Midwest City mom turns loss into legacy after her infant son dies
Mom turns grief into “My Very Own Angel” ministry

BY LILLIE-BETH BRINKMAN, lbrinkman@opubco.com Comments 1
Published: October 22, 2009

Twenty-two weeks into her pregnancy, Stephanie Stewart learned the son she was carrying would not survive once he was born.

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My Very Own Angel

Oct 21Stephanie Stewart's organization provides teddy bears and support...

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On the Web

• www.myveryownangel.org
Stephanie Stewart’s organization providing support to parents who have lost children.

• www.vaydenjamesstewart.blog spot.com
Stewart’s personal blog about her journey carrying her son to term and the 3 hours and 45 minutes his parents got to spend with him before he died.

• www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org
The nonprofit organization that sends professional photographer volunteers to take bereavement photos of babies whom parents have lost or are about to lose.

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10/22/2009 Stephanie Stewart said that carrying her baby to term was one of the harder parts of her grief. She was in limbo for 18 weeks because she knew her son...

Doctors tried unsuccessfully in utero to do what they could to save Vayden Stewart, who suffered from a rare urinary tract obstruction that led to the failure of his kidneys. Because they knew he wouldn't survive after birth, they offered Stewart and her husband, Van, the option of terminating the pregnancy. Instead, she carried the baby living inside her to term and gave birth to him May 23 at 35 weeks.

He lived for 3 hours and 45 minutes.

“We got to see him open his eyes. We got to hear him cry,” Stewart said.

That magical amount of time that he lived and the love and peace his parents got to enjoy with him do not describe the difficult journey it took for her to get to that point or the one immediately afterward, when she and her husband took their baby to the morgue at the Children's Hospital at OU Medical Center and left with an “infant cap and a heavy heart.”

“You go in. You're supposed to have a baby and leave with a baby,” Stewart said.

These days, as Stewart commemorates October as National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, she has an online ministry, My Very Own Angel, to reach out to other moms who need the support she was looking for when she decided to go against medical advice and keep her baby for as long as possible.

She also has turned the amount of time that Vayden lived into a donation of 345 teddy bears with angel charms to give to families who lose infants. Using the money she had saved for Vayden's diapers, she created “My Very Own Angel” bears with angel charms and cards that read “Sorry for your loss. Please accept this teddy bear as a delicate reminder of your very own angel. Sincerely, Vayden's mommy and daddy.”

She has given 150 of the bears to the University of Oklahoma Children's Hospital and the OU Physicians Perinatal Diagnostic Center, and she expects to give another group of 115 to Mercy Health Center early next year and the rest after that.

“It's so bittersweet,” Stewart said, because she wants the teddy bears to help but she doesn't like the circumstances in which they're given away.

Now, Stewart's husband is deployed to South America with Tinker Air Force Base — until January. She enjoys spending time with her oldest son, Vashon, 2, and continues through her blog and her organization to offer support to moms who have lost their babies or find out they are going to lose their child.

“I believe you should praise God in the good and in the bad,” Stewart said. For Vayden, “We prayed for total and complete healing on earth or in heaven. I really truly believe that my prayers are answered.”