Over the transom:
Dear Ann,
I wanted to thank you for sharing that information in your blog a while back regarding the truth concerning the death of unbaptised infants and going on into information about conditional baptism wherein the form changes slightly to “if you are able to be baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Som, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
My wife was 6 weeks pregnant. Bleeding started and looked to be more then more “spotting”, so she set an appointment with the ob/gyn in the afternoon of the next day. On that following day it wasn’t any better, maybe worse. Her ob/gyn encouraged her to go on into the ER, so she did. Ultrasound detected a faint heartbeat. They couldn’t exactly explain the bleeding–only that she would either miscarry or the baby will be carried to term, but they couldn’t do anything for her, so she came home.
Within 2 hours after coming home, she miscarried. “I think this is it,” she told me tearfully, having called me into the bathroom. I took our baby from her hands, who fit easily in one palm, so in the bathroom sink I administered conditional baptism.
So much is unknown. Baby had a faint heartbeat hours before in ultrasound and whether death occurred in utero and then my wife miscarried or whether the baby died almost immediately post miscarriage, there is only a slight chance that the soul was still present in the moment of baptism to save our child. I do not know and will not know in this life, but there comes much peace with the hope that our child may be with Jesus now because I had the presence of mind and knowledge how to administer conditional baptism thanks to the article you shared on your blog some time ago that covered this. So thank you for sharing this information. It really helped us make the most of a difficult situation.
I’ll mention reverent disposal of a miscarriage is a touchy subject, but there’s an organization called “A Mom’s Peace” that is good to be aware of. Closest location to us was just over 2 hours, but we couldn’t afford using a conventional funeral home. Tomb markers alone are north of $2000 at the LOW end of the price range. We found a monastery with a child cemetery using donated land and through the use of the nonprofit organization “A Mom’s Peace” everything from scheduling to finding a priest or deacon to perform the burial service is taken care of and they won’t turn you away if you can’t even afford to give that much. Even recommended donations only ran upwards of a few hundred dollars tops, but it was always stressed “just give what you can and we will take care of this for you.” This gave us much needed closure and a means to provide proper reverent disposal of human remains without “breaking the bank” to do so.
https://www.amomspeace.org
