Baby Constantine

One year ago this evening, while I was in the middle of making dinner in our Pennsylvania kitchen, I completed the miscarriage, at eight weeks' gestation, of our third child.

Little Constantine got his name when his Daddy returned home from vespers at St. Tikhon's for the feast of Sts. Constantine and Helen.

Andrew suggested this name, and I'll admit I wasn't crazy about it at first. I doubt I would have named any of my living children something so foreign-sounding. ("Constantine! Time for dinner!" just didn't sound like our family.) We read through an entry in a calendar containing saints commemorated on that day, and since nothing else sounded any more normal to me, I resigned myself to going with either Constantine or Helen.
  

"You know, with our track record," (which is two girls) I said, "it's probably a Helen." Since I was only 8 weeks along and the baby, according to the ultrasound a few days prior, had ceased developing around 6 weeks gestation, there was no way of knowing the sex.

My husband replied, "Well, this might be the only boy I get."

"Ok," I agreed. "He's Constantine."

I had been encouraged to name our third child by our family doctor in Chicago (who talked me through the actual miscarriage), and I became very glad I had. Not only did it humanize the baby that internet literature referred to, among other things, as "the products of conception," but it was practical.

Back in Chicago after our move, my girls and I were visiting our good friends who had just had a baby. My four-year-old daughter was delighted, as she always is by babies. Sometime into the visit, she turned to me and said, "Mommy, what is our baby's name?"

Somewhat confused, I asked, "You mean, Susannah?" We still, to this day, refer to her as Baby over half of the time, but I didn't understand why her older sister needed to ask what her name was.

Maggie shook her head, and a thought occurred to me. "Oh, you mean the baby that was in Mommy's tummy? The baby that went to live with Jesus?"

"Yeah!" she said.

"His name is Constantine," I replied, delighted that she still remembered her little brother.

I marveled after this exchange that my four-year-old didn't ask if our baby had a name, but simply assumed it. And later on, when we met a Baby Constantine visiting our church, Maggie was thrilled that he had the same name as "our baby."  She still talks about him, and continues to associate the name Constantine with "our baby who went to live with Jesus."

 
Here are some photos from last May.  We were blessed to have been able to retrieve the tiny amniotic sac and have a small burial service on the grounds of St. Tikhon's Monastery in Pennsylvania where my husband was attending seminary.

We adorned a tiny box made by Andrew's father with a fabric cross from the vestments my mother was in the process of making.

A small cross (intended to hang in a window) hangs over a brick engraved with our last name, which serves to mark the grave.

Two priest friends of ours lead the prayers for the soul of our departed Constantine.

Our parents happened to be able to be present, along with another seminary family with whom we'd become close over the year.

The children present were very much at home.  They were delighted by the other little markers in this section of the cemetery.  This one has a small sheep on top of the tombstone.

Father and grandfathers filled the grave with earth.

After the prayers were offered, we placed flowers on the grave.  A monk friend of Andrew's promised to tend the grave for us once we had moved back to the Midwest.

This cemetery is a beautiful place filled with many saints.  Only a few paces away rests Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

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Once again, I am pregnant, and very close to delivery.  This time, the baby will be full term, as I am already 38 weeks.  God-willing, our little one will be healthy.  But as God knows, anything can happen at any point in a pregnancy, labor and delivery, or life.  In all things, I pray that we are able to give glory to God

Whatever happens during the course of any of our children's lives, they will all be remembered and have a place in our family.

  

This mosaic icon is located on an obscure rock wall at St. Tikhon's Monastery.  It's up a little hill, so of course kids want to run up to it, climb the uneven rock steps, and venerate it.  Perfectly placed.

But Jesus said, "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."  ~Matthew 19:14