Poem

Beautiful Poem Remembers Baby Who Lived for Just Two Hours After Birth

by Steven Ertelt 

A mother has written a beautiful poem to honor her daughter, who tragically lived for just two hours after birth.
Tanya Coonan was expecting twins but one little girl, Lillie, was affected by iniencephaly, a condition which is life-limiting. When she was born, Tanya and her family held her in their arms for 2 hours and ten minutes before she passed away.
“Although I will never be free of the heartache of losing Lillie, I’m blessed to have seen her beautiful face and touched her tiny hand. That means so much to me” Tanya has said. “She is my daughter.”
A campaign called Every Life Counts, which honors children whose lives were tragically cut short and their parents’ decision to not have an abortion, provides more background on Lillie’s story:

In November 2012, I was told in my local hospital in Co. Tipperary that I was having identical twins. I was sent to the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street in Dublin to be scanned, to confirm the babies were identical, I was under a head doctors’ care she told us at my 13 week scan that one of my babies wouldn’t survive another week in the womb and that there was a possibility of the other twin passing also.
I was sent back for another scan the following week. where the doctor was surprised that twin “A” was still alive. It was suggested to me to abort twin “A” over in England, but I would never do that to my baby.
Weeks, months passed, and both twins still had strong heartbeats.I was scanned every two weeks in Holles St, my boyfriend and I would travel from Tipperary the night before or the morning of the appointments, this in itself was hard because we were always worried what we would be told at each appointment. Soon enough we found out I was having twin girls, and that one of the girls had a fatal foetal anomaly, severe curved spine and a variant of limb body wall complex. They said she had no viability with life.
But my baby fought on and at 35 weeks gestation, I was booked for a c-section and my twin girls were delivered on the 9th of April. I was convinced at that time that twin “A”, wouldn’t survive the birth, but she did.
We named her Lillie, she weighed 1.7kg and she lived for 2 hours and ten mins before she passed away in my arms. Her daddy and both her grannies were able to say goodbye to her, and hold Lillie for the first and last time.

Now, Tanya has written a beautiful poem to honor her daughter, which is reproduced below: