Pregnancy, Loss, Grief and a Testament of God's Faithfulness and Love
While this story is a slight detour of what I normally post, it needs to be shared! When I heard this story and then witnessed the real life events of Nikki and Cody’s life unfold, I was in awe of God’s provision and deep care in their life. I first heard their story of deep despair and grief at a church service at Calvary Community in Sumner. The loss of their baby girl was incredibly sad to hear, but the story of how God redeemed this tragic pregnancy is like no other.
I reached out to Nikki this past fall, eager to tell their story and take photos of their new baby boy when they welcomed him this winter. Take a minute, grab some tissues, and dive into this story of God’s true love for this family!
The Hawkins Family Testimony
“Cody and I both grew up in the Washington area, though ironically we met in the middle-of-nowhere Canada in our early twenties while working on summer staff for a mountaineering YoungLife camp called Beyond Malibu. I was a mountain guide, and Cody was the base camp coordinator. We lived essentially off the grid with a small staff of about 40 people and on the weeks I wasn’t guiding trips in the mountains we got to build an incredible friendship over the months we were there, and got married a year and a half later. We’ve now been married almost 6 years and have settled in downtown Puyallup.
In 2022 Cody and I were excited to begin growing our family and found out we were pregnant with a baby girl, a moment we had been dreaming of with excitement and anticipation for years. However, at our twenty week ultrasound that summer we found out our daughter, Skylar, had an extremely rare genetic condition that would “not be compatible with life” outside of my womb.
Our world shattered in that moment in a way that’s indescribable, when we became the statistic we never fathomed we’d be. Every dream and ‘plan’ we had was devastated in an instant.
After the initial shock subsided, we decided we were going to carry her in pregnancy for as long as God would give us, and soak up every moment of her life in my womb while she was with us.
Grief and shock came in waves constantly, but we were so intentional to be present and give that little girl every bit of love we could pour into her. We talked to her every night and would lay hands on her for hours feeling her rolling and kicking body inside of me. We would sing to her and pray over her- it was incredible how bonded we were to that little girl.”
Losing a Baby and Deep Grief
“At 34 weeks we hosted a celebration of life shower for her, to celebrate her life while she was still in my tummy- and my water broke and I started having contractions that very day. We didn’t tell anyone I was in labor- we wanted her celebration to purely be a celebration, and so we did just that- we threw our baby girl a beautiful party and she got to soak in and feel and hear everyone’s love and presence for her. We ended the shower in a time of prayer, about 40 people were there who prayed over her- and from there we went straight to the hospital to birth her, meet her, and say goodbye all at once.
We got to spend 70 minutes with our miracle girl alive, before she went to be with Jesus in the most peaceful way- she passed from her earthly daddy’s arm right into the hands of her heavenly father’s. I can only imagine what the beauty of that moment must have felt like for her.
The days and months that followed were depths of agony and grief that are hard to express. Realities, plans, conversations we never imagined ourselves having in our twenties- or ever. But we pressed into the waves of grief as they came, into community, and above all into Jesus. As hard and painful and confusing and messy as it was, we never stopped pressing into Jesus. And he was so, so faithful to meet us there. In such real and tangible ways we had never experienced or fathomed possible. Such a deeply painful but transformative season of life.
As months passed and we allowed grief to have its way with us and through us, feeling the waves of emotions as they came and went, we found ourselves surrendered to Jesus in every way but with kids. We could not get ourselves to trust him with the idea of children in any capacity again, we now knew we genetically carried this gene that could lead to the same outcome for our next baby. But adoption and fostering also felt too vulnerable on the wounded hearts. But individually we both kept sensing God pressing back on our deepest fear, asking us to give it to him in surrender. To trust him with children, that he loves them even more than we do. That he sees things we cannot. That he had more for us.
And so we surrendered.”
Welcoming Two Babies Home After Loss
“Two months later, in May, we found out we were pregnant with a baby boy. The week after that- we received an unexpected call from someone, that a baby girl had just been born and was in the hospital, she needed a home, and would we want to be that home.
We didn’t know what would come of either of these babies’ lives and ours, and if they’d get to stay or not, there was so much unknown- as there always is with the future. But we agreed God brought them to us in supernatural and miraculous ways, we had so much love to give, and so we said yes in faith- faith that He knows what He’s doing and His ways are higher than ours.
It has now been 16 months since Skylar passed from this life into Heaven. She’s been keeping God quite busy I’d say haha. We did say yes to the phone call, and got to bring home that sweet baby girl from the hospital. She’s now 9 months old and the happiest baby in the world, she is truly gifted with the joy of the Lord, she radiates joy and light in ways I didn’t know a human could. To know her is to absolutely love her. And she just became a big sister, as we welcomed our son into the world January of 2024, he is also happy, healthy, and thriving.
Our little loves are 8 months apart and have the sweetest bond already.
We know Skylar is SO proud of them, and I so strongly believe she has been able to sit with God, and joyfully be a part of how every detail is unfolding.”
How Surrender Turned to Miracles and Redemption
“The past 15 months of our life have been beyond wild and so hard to comprehend. We went from a family of two, to a family of five- with one baby in Heaven, followed by two babies on earth. Our first daughter, Skylar, set our life, who we are, how we live, how we view purpose and what we do with our time and our days- on a completely new trajectory. One I am forever grateful to her and Jesus for, in such a complex way that’s hard to explain. Her little life forced us to press into faith, into deep relationship with Jesus, into complete surrender of our lives, our thoughts, our plans– in ways I don’t think we ever would have otherwise. And the depths to which Jesus has met us in those moments has been profoundly life-shaking.
The depths of pain were and are so unfathomable, and yet we know it’s not the end of the story, we know we will all get to be united with Skylar again, and that there is also profound beauty and life that has come to us that may not have otherwise- we’ll never know. Though what we do know- is that we now have a new outlook and life trajectory lens that we live life with in the here and now, the time between earth and Heaven. And we are finding immense beauty and purpose still to be had in this in-between time, God has and is doing things with our willing hearts that we never would have fathomed or dreamed of.
Soon enough, we’ll all get to join Skylar- in the greatest celebration of all, but until then, we will press on with more intention than ever, in the in-between of right now. Living each moment fully present to the gift that it is and surrendered to the ways God is moving and working, right now. I don’t know what the rest of our story holds, but we’re here for it, and we do know how it ends. And for that, God is so, so good and kind.”
