Just after Father’s Day in 2002, after weeks of feeling sick and missing work, my husband Jonathan and I got the surprising news that I was pregnant. Surprising because I had been on birth control for over a year, never missing a pill. Even more surprising because my menstrual cycle had not stopped. There was no reason to think I was pregnant, yet, the fact remained. While shocked, we were immediately ecstatic. We couldn’t wait to welcome a new little one into our happy home.

Within a few days, the shock continued as I lay in my doctor’s office seeing our new little life moving on the screen during the first ultrasound. It turned out I was already 15 weeks into the pregnancy. This little baby had been alive inside me for the whole first trimester and we never knew it. It was a relief to see the baby move and to see the heartbeat, but there was some concern. Because I had been taking birth control pills while I was pregnant, we would have to have some testing done to be sure there weren’t any complications. A few weeks later, I had a consultation with the perinatologist. After a very thorough ultrasound, he gave us the news we were praying to hear…the baby was fine.

Around that time, the nausea subsided and the next month was filled with joy. Jon and I took a stroll through the baby stores, deciding what the nursery would look like and what things we would need for the baby. We ate out at all of our favorite restaurants. We lay in bed and talked to the baby, telling her how loved she was already, by so many. We made a list of people to invite to the baby shower. And we prayed that the Lord would make us good parents.

Just days after seeing the perinatologist, I woke up to get ready for work, went to the bathroom and knew instantly that something was wrong. I could feel the amniotic sac bulging out. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. I woke Jon up and told him through my tears that we needed to go to the hospital. When we arrived at emergency and it was determined that I was 20 weeks and 2 days into the pregnancy, we were sent immediately to Labor & Delivery.

Everything from that point on happened so fast. I was put in a room and examined by one of the nurses. She could see right away that the cervix had opened and the sac was coming through. My doctor was called but before she got there, the perinatologist came in to examine me. I remember so clearly him saying, “What happened? I just saw you a few days ago?” I was in total confusion. My bed was tilted with my head towards the floor, in the hopes that the amniotic sac would recede enough for the cervix to be stitched closed. The doctors and nurses all explained what was happening at every step, but none of it mattered. We just wanted our baby to be ok.

Later in the day, I was moved to a different room and I started having contractions. The fetal monitor was strapped on and the baby’s heartbeat was fine, but my body was going into labor. The nurses told us that because the baby was so small, there wasn’t really anything they could do to sustain life if she was born at this point. There was a lot of medical terminology and so many choices to make. It was the definition of a nightmare. But Jon and I, with our families by our sides, prayed for a miracle.

During the night, the contractions got worse and the sac had not receded enough for anything to be done. The next morning, after being examined by the doctor and talking with our families, we decided to start the medication that would induce labor. There was no going back. We were told what the baby would probably look like and that we could see and hold the baby or not, it was up to us. We couldn’t seem to think that far in advance. Everything was one moment at a time.

That afternoon, August 1st, 2002, after just a couple of hours and a couple of pushes, our Elena Rebekah was born. I asked for her right away, “Where’s my baby?” and she was placed in my arms. We were awestruck at her perfection. Everything was there, her eyebrows, her perfect little mouth and her tiny toenails. If there had ever been any doubt in my mind about the beauty of God’s creation, this little one swept it all away. I knew I was in the presence of His true beauty and goodness, and I was holding the work of His hand. And the love we felt as we adored her was greater than any we’d ever known.

I was whisked away to recovery and while I was gone, every one of our family members and friends who had come to the hospital had the chance to hold our little girl. Up to this point, I hadn’t even thought about her name. Jon and I had picked out the names for our future children years before. But it just hadn’t entered my mind. My next memory is of being wheeled back to our room and hearing the voices of our loved ones talking about Elena. It struck me then that she did have a name, she was a real little person, she had a life. I remember feeling overwhelming joy that Elena was the result of a wonderful love and that love was all she ever knew.

We spent the rest of the day with our daughter, crying as we held her, telling her how much we were going to miss her. Toward the end of the day, after everyone else had gone home, Jon, Elena and I shared our most precious moments together as a family. We prayed that the Lord would keep Elena in His care and we thanked Him for watching over her. At about 10:30 that night, we were finally ready to let her go. While the pain felt so great, it was nothing compared to what we would feel the next day as we left the hospital without her. And again, days later as her body was laid to rest.

It didn’t take long to realize that Elena was the answer to prayer. What happened to her was not the miracle we’d prayed for, but she was a miracle just the same. We had some photos, her hand and footprints and other special mementos of hers saved at home, but still I was prompted to make a bracelet for myself with peridot, Elena’s birthstone. I wore it every day and realized that it was such a beautiful way to memorialize our daughter’s life.

As Mother’s Day approached in 2003, Jon mentioned that maybe I could make similar bracelets for other moms who had suffered a similar loss. I thought that was a great idea, but had no clue where to begin. I began looking online for parent bereavement resources and found so much helpful information. We just decided that if this was something important and something the Lord wanted us to pursue, it would happen.

On May 11, 2003, with generous donations from friends and an article about the Mother’s Bracelets in our local newspaper, we launched The Shining Light Fund. The name was easy to come up with. While I was pregnant, I had looked up the meanings of baby names and found that Elena means “shining light.” And that’s exactly what she is. I thank God everyday for her brief life that has changed us forever, that inspired The Shining Light Fund and that has given hope to grieving moms around the world.