Unheld Babies
Our Stillborn Angels
by Cherie Logan

The Brethren have not come out and said without doubt that babies who die before birth will be resurrected.  There seems to be some hesitancy on the matter, even confusion.  We are told to give these precious little ones names and record these little ones on our personal records.  If we have been sealed in the temple at the time of their death, this is no problem.  We know without doubt that in resurrection they are ours, if they are resurrected.

For those who join the church later, for those who become temple worthy and seal their children to them later in life, they find that they are counseled to not seal children who died before birth.  Yet, as a genealogist, I can seal such children to their parents because I have no way to really know if they died before or after the moment of birth.

This article is on the many reasons why I have complete faith that these unheld babies will be resurrected and placed into our arms to be raised.  My husband cautions me because I insist on declaring it so when final word has not been spoken, so I do teach my children first that it isn't absolute doctrine, and then I proceed to teach them what I believe and why.

This is the important question.  If it is before birth, then it will be resurrected.  If it is at birth, then those little ones will need another body.  Some say that because Jesus Christ announced his birth to Nephi only a night before the event, that such claim hadn't taken place.  This seems to be the biggest scriptural argument for the spirit not claiming the body until birth actually occurs.

1. Divine Vestiture of Authority.  This is the ability of a  messenger to speak as if he were the individual, the Lord, himself.  Perhaps that was the case in this scripture.  Perhaps there was a moment when his spirit did leave and return.  Either is possible and does not negate that the body may be claimed earlier than birth.  Other people, such as Lazarus, have left their body without giving up claim to mortality.

2. President Joseph F. Smith and his presidency created an official document stating that "The body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ or embryo, which becomes an  infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose  tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man." Man: His Origin and Destiny, page 354

3. Joseph F. Smith, when he was the prophet, gave it as his opinion that,  "These little ones (stillborn babies) will receive a resurrection and then belong to us."

4. He also said, "Stillborn children should not be reported  nor recorded as births and deaths on the records of the Church but it is suggested that parents record in their own family records a name of each such stillborn child" Doctrines of Salvation

5. President Brigham Young: "When the mother feels life come to her infant, it is the spirit entering the body preparatory to the immortal existence."  Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie, page 768.

6.  The medical definition of stillborn in layman  language is when a baby who had no chance of survival is born already dead.   The definition is variable because the advances in technology changes the time of viability.  By all appearances the Lord's definition remains constant and still different for each spirit.  Each child has its own unique moment of causing the mother to feel movement.  We know  that movement occurs much earlier than the mother feels it but that seems to be the time when that connection becomes more concrete.

7.  As a mother with lots of birth training (childbirth educator, emergency birth midwife training..thee emphasis is on  emergency only, mother of one miscarriage, mother of one infant who died at age 2 months, and mother of 9 living children), I can testify that there is a very unique feel to the heart and  spirit once that movement is felt.  When my son died I felt such a loss and it wasn't until months later when I felt his presence at a family gathering that I could identify that loss being the loss of his spirit.  His had blended with mine so strongly during pregnancy that I had previously thought it was a loss of a part of myself.

8.  Never have I heard that once the spirit is out of the body death is permanent.  We know of those who have been close to death but have returned.  We have machines that can bridge that gap long enough for life to  continue beyond when death would have occurred.  A mother with her body functioning and the baby's placenta and cord are certainly divinely more powerful than any machine.  If the Lord wanted to call a spirit in and out of that unborn body for whatever reasons it is reasonably possible.  Here is where my sweet husband starts shaking his head and saying that I am speculating in public.

9.  In situations where no movement has been felt I suspect it remains between the Lord and the child whether that body was enough to count as mortality or not.  I have met mothers who are absolutely certain, as certain as any other gospel testimony, that they will still have those babies.  I have met others,  and am one myself, who know without doubt that a later baby was the very one miscarried.  This seems deeply  individual and a matter for personal revelation.

10.  What we do know is that nothing is lost unto the Lord.  As a mother of a dead infant I know I will have every  experience with that son that I have had with my other children.  His first words, his first steps, his smiles as he gazes up into my face.  No joy or experience will be denied me as the mother raising my son.  The Lord will not be less compassionate with those mothers whose children were returned to him tiny and unheld.  Take comfort in the Lord and his promises.  Have faith in his compassion.  Rejoice in the testimony that perfect knowledge of all things is still ahead of us and with that knowledge will come perfect light and joy.

The articles were written in the hope that they will help mothers realize just how normal chaotic life with children really is and how priceless the journey.  If your heart is touched, your mind enlightened, your spirit strengthened please visit Our Missionaries, the link will be at the bottom of every article.