If you missed the night before, start here.

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There are mornings that change you.

Not in the slow, gradual way that most change happens — where you look back years later and realize something shifted without you noticing. But in the immediate, irreversible way. The way that means there is a before, and there is an after, and the person on the other side is not quite the same as the one who woke up that morning.

June 17th was that morning for me.

She Came Earlier Than Expected

I had been started on induction medications the night before. After some pain management in the middle of the night I had managed to get a little sleep — fragile, in-and-out sleep, the kind that doesn’t quite reach the bottom. I had been mentally preparing myself for a long day. I assumed delivery would be closer to midday. Time to breathe. Time to gather myself.

But Lucy had her own timeline.

By early morning — earlier than any of us expected — she was here.

And the room that had been so quiet the night before was suddenly, gently, full.

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The Woman Who Showed Up

I need to tell you about my midwife.

I had trusted her through all five of my pregnancies — but due to the nature of on-call schedules, she had never actually delivered any of my children. Not my first, not my second. She had been present for so much of the journey and absent for every arrival.

But I had chosen her for a reason that went all the way back to my very first pregnancy — one that ended in an early miscarriage. She happened to be the one on call in the office that day. And it was her care, her honesty, and the way she treated me like a person rather than a patient that convinced me — this is who I want walking with me through this.

She had walked with me through loss and through joy and through every kind of pregnancy in between. And on the morning I needed her most — the morning none of us had ever imagined would come — she made sure she was there.

She rearranged her schedule. She showed up.

I will never forget that.

If you are in the early stages of pregnancy and you are choosing a provider — choose someone whose care you have felt on a hard day. Not just a good day. Because you do not know which kind of day is coming.

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The Nurses

I have thought about those nurses many times since those days I spent in their care – the day before and this morning.

They were professional and skilled and everything you would want in a medical team. But they were also something else — something that goes beyond training and job descriptions. They were human in the most beautiful way. Their eyes gave them away. You could see that they wished they could change it. You could feel that they cared — not just about doing their jobs well, but about us. About her.

That mattered more than I can say. In a moment when the world felt very cold and very hard, the warmth of the people in that room made us feel loved.

And then one of them asked us something I will never forget.

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Take the Pictures

When we learned we would deliver and the reasons around it, we had been offered the option of having a photographer come to document the birth.

We said no.

I understand why we said no. We had never imagined this would be our experience. We weren’t prepared for any of it — let alone the idea of a photographer in the room on the hardest morning of our lives. It felt like too much. It felt wrong somehow.

But our nurses — in their deep, quiet care for us — asked for our permission to take pictures themselves. Because they knew, even when we didn’t, that someday we would want them.

I am so glad we said yes.

I am so glad they asked.

Those pictures are some of the most precious things I own. They are proof that she was here. That she was real. That she was held. That she was loved – even though she never opened her eyes in this world.

So if you are ever in a similar moment — or if you are ever supporting someone who is — please hear me on this:

Take the pictures. (Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep is an amazing nonprofit that provides professional photographers for families experiencing infant loss).

It will not feel like the right thing to do in the moment. Do it anyway. You will be grateful for the rest of your life that you did.

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She Was Lucy Grace

I told you last week that Jonathon and I had not settled on her name.

We had it narrowed down to two. We had thought and prayed and gone back and forth — but we had not decided. And then suddenly we were facing the reality that we had less than twelve hours to choose. Her name would be the only thing we would have. No memories of her cooing or laughing or walking. No stories of how she loved people or what made her giggle or who she would have become.

Just her name.

I didn’t want to wait until I saw her. I was afraid that in the emotion of the moment I would still be unable to decide — that grief and joy and exhaustion would make the decision impossible.

But by the grace of God, the moment our midwife placed her on my chest —

We knew.

She was Lucy Grace.

Lucy — light. Grace — gift.

Gift of light.

She was small and perfect and entirely herself. And she was ours — for that morning, for that day, for always.

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The Gift of a Full Day

We were able to spend most of that day in the hospital room with her.

Our parents came. Close friends came. The people who loved us most showed up and sat with us and held her and cried with us and made that room feel less like a place of loss and more like a place of love.

I did not expect that.

I did not expect that the hardest day of my life would also contain some of the most tender, sacred moments I have ever experienced. The way grief and gratitude can exist in the same room at the same time — I did not fully understand that until that day.

She never took a breath in this world. But she was not alone. And neither were we.

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What Lucy Grace Left Behind

Lucy has changed the way I live my life.

Not in spite of losing her — because of it.

She has helped me solidify my faith in ways I never could have anticipated. My faith is not in myself or in what I can control. It is not in my circumstances. It is not even in the people closest to me — as much as I love them. My faith is rooted in God’s love for me. In His presence in hospital rooms in the middle of the night. In the peace that showed up when it had absolutely no business being there.

That faith is available to you too.

Not because life will go the way you planned. Not because God will always answer the way you asked. But because He is faithful — in the before, in the after, and in every hard middle in between.

Lucy Grace — gift of light.

She was here for such a brief, beautiful moment.

And she is not done yet.

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“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” — John 1:5

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Next week I will share the story of Madison Joy — my sweet niece, the baby girl whose loss started this whole journey, and the little boy whose morning question changed everything. If you don’t want to miss it, subscribe below.

And if Lucy Grace’s story touched you today — share it. You never know whose hospital room this might find its way into.

The Old to New Journals were designed for spiritual formation – if you are in a season of grief or longing for spiritual formation, check them out!