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Paul and Kristen Sowa hold 'Baby Paul.' They learned halfway through the pregnancy that their son had a rare birth defect and would probably live only minutes.
Paul Sowa plans to get a tattoo of the image of his son's tiny feet nestled in his hands. The dad is grateful for the time his son lived.
The Sowas' children, Joel, 10, and Emily, 7, pray for their baby brother every night. Joel said he asked Paul to help him play well during a recent ball game, and Joel said he 'struck out, like, five kids.' |
By CATHY DYSON
Moments after Kristen and Paul Sowa held their newborn son for the first time, they had to tell him goodbye.
Paul Thomas Rocky Sowa--"Baby Paul"--lived only three minutes.
His time on this earth was as fleeting as a song, but to the family he left behind, to those who discovered halfway into the pregnancy that his life would end before it started, those moments were golden.
"I'm just happy that he was in our life and that we had a few minutes of heaven with him," his mother said.
Baby Paul was born and died on July 29.
He had a birth defect called Trisomy 18 that causes an extra chromosome and various internal problems. Doctors first noticed a heart defect on an ultrasound, which led to a test that confirmed the birth defect.
Baby Paul's condition was rare, but as the Sowas of Spotsylvania County came to discover, more babies die than they could have imagined.
"Very often, when I meet with a family, their first reaction is surprise," said Tammy Ruiz, the Mary Washington Hospital coordinator who counsels about 100 families a year going through such losses.
The figures she shares are staggering.
Across the nation, 50,000 babies die every year--half before birth and the others, like Baby Paul, within their first month of life.
That doesn't include the thousands of miscarriages before the 20th week of pregnancy, Ruiz said.
She often answers questions from parents-to-be about how a baby's death could have been prevented. Most times it couldn't have, she said.
"There's a misconception that babies die because doctors make mistakes," said Ruiz. "The vast majority of cases occur because of circumstances that you wouldn't be able to anticipate or change."
A PLACE TO CALL HOME
Kristen and Paul Sowa have been married nine years. She has a 10-year-old son, Joel, from a previous marriage, and they have a daughter together, 7-year-old Emily.
Paul is a master sergeant in the Marine Corps, and his family moved to Massaponax from New Jersey three years ago.
Avid Yankees fans, Paul coaches in the Spotsylvania County Little League and Kristen serves on the board. She works for the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office and is active with the Riverview Elementary School PTO.
When the Sowas first came to Spotsylvania, they needed a church where Joel could continue his religious-education classes.
They checked out St. Matthew Catholic Church and decided to join. Paul and the children were Catholics, but Kristen was not.
She was so moved by the warmth and fellowship that she became a Catholic in October 2007.
Being in that church would help her get through the worst moments of her life.
ONCE IN 3,000 BIRTHS
Paul and Kristen were decorating their Christmas tree the afternoon Kristen found out she was pregnant.
Paul asked her to pass him an extension cord, and she handed him the pregnancy test instead. He had no idea what was happening, until she said, "Happy Birthday."
Her due date was near his birthday, July 21.
"He grabbed me and hugged me, and I cried and cried. I was so scared due to my age," said the 36-year-old. "I almost knew then there was something wrong. Call it mother's intuition."
For Christmas, the children got sweatshirts saying that they were going to be a big brother and big sister.
By spring, the family knew the baby was a boy. The pregnancy was no different from Kristen's other two--she had no problems to speak of--and she went through the normal tests.
She got the cruel news at the cruelest of times.
On April Fools' Day, she learned that the heart defect doctors found was actually Trisomy 18, a condition that occurs once in 3,000 births and severely affects every organ in the body.
She and Paul talked "and had a major meltdown, and that was the beginning of our trip down this road," Kristen said.
'THIS DUDE'S A FIGHTER'
After the couple told the children, Kristen read as much as she could tolerate. She found out that boys, especially, tend to be stillborn, and those who are alive at birth typically survive only minutes.
She heard that some mothers were advised to end the pregnancy and spare themselves the agony of carrying to full term a baby who might not breathe its first breath.
"For me, there was no decision," Kristen said. "Whatever time we had, we would definitely look forward to."
And, she kept wondering, what if the doctor was wrong? What if their baby was among the minority who live for a few months?
Meanwhile, the Sowas picked out a name. Paul passed along his, and Joel chose Thomas, after Kristen's father.
Emily selected Rocky.
Kristen smiled as Emily explained her reasoning.
Seems that her baby brother was kicking and punching his mother as much as any baby in the womb could. That had to be a good sign, the Sowas thought.
"This dude's a fighter," Kristen told herself. "It seemed he was absolutely fine."
EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER
Kristen couldn't always say the same about herself. She forced herself to stay busy, to keep her mind active so she wouldn't fall off the emotional roller coaster she was riding.
She'd feel the baby's kicks and think he had to be healthy. Then she'd remember the lethal statistics.
She was thrilled as the baby grew, but fearful of what delivery would bring.
As the pregnancy progressed, she tried to wear shirts that wouldn't show her bulging belly. It was hard to smile and answer questions about the baby's gender and her due date.
Always, in the back of her mind, she feared her family would have to say goodbye to Baby Paul as soon as they said hello.
She and her husband found comfort in their church family.
Ruiz, the hospital's perinatal bereavement coordinator, attends St. Matthew. So does a hospice nurse who offered her help if the baby made it home, and a couple who went through almost identical circumstances a decade ago.
Help and food were available throughout the pregnancy and in the weeks after Baby Paul's burial in Quantico National Cemetery.
"Being able to look somebody in the eyes who's been there, done that, you feel like you're not so alone," Kristen said. "There's people there to talk to, to hug."
PRECIOUS MOMENTS
Baby Paul was due Aug. 3, but the Sowas decided to induce early, while he still seemed strong. They made arrangements for relatives from the Northeast and West Coast to join them.
Their priest was nearby, and Joel and Emily were ready to baptize their baby brother as soon as he was born.
The family was thrilled when the baby made it through the birth canal alive.
He didn't cry, though.
"I did," Emily added, as her mother retold the story.
After the baptism, Kristen remembers a nurse saying to get him to his parents, that he was fading fast. They looked into his dark blue eyes for a few precious moments before he was gone.
Ruiz arranged for a photographer to take pictures of Baby Paul.
Rosanne Rainville of Rose Photography in Fredericksburg captured the moments when Paul kissed his son's forehead and Emily snuggled against her baby brother's shoulder.
The baby looked peacefully asleep as his grandmother cradled him and his brother looked down at him.
Rainville is a volunteer with the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation, which offers photographic services to families whose babies die. She has worked with more than a dozen families in two years, providing lasting memories of fleeting moments.
She was moved by the Sowas' spirit.
"Whenever I spoke with Paul and said I was so sorry the baby lived only three minutes, he would say, 'Three minutes is an awful long time to be thankful for,'" Rainville recalled.
'WE HAD THREE MINUTES'
Kristen stills sees people who don't know that Baby Paul died, and she has to tell them he didn't make it.
She feels horrible because she knows the effect it has on others. She wants everyone to know that she and her family are grateful they had Baby Paul in their lives.
Someday, she believes, she'll understand why he had to leave so soon.
"I don't want anybody to feel sorry for us. We had three minutes with him, and we had the whole pregnancy," Kristen said. "I wouldn't change a thing--other than the outcome."
Cathy Dyson: 540/374-5425
Email: cdyson@freelancestar.com
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MARY WASHINGTON HOSPITAL is one of three facilities in Virginia that offer perinatal hospice for families whose babies die before or shortly after birth. There are 60 such programs in the nation, and in October, Mary Washington will host a conference for perinatal hospice officials; 540/741-3268 or perinatalhospice .org.
The NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP FOUNDATION provides free photographic services to families whose babies die shortly after birth. Eight photographers in the Fredericksburg region volunteer their services; nowilaymedowntosleep.org. AN EVENT TO REMEMBER babies who died is planned Oct. 3. See Page E1 for story. |
