Everley

In September 2019 my husband and I got married and we knew we wanted a child right away. We found out around Christmas time of 2019, that we were expecting our first little baby. We were so excited to tell our family and friends. Everything was going absolutely perfect. We did genetic testing and found out baby was a little girl. We started prepping our home, and buying all the little girl things. We also decided to name her “Everley Love.” My husband has a heart defect, and our midwife suggested we do a scan of baby girl's heart to check if she had inherited the defect, and if she did what interventions at a early stage we could take. Her heart scan came back absolutely perfect however, during that scan, we found out she had a Single Umbilical Artery (SUA) which, though none were present at the time, can be associated with numerous other defects including heart and kidney or chromosomal defects. SUA only occurs in about 1% of births. Since she only had one artery the blood was not filtering out of her body fast enough, and it caused intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). We were told everything would be fine at that appointment, and to follow up in a few weeks.

Our sweet Everley never made it a few weeks, and a week after this appointment, we heard the words “I am sorry, there is no heartbeat” after I had not felt her move that morning and could not locate her heartbeat using my Doppler.

On May 21st 2020, we delivered our sweet girl sleeping at almost 29 weeks pregnant, she was 1 pound and 13 ounces, and as beautiful as we imagined.

We honor Everley by doing the Halos walk every year. Halos of the St. Croix Valley is a local nonprofit organization run by parents who have lost children. They help families suffering from the loss of their child by providing financial, emotional, and ongoing support.

We light a candle in her honor during Christmas and celebrate her birthday every year. We make sure to always talk about her to her sisters so they always know who she is.