Stephanie and Andy Schoonover share what carrying their daughter, Grace, to term taught them about life, love, and being parents. The time they spent together continues to be an enduring reminder that Grace’s life was truly special.
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Stephanie:
Andy and I met in my hometown of Cincinnati. We got married in Pebble Beach. It was just a few months before we found out that we were expecting.
Andy:
I think he looks like me. Steph and I just embraced and cried and we just were overjoyed that we were going to be parents.
Stephanie:
It was a vision that we had for our family. I just felt ready to be a mom. The first trimester, I couldn’t be more blessed to be feeling everything I was experiencing, which was just joy. The 12 week ultrasound was an important one. We knew that it would mean doing an anatomy scan of the baby. My gosh, moving around.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, look at the little leg there at the bottom.
Stephanie:
Wow. We were a little anxious as new parents, but we had no reason to be concerned.
Andy:
We saw this beautiful child, this beautiful baby. She was opening and closing her mouth and her lips, and we had this joyous occasion of seeing our baby for the first time.
Stephanie:
That was our baby. That’s the life that I couldn’t comprehend being inside of me. It was just an amazing feeling. As the technician got to Grace’s head, she noticed that something wasn’t right. The doctor, entered the room, he introduced himself and he said, is this your first pregnancy? And I remember just shaking my head saying, “Yes, this is my first.”
Andy:
The doctor got quiet, and so I asked the doctor, I said, “Listen, you got to tell me if something is going on right now because your quiet is making me really nervous.” And it was at that point that he turned around and he said, “Your daughter has a diagnosis of anencephaly and that condition is not viable for life.”
Stephanie:
We just had tears just flow. It was almost an out of body experience. Because here I’m laying on that table and I’m looking at my daughter’s silhouette, and she looked perfect to me. And everything he was describing went against what I felt that I was seeing. There was no cure, there was no surgery, there was nothing other than carrying this pregnancy out or to terminate it.
Andy:
We saw five fingers and five toes and a beating heart, and these lips moving as if they were inhaling air or blowing us kisses.
Stephanie:
We didn’t even talk about what choice we would make.
Andy:
And we looked at it as, that’s a baby to us. That looks like a baby to us. And so, we wanted to give that baby life in whatever way that God intended for that life to look.
Stephanie:
It really put life into perspective for us because we understood the fragility of life in that moment. And so we wanted to make the most of it.
Speaker 4:
Hello, this is Dr. Abikhaled. It looks like a baby girl.
Stephanie:
We knew the name we wanted to give her, Grace, Grace Elisabeth. Grace had so much meaning to us personally, as we were living out our faith and really leaning into our faith through this journey. We’re at the park. We really wanted to be intentional about the memories we made with her.
Andy:
My hands were on Steph’s belly constantly. She would kick and I would push back, and she would kick again, I’d push back on her little feet. It’s the only time we were going to be able to play with her. We just wanted to make the most of that and to show her that we loved her in those just little ways.
Stephanie:
I decided to open our story up to social media. Thousands of comments were coming in from women who I didn’t know. That for me was an incredible experience. When we received the diagnosis, we were told that we had a very low chance of making it to the third trimester. I was just adamant and determined to make it to the end, and that’s what we are going to do. I carried Grace for 39 weeks and three days. It was a very quick delivery. Within just minutes, my water broke and Grace was out. We were expecting that she would take a couple of breaths and then that would be it from her, and she came out just crying.
Andy:
Oh, I know girly.
Stephanie:
Give us a good cry.
Andy:
Not knowing that she was going to make it out alive. That was the most beautiful sound we had ever heard.
Stephanie:
And it was an answered prayer. Just to hear her voice. I’ll never forget her voice.
Andy:
You’ve been so strong. Come on, you can do it. It was my first job as a dad, is to just root her on. And she did great. We love you. I read two books to her. A fun book, the Bernstein Bears, which is a book that I read when I was a little kid. The second book was, I Love You Night and Day, which is a book about, regardless of what’s going on in our lives, whether it’s day or night, whether it’s hot or cold, whether we’re healthy or not, I will love you.
Stephanie:
She was placed on my chest and we had a chaplain come in. It was important to us to have Grace baptized. And once she was on my chest, she really just settled into a very peaceful place. And I had my arms wrapped around her, and I grabbed her little hand and she squeezed my thumb. And to feel her get that kind of strength. She was embracing me like I had been embracing her. She wanted to return that to me. So, I held her right there on my chest for the 10 hours and 32 minutes that she lived.
Andy:
Every moment through that 10 and a half hours, we were engaged. We were engaged in her breath. We were engaged with each other. We’d never lost track of that moment.
Stephanie:
And it was a joyful time to be able to experience her life. There was no shortage of love in the room. We know for certain that she felt loved.
Andy:
The lessons I learned through the journey, is to appreciate now, appreciate this day.
Stephanie:
People seem to think that we were really strong, brave people, courageous, for choosing to live out this journey. And I certainly didn’t feel strong in the moment. I didn’t feel brave. I just felt like I was a mother loving her daughter.
Andy:
I’m a better husband. I don’t take loved ones for granted.
Stephanie:
Her life is truly special.