize it then, but I did think I would be exempt from certain kinds of loss or heartache. I remember crying out to Him in my head “not my daughter, God. You wouldn’t let her die!”. And yet, He did and He was there every moment with me. Six weeks into the loss of my baby girl, I have taken such hope in knowing that my God is the same God before and after Naomi’s death. I think what shattered in my vision of God was for the better, I am understanding Him in a truer sense I never have before. And yet, even as I can see how clearly He is providing for me each day, I find myself crying out to my Heavenly Father-- Why couldn’t you have provided in the way I wanted you to?  We would learn later that evening that Naomi either died to a cord accident or her heart simply stopped beating. Those are the explanations we have and when I am gripped by the weight of her death in my womb -- I didn’t even know cord accidents could happen or babies hearts could stop beating for reasons we don’t know -- I do ask Him “Why didn’t you stop it from happening?”. I’ve felt cradled by Him though as I cry out to Him. He already knows the thoughts of my heart even if I don’t say them, and I’m so thankful for a Heavenly Father I can be honest with about my doubts, questions, confusion, anger, bitterness, all as I trust in His goodness. 

I look back on the twenty-four hours that followed in the hospital and know that He carried us through. I don’t think my heart or entire body could have survived the anguish that followed with His hand keeping my alive. After the nurses told me she had died, I felt a sense of shock and disbelief come over me. I made phone calls to Joseph and my mom. Joseph’s parents and my parents came to be with the boys. We waited until the next day to tell Louie that his baby sister he had just started anticipating and proudly talking about had gone to be with the Lord. Joseph came quickly and we moved through the motions and heartache and dread of making plans we never wanted to make -- to bury or cremate, when to start labor, how to spend our limited time with our daughter when she came. I remember this sense of dread overcoming me and the only Scripture that came to mind that was of comfort was the passage of Jesus in the garden, crying out to God about the death before him and asking God to take it from him. 

“And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” [Luke 22:41-44]

I will not liken the weight of my sorrows to Jesus’ death on the cross more than they can be, but this sorrow was excruciating and just knowing that this Jesus, this tender Savior that I have followed most of my life and was now questioning if He was even there or real or good...Just knowing that He had felt the sense of dread and not wanting to drink the cup in front of Him. Knowing that He needed strength from Heaven to take the next breath...It was enough for that moment for me to hold on to Him. But mainly the rest of that day and the days and weeks after, it has been God holding to me. 

Early on in my pregnancy, I had a girl’s name that I hoped we would call our daughter. But after her twenty-week scan, we both just weren’t sure and I felt as if I couldn’t see her name anymore. Never did I think that would mean we would lose her, I just sensed that we would name her when we birthed her. That morning in the hospital, we picked the name Naomi because we honestly just thought it was sweet, unique, and it meant “lovely, good, pleasant”. I chose Hope as a very desperate grasp at having hope at some point. In those moments, I felt no hope at all. I think her name was a way we were celebrating that our daughter is indeed lovely and beautiful, and she was. Her life was indeed so good and so meaningful, even though it was so much shorter than we could have ever imagined. She was and is a full blessing to us, even though most days I find myself weeping that I just wish I could have had more of her. She is a real part of our family and spoken about so much. She is our daughter. She is Louie and Jude’s very real baby sister in Heaven. And she has reminded us of the Hope that we have in the resurrection, even though I didn’t feel it much at first and still find myself in so many moments where I don’t. 

Naomi Hope DiCicco was delivered around 7:30pm on Tuesday February 16, 2021. Her delivery was the hardest and most beautiful. It was so incredibly sad to prepare to birth my stillborn daughter in the hospital I had birthed Jude, alive. I remember being so stung by the image of the bassinet with the sweet hospital blankets when I walked in our labor and delivery room. It was a very tangible awareness of the loss of our daughter -- and most things have felt like a loss since then. I would lay my lifeless little girl on those blankets and I would not be able to bring her home. Joseph and I have always said that birth is when we have felt so profoundly close to each other. Her birth was so heart-wrenching and yet still beautiful. We had the pain of labor and no joy of holding onto our live little girl to get us through. I know the Lord was with us then. When she came suddenly, the doctor on call walked in and immediately looked at her and then us with eyes full of genuine sorrow. He felt our loss and we needed to know that he and the staff were not desensitized to this, and they weren’t. The nurses called our daughter by her name all night and that meant so much to me. It is the hardest thing to look at your beautiful baby and know that she is not alive. They placed her on my chest right away and I was startled by how precious and beautiful and fully formed she was. The first thing I noticed was her sweet mouth and tongue. She had the same button nose I had seen on her ultrasound profile at twenty weeks. We marveled at her little feet and hands with fingernails and toes! We gently touched her ribs. We loved and love her so fully I cannot explain it. And yet, I was saying hello to by beloved Naomi, my little girl, all with the undercurrent of knowing I would have to say goodbye eventually. We had extremely tender moments with her, we even ate with her next to us. The nurses picked out a sweet blanket and pink hat that someone who had gone through this valley before us had crocheted. We took pictures with her and awed at her. I will forever cherish and relish those moments we had with her. And yet, in the middle of the night, I had the worst heartache of my life when I began to see her change before us and it hit me like a brick wall -- a goodbye was coming. I honestly don’t know how I kept breathing that night. How my chest didn’t explode and shatter me with pain. We prayed for her and for God’s next steps. At sunrise, we knew we had to say our goodbyes to the body of our daughter, we knew we didn’t have much time before she changed in a way that I didn’t want to remember her. Even verbalizing that I needed to say goodbye is something that felt so horrifying and unnatural as a mother to say. With my boys, I could peacefully sleep in the hospital for an hour or two knowing I would wake to them next to me, ready to eat and be cuddled. With Naomi, it was so hard to need to keep her in a cuddle cot with cold fans to preserve her body as long as we could. Yet we knew full-well in those moments that we were not abandoning her, even though I felt like it. She was already at home with the Lord. I’m so thankful for that hope of eternity, and yet none of it took any of the utter pain or heartbreak of having to say goodbye to our sweet daughter, Naomi Hope. I’ve said a lot since we came home that we have the eternal comfort, and yet there just isn’t much earthly comfort. I will never get to watch the sweet personality that Naomi was given unfold. I won’t ever hear the voice that she had. I didn’t get to watch her lungs move with breath or see her mouth move. I had milk for days after her birth that was such a physically painful reminder of the loss that I would never nurse her. I don’t know what color her eyes were. I had twenty-four weeks with her. And yet I love her so deeply and she has such a full place in our hearts and family. Praying over her with tears and kissing her sweet, precious, cold forehead one last time was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was the absolute darkest feeling to cover her with a blanket and watch her be wheeled away from us. It was so intensely heartbreaking to realize that she would not ride home with us. Joseph cried as he picked up her ashes days later. That was the drive home -- the only drive -- with his first daughter. 

We walked out of the hospital changed forever. I have woken up in a different world every day since then. A world without the daughter we loved and longed for, and now will forever long for until we are in Heaven with her and Him. A world where babies die suddenly in the womb. Where cord accidents and stillbirths happen. My view of God is truer and nearer and more love-filled, and yet I have so many questions and things I just am not supposed to or going to reconcile. I will share again in the next post about the painful journey since losing our Naomi Hope, our sweet and forever loved daughter, and coming home to our earthly home and life without her. There has been so much comfort and provision, but so much heartache and hope in the same breath, every day. Now I sit here holding the blanket and hat she was wrapped in and ache with an ache so deeply. Her things from the hospital, the twenty or so pictures, the memories, the ultrasound videos and pictures...that is what I have of her. I so desperately wish I had more. I am eternally grateful to have been her mother, to have carried her, and to have held and kissed her, to have loved her with everything I have. My Naomi Hope.