James was going to be our last baby, the perfect ending to our family.

By Sarah – James’ Mom

We were so excited when we saw those two little lines on the pregnancy test in August. My husband and I had decided we wanted three children back when we were still dating. He had grown up with two siblings and I had loved their sibling dynamic.
James was going to be our last baby, the perfect ending to our family.

I was precepting a student nurse on Oct 13th 2025 when I got the notification on my phone that my results were ready to be viewed. I had been so impatient with my other pregnancies, I had always found out the gender first. For our last pregnancy, I had wanted us to find out together, like the many gender reveals I had seen over the years. I asked the student to look over the results for me and to write down the gender on a slip of paper for me. She took quite a while to read my results, before writing the gender for me. She told me all of the results looked great.

I spent the next 8 hours of my shift elated, constantly checking my pocket to make sure I didn’t lose the paper.

That night I diverted to the store on the way home to ask an employee to package a cake for us to find out. Chocolate for a boy, strawberry for a girl. When I got back home, my husband was giving our girls a bath. I explained to our daughters that the cake would tell us if the baby was a boy or girl. My oldest told us that she knew the baby was a boy. While they played, we closed our eyes and took a bite of cake at the same time. Chocolate. We were so excited. Our first boy. It was amazing. Until I looked at the results to double check the gender and saw that the NIPT was positive for trisomy 18. T18 Edwards syndrome, a condition so rare that we had only covered it in the passing in nursing school. The chocolate turned to ash in my mouth as I sobbed uncontrollably haunted by the first set of search results. My perfect baby boy was incompatible with life. my daughter’s happy chant of “boy boy boy” felt like a cruel nightmare.

The MFM doctor saw us the next day. James had a large cystic hygroma and was measuring three weeks behind. His entire body was extremely swollen. I couldn’t look at the screen showing my baby anymore. It was too painful. I regret that so deeply, that I wasted one of my few opportunities to see him alive and moving. A CVS test was done at the appointment and we were warned that it would most likely be positive for trisomy 18.

We spent the next few weeks in agony. I was unable to sleep or eat. My husband started directing my meals, but I could only stomach a few bites at a time. Food continued to taste like ash. I prayed continuously for the test to be negative. I collapsed in the shower each night praying and holding my belly. I sang lullabies to him until my voice was hoarse. I cried until my eyes were swollen and painful, until I was unable to cry anymore. I spent every waking moment reading any research study I could find, desperately trying to find some reassurance that if the test was positive, my son could be born alive. Instead I found articles about how cystic hygromas in babies without chromosomal abnormalities had a 50% mortality rate and the mortality rate in babies like James were even higher.

James began to kick inside of me. Every movement was a precious gift that I was terrified to lose. On October 28th, the results confirmed our worst fears. Our baby would most likely not make it to term. All of my time learning how to help others in nursing school was useless. I couldn’t help my baby, the one person I wanted to save more than anything. I felt useless. I’m ashamed to admit that I prayed that I would miscarry so I wouldn’t have to make the choice to end my pregnancy myself. I loved him so much that choosing to end my pregnancy broke every fundamental piece of me.

I was willing to do anything to prevent my son from living in extreme pain, most likely unable to breath for the few minutes he was alive before passing. Every intervention they could do for him to live if he made it to term would be incredibly painful. Some of these interventions I have done or assisted with on adults on the floor I worked on. It was one thing to do them for patients who had a chance of recovery, of life. It would be cruel to do to prolong life for a few more hours for a suffering newborn. This was the only way I could help him.

I spent the days waiting for the appointment holding my belly and telling him how much I loved him. How sorry I was. How much I desperately wanted him. How I would do anything to save him but why I couldn’t. Why what happened next would happen.

On November 6th my pregnancy ended. We saw a rainbow on the way to the appointment, and in a way, it felt like his way of saying goodbye. I had a D and E, and cried desperately as they put me to sleep. When I woke up, I remember I was confused, and kept asking if he was truly gone. Holding him after the procedure was a small comfort, but the silence was so incredibly loud and painful. I never got to hear his heartbeat. I never got to see his face, only his arms and legs under a little blanket. The little I saw of him was so beautiful. I was so happy I could at least hold his little hand.

The experiences we never had with James still haunt me. We cremated James with a little lion stuffy, full of his parents and siblings love so he wouldn’t have to be alone for even a moment. We bought him a stocking for Christmas and memorial lockets with his picture in them. We talk about him almost every day, and his urn sits in our living room so he is able to be with us every day.

It has been two months since I  lost James. My body still feels desperately empty and wrong. I can eat now, and sleep most nights. I get overwhelmed at times by all the experiences that he lost. The only comfort I have is that I made the right choice and saved my baby from pain.