Brian & Tricia Frey: Saying Hello, Goodbye to Eden

For the full post by Tricia Frey about her daughter, Eden, click here .

Around 12:30, we are ready and the other doctor comes in and removes her tube. For the first time, we see our daughter’s whole face. Brian lifts her up and holds her, free of tubes. She makes a crying face twice, then settles. Tricia asks to hold her. In her embrace, Eden attempts maybe three slight breaths over the course of minutes. Otherwise, she is still. We sing and cry and pray her into the arms of her heavenly Father. At 1:20, the doctor comes in to listen for a heart beat. There is none. Our daugher has gone home to our Lord. Someone comes in to get ink foot and hand prints and to do plaster castings of both feet and one hand. We carry her to our room in the hospital to bathe her. Our nurse helps us set up and then a photographer from the hospital’s “Forget-Me-Not” program comes in to take pictures as she had on Eden’s second day. After the pictures, Tricia dresses Eden and we pack up our things. The funeral home driver comes and Eden is taken out of the hospital in the arms of her mother to be placed in his van — Tricia Frey /CDA Frey Family.

DFO: Brian and Tricia Frey are a young couple with two small children in my church, Hayden Bible/Miles Avenue. Earlier this month, they lost their daughter, Eden, after a lengthy battle to stabilize her in the womb and 10 days or some watching her struggle for life. Eden was born with abnormalities that put her survival chances at nil. Tricia chronicled those few precious days with her daughter in a wonderful testament to her faith. Some of you know that I lost a daughter at birth 23 years ago. Amanda. Tricia’s words touched me deeply. I’m grateful that she and Brian allowed me to share them with you. The best way to read the diary is from the bottom up. (BTW, you can read my own commentary from Feb. 9, 1984, the day we lost Amanda here .)