A Wonderful Upbringing
Jamie grew up in a Christian home and never really had anything traumatic happen to her. She has wonderful parents and a wonderful family.
Jamie married her husband Justin when they were 19 and decided they were going to wait a little bit before having kids since they felt that they were basically kids themselves. At about the age of 21 years old, Jamie did get pregnant for the first time.
The Ultrasound
When Jamie went in for the ultrasound that would determine the sex of her baby, the doctor came in, which Jamie thought was unusual. She was informed that her baby had a chance of being born with down syndrome and was offered the option to abort the pregnancy.
“At that time Justin wasn’t even with me and they were asking me if I wanted to abort our child! I was like, are you kidding me!”
Not believing in abortion, Jamie had already decided that was absolutely not an option.
“If down syndrome is the worst that it could be then you know I would take that…”
She informed Justin of what the doctor had told her and they put it out of their minds, not thinking anything of it the remainder of the pregnancy. Jamie ended up going into labor a couple weeks early and was informed that they were going to have to do an emergency C-section because her daughter’s head seemed really large. She ended up having the C-section late in the night and her daughter, Remy, was born with a fatal condition called Toxoplasmosis.
Remy ended up being in the NICU for about 3 weeks and they almost lost her a few times.
“At one point we had to decide whether to put her on a CPAP to breathe or not and we decided that it's not up to us, it's God's decision what happens with her, which is really hard, I mean we're 21 and our life is now in the NICU every day”
They decided against it and just prayed over her overnight. She started to get better and the doctor said, “You know babies; babies are miracles. They do things we don't expect all the time”
Remy was still on a feeding tube, but was doing well, so she got to go home.
March 7th, 2012
March 7th, 2012, Jamie realized Remy’s temperature was really low and something just wasn't right. She called the doctor, and took her in for some blood tests. By the time they got the blood tests back, around 9:00 PM that night, Jamie and Justin had already called the ambulance.
“It was pretty traumatic the way we lost her, like I was just sitting there and I looked over, I had just put her feeding tube in moments ago and realized milk was coming out of her nose. I freaked out, told Justin, and called 911.”
Remy passed away that night.
Jamie was really angry. She had done everything right during her pregnancy, so she didn't know why this was happening. Not knowing how it had happened, Jamie started to question things.
“I was still trying to trust God, but I kept wondering why He would do this to me. Why would He do this to us? We don't deserve this.”
Miscarriage
About 6 months later, Jamie got pregnant again. Just after reaching the 12 week mark in her pregnancy, and starting to tell others about it, Jamie miscarried.
After losing Remy, Jamie really tried to hold onto her faith. She and Justin were trying to get back into a normal rhythm, but then she miscarried and in that moment lost all of her faith.
“I had never been so Angry at a God that I loved my entire life. I think when you're a Christian all your life, sometimes it's like you expect God to do things for you. It’s easy to think, well I'm faithful to Him, so He should be faithful to me, and that's not the way God works. So you don't know why things happen the way they do.”
It was a hard time, but Justin and Jamie decided that they weren't going to let it ruin their marriage.
“We had seen a couple marriages fail. We made friends in the NICU, we've seen marriages fail already, and we decided that's not going to be us.”
Depression
Jamie entered into a pretty dark depression. She was questioning her entire life now and her faith. She struggled to believe that God was good when He had basically taken everything away from her.
“I thought it was normal. I lost a child, it’s natural to be depressed.”
Jamie lived in that state for a long time. She would lie to everybody, saying she was okay, putting on a mask every time she stepped out of her door.
“Even our pastor had said he couldn’t believe I was there after the losses, saying “‘ Wow, I can’t believe you’re out, good for you.”’
At the time, she never asked Justin how he was feeling about it all. It was difficult, they were in completely different states, and there were some areas that they just wouldn’t talk about, and Remy was one of those areas.
“I just had to walk on eggshells with my feelings. I'm really emotional and he's not, so I was trying to respect that, but inside it was hurting me more that I couldn't talk to him about it, because that was both of our loss.”
Feeling that she couldn’t yet tell Justin, Jamie eventually opened up to her parents, saying out loud for the first time what she was feeling, admitting that she was depressed, and she needed help and didn’t know what to do.
“I had thoughts all the time, I knew I was depressed, but I never said it to anybody.”
Jamie finally started talking about it, and opened up to her parents, Justin and others and started getting the help she needed.
That was about 4 years ago.
Letters to Remy
Jamie started getting more involved in the church after that and, after being told by her dad and having it confirmed by God, she wrote a book.
“Journaling is like a coping mechanism to me, so every time I would go to Remy's grave, I would bring a journal with me to just write my feelings. A lot of those journal entries, they're tear stained and they're very raw. I already had, I don't know 20 or 30 entries, I would talk about everything to her.”
March 7th, 2016
Jamie didn’t think that she’d ever be able to have kids due to the infection, not knowing if it was still in her body or not, but in 2014 Jamie gave birth to her rainbow baby, Dallas.
And on March 7th, 2016, exactly 4 years after the death of Remy, Jamie gave birth to another little girl whom they named Dixie.
“That was definitely a God thing. The Lord told me she was going to be a girl and revealed Psalm 37:4”
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart's desires.
Psalm 37:4 (New Living Translation)
After having Dixie, Jamie started to feel complete again.
“I still obviously have a huge hole in my heart because of the two children I lost, but Dixie really helps that.”
One more person
Jamie strives to share her testimony anytime she can, both speaking out and in writing the book.
“Any time I can share my story, I think I should, just so if there is one more person who could hear that they’re not alone and to still see God as a good God after a loss that’s not supposed to happen”
Jamie’s book “Letters to Remy” is available on Amazon and details "not only infant loss, but healing through trust in Jesus." It includes Justin’s part in the story as well. Intending to “let others know there is still hope after unimaginable loss”
