Meet BP member Candyrain.  Candy’s story really touched our hearts and we feel she’s deserving of the dress.  Here’s Candy’s broken hearted story:~I would just like to say first and foremost…Thank You for giving me this venue to finally get this off of my chest.

~My name is Jaye Gardner and I have always felt that I was meant to be a wife and a mother. Well…on February 14th 1993…the BEST thing outside of being with the man I was with at the time…was finding out that I was pregnant. Now…I had already been through 3 miscarriages before hand, but something felt different about this time. I was extremely happy and so was he. We went to Lamaze’ cla**es together and went through the whole morning sickness stuff and everything.

~I don’t know how…but I could just tell that I was gonna have a Beautiful Baby Boy. Also, the fact that only boy names came to mind. After alot of thought we decided on the name *Darrien Savon Raynard Stallworth*. I thought that it was the Most Beautiful name in the world. So finally after many months of excitement and anticipation, it was getting close to the time where I would finally get to see my sweet baby’s face.

~Now…I had my final doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, December 8th and the doctor told me that it would be anytime now that I would have my baby. After church on Thursday night December 9th, something felt weird. I started to have a lot of discomfort and felt pressure, so I did what I had learned in Lamaze’ cla** and I called my doctor. He just told me that if the pain got worse, head on over to the hospital…but if it stayed the same that I was probably having *Braxton Hicks* contractions better known as “false labor” pains.

~So, anyway…as the night went on the pain never really changed. In fact…It was still just discomfort. I “cat-napped” off and on up until morning. I would say at about 7am, I took a shower to kinda relax myself and take the edge off of some serious pain that had begun in my lower back. (Not to sound to graphic, but anyone reading this that has given birth will understand.) While in the shower, my mucus plug had fallen out pain was hitting me like crazy. My water had not broken yet though. At this point…I head on over to the hospital. Now, I figure as many dry-runs that we had taken…that my boyfriend must have really had it down, because he worked a good 30min. away and he met the ambulance as it pulled up to the hospital.

~Here I am like “Oh…Happy Day!!!” I was taken the back, all the nurses were telling me “Congrats and Happy Birthday to my Darrien”. The nurse comes in and puts that little microphone to my belly to hear the baby’s heartbeat…now she could not find it right away, but I wasn’t alarmed. It was always kinda hard to get, because Darrien was always moving around.She finally got it, but it sounded so faint and far away. So, as a precaution they took me to get an ultrasound. Now…I would have been okay about it if the ultrasound tech would have let me look at my baby. That is when I felt that something was extremely wrong. When I asked “why can’t I see my baby?” She just kept telling me to ask my doctor.

~Here I am trying not to think the worst, because I actually carried this one full term. I just thought: Maybe the baby had some sort of birth defect, or that the baby had to have surgery or something. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for what the doctor said to me when he came in my room. With his tear-filled eyes…my doctor told me that my sweet baby was…DEAD!!!

~I could not believe my ears and I looked at my boyfriend to see the reaction on his face…because maybe if I saw his reaction, then maybe the sound would come back in the room and I would realize what the heck he had just said. Now…I really think that my mind instantly went into denial mode, because I did not even cry. An hour later, my sweet baby boy was born. My mind was really tripping me, because the way they were running around with him…you know getting his weight, and footprints and stuff like that, I knew that they had made a mistake and that he was okay. It was when they let me hold him that I realized that he was gone. Outside of his marroon-colored lips and his tiny, little tongue hanging out of his mouth…he appeared to be just sleeping. He looked so peaceful and warm. I could not cry for some reason, and I didn’t understand it…because I LOVED that little boy more than myself, and his father was bawling uncontrollably.

~I held my baby until he started to change a pale grey color and couldn’t take seeing him that way so he was taken to the morgue until funeral arrangements were made. On the day of my son’s funeral…it was a brisk,cool morning. I had a gravesite funeral…he had a beautiful white casket with white satin interior.The outside was draped with the comforter that I had made for him. I swear, it wasn’t until after the pastor spoke and he getting ready to be put in the ground…that I was able to cry. It seemed like I started crying and couldn’t stop. I got down on my knees by his casket and rain started to pour, but I didn’t care…because I was saying farewell to my baby. I always thought that my children would be the one’s to out live and bury me, and there I was burying my first born. That was the worst Heartache and Heartbreak that I had ever felt in my life. I did not realize how raw my emotions still are even after all these years, because I didn’t realize that tears had been running down my face the entire time I was writing this.

~I now have 3 Beautiful daughters that God has blessed me with…and even though Darrien never took a breath outside my womb, I still tell my daughter’s about their brother and how I knew him on the inside for 9 glorious months. I tell you what…if I knew then what I know now, I would have gladly given my life for my son. This Year…I celebrate the 16th anniversary of my baby. I miss him and I Love him Dearly…He will never leave my mind or my Heart.

R.I.P
Darrien Savon Raynard Stallworth (12/10/93)
I LOVE YOU!!!

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xoxo,

Gift Gal