Celebrating our Daughter’s 1st Birthday: What We Did & Why We Did It
ARTICLE BY SHANAE THOMPSON
Our daughter Eloise was born on January 29, 2021 and lived for three absolutely beautiful days before dying from complications caused by Trisomy 18. We refer to Eloise’s three days that she lived outside of my womb as our “Eloise Days.” At the time of writing, we are a few weeks out from having celebrated Eloise’s first birthday and having completed our first year of milestones.
When approaching major milestones such as birthdays, what will feel best (or least bad) for each family will vary. My hope is that by reading through some of our thought process, you will be given more clarity regarding how you might like to honor your baby on their birthday, particularly their first birthday. Also, your baby’s value in no way depends upon how much or little you do for these milestones. Their value and worth is inherently rich and bestowed upon them by the Lord. Your actions are not a measurement of the amount of love you carry for your child in Heaven.
Our Thought Process
I have a planner personality and mulled over what to do for Eloise’s first birthday and our Eloise Days for several months. For us, a weekend away made sense for several reasons.
First, Eloise was born in a city two hours away from our very rural town and lived out her three days there. It felt right to us to be in “her” city. Second, I wanted those days to have distinction and going out of town provided that from other days spent at home. Being away from home meant there were fewer distractions, a greater focus on being together, and provided activity options.
Our other considerations involved our son, who turned three just before Eloise’s first birthday. We needed to be able to involve our son in whatever we did. Having activities to do together makes that easier. We also desire for our son and, Lord-willing, any future children to see and experience that our family is better for having Eloise as a part of it, even if she’s not here with us. One way we aim to do this is by doing something fun and special together as a family for Eloise’s birthday.
What We Did
We booked a lovely AirBNB home in “Eloise’s” city for two nights. Our stay spanned from Friday to Sunday, which were the days of the week that Eloise lived. This meant our dates were shifted slightly from the actual dates that Eloise lived. I was just fine with this and recognized that if we go away again for future birthdays, the dates will very well be even more adjusted. But doesn’t that happen all the time with birthday parties for living children? It is okay to be flexible on dates if that is going to be a better fit for your family in the big picture.
Going out of town and getting through the first birthday milestone are two big feats themselves, so we did not plan many specific activities. Our one big, planned outing was to a butterfly house/aquarium. Butterflies are a beautiful image of transformed bodies and new life, which our babies are perfectly enjoying in Heaven. We (correctly!) thought this would feel special for our toddler son. Throughout the weekend, we also enjoyed playing at interesting playgrounds, having access to fun food options, and being able to go shopping– low-key, highly flexible activities.
Having a special birthday dessert was the one other important element for us. We don’t care much for cake, so we instead enjoyed a cheesecake with a special Eloise cake topper and a “1” candle. We also enjoyed a few food items throughout the weekend that reminded us of Eloise and her pregnancy.
We brought along many of Eloise’s special items and placed them around our AirBNB, thus filling the space with touches of her. My husband and I took time to go through her special photo album together. We reflected often on memories of our time with Eloise and the countless unexpected blessings of our time with her. Many tears were also shed.
My husband took off the Friday of our Eloise Days weekend and also took off the Monday after we got home. Leaving a “grief hangover” buffer day between our weekend away and coming home was a great gift to ourselves. It was helpful for our family to have a slower family day at home, which included recalling floods of memories surrounding coming home from the hospital without our beloved baby.
In the future, we may not block off so much time for Eloise’s birthday. Or, we might just make that an annual family trip time. We plan to take it one year at a time and to do what feels good with our entire family’s needs and preferences in mind. I think one of the biggest things we did that helped make Eloise’s first birthday go well was that we knew what our top couple of priorities for the weekend were and we planned around them. Everything else was kept flexible and held lightly.
The weekend could not be perfect. No matter what we did, Eloise herself would still be missing. But Eloise’s weekend was still sweet and filled with many touches of her.
Parenting Through the Milestone
Taking quiet time to just reflect on Eloise’s life and legacy together as a couple was a part of our weekend, typically happening intermittently throughout the days. With a toddler, quiet reflection could not be the main focus of the weekend. Taking our entire family’s needs into account helped to clarify plans for our weekend.
For every fun, positive thing we did for Eloise’s birthday or any kind gift we received (especially if it interested our son), we emphasized their direct connections to Eloise. We went to the butterfly house for Eloise’s birthday. The Bluey board game included in a generous gift basket from women at church was for Eloise’s big brother. Those balloons? To celebrate Eloise.
Our hope is that by helping our living children connect positive additions to our lives directly with their sister in Heaven, they’ll experience how our family and lives are better for having Eloise. Our living children are each going to have to walk through their own grief processes, even if they did not get to meet Eloise (a layer of grief itself). They also experience their parents working through grief. Eloise brings her Daddy and I tremendous joy, too, and we want our other children to be brought into the joy as well as we all learn to hold joy and sorrow together in close tandem.
Meet Shanae
Shanae and her husband Seth are the parents of three children-- a three-year-old boy in their hands, Eloise Rose in Heaven, and another girl in their hopes due July 2022. Eloise was diagnosed with Trisomy 18 at 25 weeks of pregnancy and lived out three beautiful, sacred days before being completely healed in the presence of the Lord. Shanae's background is in teaching children and now embraces being home to raise their children at home in middle-of-nowhere Iowa.
Read more from Shanae on The Morning Blog here.
Connect with Shanae: @shanae_roset
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