My baby’s heart had stopped at 32 weeks, just stopped no reason. They couldn’t see it, couldn’t hear it. As I lay in the hospital bed just hours later, they had to give me medication to make me go to sleep. As I am sleeping I have this dream, a dream of a horse but not just any kind of horse, a pure white horse in the most beautiful field that I have ever seen or dreamed about. I get to pet a wild horse, it is so kind and gentle and makes me feel at peace when I am with it. My husband thinks something is wrong because I have my hand in the air so he wakes me up and asks me what’s wrong and so I tell him about my dream and he smiles at me and I smile back. They have induced me at this point and I go to bed.
Next day my mom comes to sit with me and my husband, she would have stayed all night if I let her but I know she needed rest because I know I needed her. At this point my husband attempts to rest and sleep because he was up all night with me. My contractions have started and man they hurt so the doctor gives me this strong pain medication and it makes me go straight to sleep and I’m back in this beautiful field. As I stand there, the pure white horse comes running almost flying to me and just stands there and lets me pet him once more. At this point I am now where I can hear what is going on around me and I hear my mom say what is she doing and my husband responds she is petting a horse so she lets me be.
I wake up because the pain is getting more and more intense so my mom makes me get the epidural. It helps with the pain but it’s more than just the pain of contractions, it’s the pain that my baby, my perfect baby, was about to be here with no life and there was nothing I could do to change that. I try to go to sleep so my time goes by faster but it just felt like time was standing still. The nurse came to check and see how I was doing and she said I had a couple more hours to go but within seconds of her walking out the door he was coming, he was on his way out. The doctor came in and there we had our perfect baby boy. I held him in my arms just praying for him to breath or move but nothing so I just looked at his beautiful face in awe of what me and my amazing husband created. I didn’t want to give him back but they said they had to clean him up and they would bring him back to me.
As I lay there my family comes in to see how I am doing and I lie and say I’m ok. Without me wanting to, I passed out but I could still hear everyone talking but I was back, back in my dream but this time it was different. I was holding my baby and there was a man that was as bright as the sun on the horse, but I could look at him just fine without seeing his face. He was there personally to come take my perfect baby boy to heaven and to tell me that he was going to watch over him for me and that everything was going to be ok. I smiled and kissed my baby boy on the head and told him that Mommy and Daddy will always love and miss him and to be good my sweet boy. And I handed him to the man I saw as God and watched as they went flying on this pure white horse.
As I wake I hear my husband saying she is smiling and I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to cry, not in front of everyone. I wanted to be strong so they knew we were going to be ok but they asked why I was smiling and I had to tell them God’s message so they felt the peace that I got when I was told.
-Brittany & Hampton Franklin
North Carolina
Published 8/5/16