Big Blessings ...

After we received the diagnosis and started investigating the experiences of others, we were somewhat frustrated at our inability to find a perinatal specialist who understood our decision to continue the pregnancy. About halfway through the pregnancy, a friend of ours saw a profile on a local news channel about the fetal concerns program at The Children’s Hospital. It was hard for Erin to make that call, but we are so thankful for the help we received. It was a tremendous encouragement for us to find experts in this field of medicine that valued Zachary’s life as much as we do. Of course, the medical advice and experience they provided was also invaluable.

I first met Bill Meyer at a picnic for family’s at our church that have adopted or were in the process of adopting when we saw him taking pictures there. I remember Erin looking through the pictures from that picnic and talking about what great pictures he had taken. Erin already knew his wife, Dawn, from working the Sunday School check-in desk on Sunday mornings, and after we found out about Zachary’s condition, Dawn told her about The Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation, which Bill volunteers with to provide families in situations like ours with a professional portrait session to capture memories and share their lives.

Bill was able to come to the hospital shortly after Zachary was born and spend over an hour capturing pictures of him and our family. He also spent the next few days working on the slideshow tribute for Zachary’s memorial. We watch it every day. I have told Bill more than once that I will never be able to pay him back for the gift he has given to us (and I know he expects no such thing), but I pray for God’s blessing on him and his family. You can find out more about Bill and his photography work here: http://www.williamjmeyer.com

In the late summer of 1995, at the start of my sophomore year at the University of Colorado, I made a visit to Calvary Bible Church to check it out. It is easy for me to see now that the care and support, both spiritually and physically, we received throughout Erin’s pregnancy and in preparation for Zachary’s life was thirteen years in the making. In the days following Zachary’s death and in preparation for his memorial, Calvary provided so much help. Erin and I wondered many times that week at how people going through an experience like this do it without the love, support and help we were provided.

Over a breakfast with another father who had to bury his son, I learned about the generous service that Crist Mortuary and Mountain View Cemetery provide to parents who lose a baby in Boulder. Zachary’s body is buried in the portion of Mountain View’s cemetery known as “Baby Land.” The cemetery, which is just across the street from Calvary Bible Church, was extremely generous in donating the plot and all of the labor that goes with a burial. It was and is a sweet blessing.