Owen the Warrior

This is such a sweet little family.  I heard updates as the pregnancy progressed from Owen's grandma, who is my good friend.  My heart ached for them, and I remembered what it was like to carry a baby with a condition "incompatible with life."  

I see smiles of hope through the heartache on the faces of Amy and Jason, and I love the faces of their adorable daughter and particularly angel baby Owen.  It almost looks as if he is wanting to give his mom a kiss.

We look forward to having them as Dove Releasers at the Running with Angels 5K this year!

My husband and I found out May of 2014 that we were expecting our second child. We were beyond thrilled, and the pregnancy seemed to progress normally. The baby was growing well and a quad marker screening came back normal, so we went into our 20 week anatomy ultrasound confident and excited to learn the gender and see our little baby. I remember thinking as the tech completed the ultrasound that she seemed overly focused. She told us the baby was a boy and hardly said another word. When the doctor came in after the ultrasound, he met us with a calm, but sad, face and said words I will never forget. “I want to be honest with you and tell you that we saw some very concerning things in the ultrasound.” I sat there with my 18 month old daughter in my lap, clutching my husband’s hand as he proceeded to explain that our baby boy had many markers that led them to believe that there was a chromosomal issue of some form. An amniocentesis confirmed our fears, as we learned that our baby had a condition called Trisomy 13, a condition that only occurs in about 1 in every 16,000 newborns and is ultimately incompatible with life. We were told that if our baby made it to delivery, his life would be very brief.

Our hearts were broken as we tried to come to terms with the fact that our son would not have the life we had envisioned for him. Knowing that there was a chance that the pregnancy may be the only time we would have with our sweet baby, we decided to make memories with him before he was born. We went to the zoo, to the beach, to a BYU football game, took family pictures, etc. I made him a quilt and recorded memories of the pregnancy. We decided on the name Owen, which means “young warrior,” and anxiously awaited the opportunity to hold our little boy.

At 8:47pm on December 23, 2014, Owen Charl Evans was born. It took him a few minutes to breathe, but our little fighter held true to his name and blessed our family with 18 precious hours of life before returning home to his Heavenly Father. Those hours will forever be remembered as some of the sweetest and most sacred of our lives. He was snuggled and sang to by mom and dad all through the night, read to and loved on by his big sister, greeted by a loving and supportive family, and ultimately knew nothing but love in his short life.  

Although we feel him close in spirit, we wish each and every day that Owen could be here with our family. We talk about him freely and even our little two year old blesses “baby brudder” in her prayers and finds ways to let us know she's thinking of him often. We are grateful for the opportunity to honor him and share his story.