Grant Perry Frieouf
I don't know when to start this story, but I know it starts in Grant County, where a girl fell in love with a boy.
Jeanette Webster fell in love with Darrell Reese in the same rural Oklahoma county that my Lainey fell in love with Mark. One had to happen before the other, and they both led to the life of our Grant Perry.
On October 31, 2020, Lainey learned that her family would grow to five, and later that night, our sweet Grandma Jeanette left Grant County for Glory.
The next 227 days were filled with lots of prayers and planning, hope and excitement grew as had our sweet baby. Celebrating this life that had graciously replaced the one we lost. Finding out he was a boy, my second nephew. Rhett thinking that Kevin might be a good name. The baby bump photos, the proud moments when we could see him moving whether on facetime or in person. The selfish sadness of living far enough from home that I couldn't be there every night after he would be born. Writing out all different names for him in my handwriting at Lainey's request. Reliving all of our memories of Rhett and Ellis, wondering who this little boy would look like. Would he be as funny as Ellis, as clever as Rhett? The hope that he would come into this world easily without a lonely helicopter flight or two weeks in the NICU. Finding the right name for him, and getting to call him by his name for two months, while we waited and prayed for him. Would he be here June 30th, July 7th -- Grandpa would like it to be July 11th, he thinks that's a great day to be born. We would be taking him to Florida for his first family vacation in only a couple months to a place his parents love.
Five days before we lost him, the doctor ordered an anatomy scan to check on his umbilical cord—it may be missing an artery or vein. So for the next five days, we fought away fear. We told people who would pray with us and for us, and for baby Grant. We prayed, we continued to make plans. He'll be here soon, and everything is going to be okay.
In the early morning of June 15th, and the night before, Lainey said he was moving a lot and he was still here with us. But that afternoon, when she went in, his heartbeat was gone. A text from mom, sweet baby is gone. I don't know where the time went between that text and holding my sister and brother in law in our weeping as Lainey was prepped for surgery. Weeping as we told each other that this doesn't make sense, that it isn't fair, that he was here that morning, that, still, everything would be okay.
Once she left the Labor and Delivery wing for surgery, Mark said, his name is Grant Perry.
While she was in surgery, I answered her texts asking how her appointment went, and texts hopeful about her coming baby, calls with her office, her best friends and cousins.
The doctor came in after the surgery and showed us Grant’s umbilical cord, and explained that it had twisted on itself like a telephone cord about thirty times — usually when they see it happen, it’s about 3-4 twists. There was no reason or logic behind why, just more weeping over this active, living boy that we were so anxious to meet in a couple of weeks.
When the nurse came to take Mark up to Lainey’s recovery, I stood to go with him. None of this is something someone should have to do alone. Mark sat with her, and they held hands and just kept trying to comfort one another. Time was stuck like a dense fog in the air — and all that existed was sadness and pain and questions with no answers.
Downstairs, in the Labor and Delivery room we left behind, my parents were still waiting, Mark’s parents had brought the twins, Rhett and Ellis, and Leah had come soon after the call.
Lainey and Mark decided they wanted their kids there, but they needed to know their baby brother was not going to come home. Rhett and Ellis would be six in two months, and are so smart, but this is not something that makes sense to us as adults — how could it make sense to them. We let their sweet, little instincts tell them how much they could handle. If they want to see mama, hold their baby brother, whatever they wanted. Rhett stayed downstairs with his Papa and Pa, while Ellis bravely came up to her mama’s room to hug on her and weep with her in her hospital bed.
Lainey was in so much pain from her surgery, and the doctor was not answering his pages for her to get more pain treatment approved. Our cousin Leah was there to fight that fight with us, to make sure that the nursing staff was doing all they could to help our Lainey. Leah is more than cousin, friend, nurse — she is also a graduate of unexplainable hard losses, unbearable grief, losing a lifetime of plans and dreams, and most importantly leaning on Jesus. She said things I couldn’t say, and I needed her there.
Around 10:40pm, I left Mark and Lainey in her hospital room to get a hotel room for the night. As soon as I left, my head gave in to the migraine that wanted to start seven hours before when I got that text from my mom, when I sobbed my entire drive to Stillwater, every phone call, every thought of Lainey’s heart, every time she began to sob and openly grieve this loss we could not understand.
I got a text in the morning that they had Grant with them, and that I should come back. They had spent the night holding him, kissing his sweet forehead. Mom was there, holding him, and she carefully put him in my arms. I sat down next to my sister and we wept over our beautiful Grant who wasn’t there.
Dad had taken Mark to get breakfast and give him a break from the hospital. When they came back, I got to watch my dad hold my nephew and my heart crushed all over again. Losing someone you love like this introduces a pattern of feeling your heart shatter over and over again, just in case you had a piece still intact.
When I held Grant, I could see his whole life. He was so perfect, and he was a whole pound bigger than Ellis was when she was born. He had the face of a little Frieouf boy, and a sweet dimpled chin like his big sister. His toes, his fingers, they were all so beautiful to me. So precious, and even though he wasn’t there — I didn’t know how we were going to say goodbye.
When other people go through a tragedy like this, I’ve always said, I don’t know how someone gets through that. Going through it, you say the same thing — how are we going to get through this, how are we still moving through days, why hasn’t the earth stopped moving.
Mark went to the hotel to lay down, shower, grieve. Aly came, and like sisters, we were just there.
At some point in the morning, the doctor came and Lainey bravely with her tears asked him all her hard questions. Why couldn’t they have done her anatomy scan five days ago while she was there, and Grant was still alive? Was there anything wrong with the cord? If they had done the in depth sonogram and anatomy scan, would they have been able to see his cord? Could they have known, and delivered her perfectly healthy baby last week, the day before, possibly even that morning? But there were no answers that could possibly justify us not getting to watch Grant grow up, after watching him grow with Lainey for almost nine months.
Mark’s parents came, and they held Grant, lamenting his beauty, his perfect little face and body. They also brought Rhett and Ellis. Rhett fell asleep with Lainey in her hospital bed, and Ellis sat on the floor with me drawing pictures of butterflies on my phone to cheer her mama up.
We had said our goodbyes, and the funeral home came in, placed his body in a bag in front of us, and gave their condolences. It was like rubbing our open heart wound as raw as possible.
Kelsey came and stayed with us through the evening while Lainey was in and out of sleep. I swapped places with Mark for the night, so he could get some sleep at a hotel — while I spent the night listening to Lainey cry and talk in her sleep, holding her hand, praying over her, and sleeping in between.
The next morning we had to take the next hard step together. It was time to go home. No one should have to leave the hospital without their baby, and Lainey has had to do it twice.
Lainey is my family. I do not have a husband, or kids — her family is my family. When she thanks me for keeping her alive, or when Mark thanks me for staying, my only answer is that I would be nowhere else. When they lost Grant, I lost Grant. Just like Lainey is more than my sister, Grant was and will always be more than my nephew.
On Tuesday, June 22nd, we laid Grant in his earthen home 350 yards from the home he was supposed to be able to grow up in. We are going to miss him the rest of our lives until we join him.
And, if you talk about the baby that we lost, say his name, because Grant Perry Frieouf was alive, and he is alive now with our Jesus.
