A Proverbs 31 kind of story
Co-owner of Whimsy Green shares what it’s like to lose a child and growing closer to God because of it.
By Bri Shaw | Features Reporter
Whimsy Green co-owner, Allison Lundeen, rested in the doctor’s chair during her second ultrasound not knowing she was about to hear the worst news of her life. The sticky gel seeped on her pregnant belly while the nurse rubbed the transducer over it. A splotchy, 3D image of a tiny human appeared on the screen. It was a girl. Juliet Faith. Her soon-to-be third child.
While the nurse began examining the baby further, a look of concern spread across her face. Moments later, they analyzed the screening even more at the Maple Grove hospital, and came to the conclusion that Lundeen’s baby had Edward’s Syndrome.
According to the U.S. Library of Medicine, Edwards Syndrome, otherwise formally called Trisomy 18, is a severe genetic disorder that causes babies to be incompatible with life. This happens when a third copy of the 18th chromosome occurs and causes babies to grow too slowly before being born. This means the baby will have abnormalities like clenched fists with fingers overlapping, organ defects, deformed heads, a small jaw and a severe intellectual disability. Most babies with this condition die before birth or don’t live beyond a month. One in ten make it through labor, and only about 5 to 10 percent live to their first birthdays.
Lundeen and her husband, Ryan, were shocked. They hadn’t even heard of this birth defect, let alone the aftermath from it.
Lundeen, only 26-weeks pregnant, was given the option to abort Juliet since her chances of making it out of the womb alive were slim. The doctor even said she was more than happy to do it herself.
“We knew that each life is a miracle from God and did not for a second think we would not give this sweet baby girl the chance of life,” Lundeen wrote on her blog.
Lundeen and Ryan made their way to their 1998 Toyota Corolla, and called close family members to let them know about Jule’s condition. Lundeen called her mom, Sue Young, while looking at the long stretch of yellow dashed freeway.
“I remember saying, ‘Oh Allie, I’m just so sorry you have to go through this,’” Young said. “I wished I could do something, but there really wasn’t anything.”
Despite what Lundeen’s doctors predicted, Juliet defied the odds and was born alive after a 12-hour labor on October 8, 2012. When she came out of the womb, she wasn’t breathing. Their minds darted everywhere. Prayers were circling the room, hoping she would do something. Then after just one minute, Jules took her first breath and cried. She was living flesh and blood. Alive.
Lundeen grew up with her three other sisters in a small town in Wisconsin. She gave her life to Christ when she was five or six, was baptized in high school and got a degree in elementary education at the University of Northwestern. Lundeen’s walk with Christ was, in generalization, simple. Like her sisters, she was an introverted rule follower with an independent spirit. She wanted to do the same things they did, so she ended up falling in line with them. She didn’t get into drugs or alcohol. She didn’t do anything crazy. The craziest thing she did was sleep in a trailer in their gravel driveway for two months with their kids while their farmhouse was being remodeled with soft white plank wood and rustic wood floors. But that didn’t make her a Christ follower. She simply grew up in a Christian home and had always loved Jesus like her momma and daddy taught her.
But nothing was quite as challenging as Juliet Faith.
After Jules was born, Lundeen and Ryan brought her home and snuggled with her on the couch 24 hours a day, knowing their baby’s likelihood of surviving much longer was little-to-none. Juliet’s favorite thing was to get her feet rubbed, being swaddled in her blanket and getting kisses on her rosey, baby-soft cheeks.
Tate, Lundeen’s oldest son, gave her a stuffed animal squirrel from a garage sale because he thought she’d like it if she made it home. And Kynlee, Lundeen’s oldest daughter, took care of baby Jule’s as if she was her momma, too. The only time Lundeen was away from her baby was for a doctor’s appointment, and even then Lundeen kept Juliet on her mind. Despite having a crib in their bedroom, fuzzy-headed Jules always slept between them in their bed. This room with natural light trickling in from each window cascading on the floor would soon be a room she would die in days later.
But she was never alone. Not even once. The fear of not knowing what could happen next lingered in their worrisome minds, and Lundeen feared she would become too attached. She was scared. The thought of her baby not seeing her first Christmas or being able to smile tugged and pulled at her brain. But the thought of her baby dying in her farm house that sat on a rolling hill in the middle of nowhere was what kept her up at night. And one day, she knew she had to live that nightmare.
The last week of Juliet’s life, her breaths shortened due to Apnea which means her brain forgets to tell her to breathe. She would stop breathing for a couple minutes, then her lungs would pump hard up and down to keep going. But soon it became more frequent, and they knew her little body was giving out. Lundeen rarely put her down.
She didn’t even want to sleep. Momma Sue drove four hours to their little farmhouse in Dassel from Mosinee, Wis. to help with the kids during Juliet’s last week on Earth.
“There were times where she (Lundeen) was absolutely exhausted,” Young said. “And I could take her (Juliet) during a few hours of the night and let her sleep.”
Tired eyes and an achy heart rested on Lundeen. She would only sleep three to four hours during the night just to wake up with the thought of whether her baby was still alive or not pressing up against her blonde noggin.
“I never expected to lose a child in my arms.” –Allie Lundeen
On her last day, Lundeen and her husband watched baby Jule’s face turn blue. Her little lungs fought for every ounce of oxygen to keep going, but were quickly failing her. They gave her morphine, brought her up to their bedroom, held her in their arms while they sat on their bed and helplessly watched her wriggle and twitch, struggling to breathe.
After 38 days of being out of the womb, Jules died Nov. 14 2012.
“I never expected to lose a child in my arms,” Lundeen said.
Afterward, they brought their two kids, Tate and Kynlee, upstairs to say goodbye to their baby sister while Momma Sue waited in the office and the Funeral Director, who was Ryan’s good friend, came to pick her up. After a while, Lundeen parted ways with her baby girl and the Funeral Director put Jules in a carseat and drove away. Lundeen had to write her daughter’s obituary, one thing she never thought she’d have to do. They celebrated her 38-day life at Cornerstone Church in Litchfield, Minn. four days later on her and her husband’s wedding anniversary. Only six years prior she was putting on lipstick and a white dress ready to get married, and six years later she was putting on black and getting ready for her girl’s wake. Ryan, especially, wasn’t used to seeing Lundeen without Jules.
“People would say, ‘I don’t know how you guys could do it,’” Ryan said. “But through the power of prayer that people would have is an indescribable thing that nobody knows until they go through it.”
The pain sunk in quickly. Lundeen didn’t like to talk about it much. Not even with family. The only way she opened up was through her blog called Proverbs 31 Girl. She would spend hours listening to the clickety-clacks of her keyboard under her fingertips while writing for her blog. It was her release, and it touched people across the seas. People as far as Great Britain and Australia felt Lundeen’s pain.
“This little soul touched people for Christ than I could’ve ever fathomed,” Ryan said.
Lundeen would write about the struggle for peace, trusting the Lord and the days she missed sweet Jule’s the most. She would write, “There were times I was frustrated with the Lord, I thought for all of the prayers that are going up for this little lady, could you please take away the pain.” Momma Sue and other family members would wait patiently for her to make a new post on her blog.
“We would always wait for that next post and be so excited when we could make sure she was okay,” Young said.
Lundeen and her husband kept their daughter’s ashes in a cardboard box in a white urn on the top shelf of their closet next to a pair of black binoculars, a blender and bug spray until giving her the proper burial. Now, Juliet rests by a young tree and a sculpture bird bath under the rain, snow and heat of the sun next to Lundeen’s family owned home decor shop called Whimsy Green.
