Naomi Hope: Naming Our Stillborn Daughter
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I’ll start by saying thank you to everyone who read our stillbirth story. It's not a popular topic, I know. However, one that I needed to write about in hopes that the many women and parents who feel they have to keep this topic silenced feel seen and understood.
Here we are, nearing a year since her passing, and I still don’t regret sharing openly about her and our stillbirth story. Grief still seeps in on big days and ordinary, everyday moments. In honor of what I’m calling her “birth month” (June), I wanted to share the story and meaning of her name.
“Naming them is a way of saying, ‘You were here. You were a part of our family, and you will not be forgotten.’”
When friends, family, online friends, readers, co-workers - whoever - acknowledge our daughter by using her name, it comforts my heart. Hearing “Naomi” spoken by another person is, in fact, saying…
She was here.
She was a person.
She was our daughter.
She mattered.
So, as you can imagine, I’m eager to share the story of how her name came to be and its meaning. However, I will need to insert just a moment of her birth story for me to be able to tell the story fully. Another moment I’ll share is one from our summer trip last year to Europe when God gave me her middle name. So, if you’re in for the read, thank you. Here’s how God led me to the name of our daughter, Naomi Hope Williams.
June 13, 2023
It was the morning of our 20-week anatomy scan (where we would refrain on finding out if our baby was a boy or girl, as the plan had been to find out via a gender reveal party my sister and I had been talking about throwing with close friends and family). I was in our bathroom applying make-up and fixing my hair as the boys ate their breakfast and we waited for my sister to arrive.
“In route. Should be there by 8:30.” read my sister’s text message. She would be helping watch the boys while Calvin and I went to the anatomy scan. Her text had interrupted my Bible Recap reading for the day. And, of course, I was behind. This whole Bible-in-a-year thing is just not in the cards for me. It always takes me longer than a years time. Either way, I was committed to the completion of the plan despite my being weeks behind.
In my timeline, that day’s reading was the book of Ruth (though in reality, everyone else was way past it and onto 1 Kings). Yet, still determined, I pressed play again and I listened to Ruth being read out loud to me. All 4 chapters of it.
The book of Ruth has three main characters - Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.
(Here is an entire description of the book, it’s by BibleProject and worth watching!)
As I detailed in our stillbirth story blog post, this 20-week anatomy scan led to doctors telling us there was no longer a heartbeat and I would be induced that same night to labor and deliver our baby.
June 14, 2023 — (this is where I abruptly go into a portion of our stillbirth story)
In the middle of the night, as I began laboring through contractions, I asked Calvin to play Will Reagan (a worship leader) on Spotify. As I continued to labor, and even during the administration of the epidural, music played in our hospital room.
For about an hour, I was able to lay back and Calvin pulled up a chair next to me. He and I were able to talk about names and as painful as it was, arrangements. We did land on a boy's name, one Calvin had been thinking about since the day before and when I heard it, it seemed like a wonderful boy’s name. However, even after that moment set aside for names, we still didn’t have a name for a girl.
To sum up what happened next, contractions got more frequent and intense, and my epidural began wearing off. Music was still playing in the background throughout this entire time.
I felt more of each contraction on my belly and lower abdomen, again, mainly on my right side. Pushing the epidural button didn’t help much. I could tell things were progressing, so I asked Calvin to get the nurse. The nurse came in and had me turn on my right side so that if I needed another epidural boost, once I pushed the button, the medicine could flow to that side. She had checked me and said I was getting pretty close. I then turned and pushed the button again, and my nurse said she’d notify my doctor and return to check on me shortly.
At this point, music was still playing on my phone. By then, it was probably a random playlist on Spotify.
Except, when the nurse left, and as I was on my side, though the pain of contractions was screaming at me, it was as if the room fell silent. Silent enough for me to hear the worship leader singing through my phone speaker:
“The hour is dark,
And it’s hard to see,
What you are doin’,
Here in the ruins
And where this will lead,
Oh, but I know,
That down through the years,
I’ll look on this moment,
See your hand on it
And know you were here”
(Is anyone catching the pattern of how God spoke to me?)
As the nurse re-entered the room, I began delivering our baby. With one last push, I felt the baby come out. This song is still playing in the background. I had done it. I had delivered our stillborn baby.
Our nurse quickly wrapped the baby in a blanket and placed the baby on my chest.
I wept. I wept and wept, and wept.
Catching my breath, I asked the nurse,
”Is it a boy or a girl?”
”Let’s take a look,” she replied, walking over to my chest and unwrapping the blanket."
”Baby is a girl.”
I sobbed.
Nothing or no one in the room interrupted the sobbing. They let it be. And as odd as this sounds, I felt as though so did God. It’s as if He, too, was silent for that moment to allow space for my weeping. For it was not just weeping from the devastation of a heartbroken mother but also a cry out to Him to help me amid my brokenness. Then He spoke. God reminded me of my morning the day before, reading the book of Ruth - one I’ve read many times before - and about Naomi. He reminded me of the song that worship leader Naomi Rice had been singing the very moment my daughter came. He said, “That’s her name, Crystal; her name is Naomi.”
Looking up at Calvin as he held my hand, I finally spoke:
"I think I know what her name is supposed to be," I whispered.
"What's that," he replied.
"Naomi," I answered.
Naomi is a feminine name of Hebrew origin. Naomi in Hebrew is נעמי —meaning "pleasant" or "gentle." In my research, I also found the name meaning to be “my delight,” “sweet,” or “lovely.”
Naomi is the name of a biblical character in the book of Ruth about whom I have written and preached sermons. Even though she isn’t the main, titled character of the book that everyone else centers teachings on, Naomi’s character always stuck out to me.
Naomi is also the name of the worship leader of the popular worship group I have connected to for years. When this song was released (over three years ago), I sang it as an anthem, though I had yet to walk my darkest hour. Nor did I have any idea that God’s faithfulness in the midst of stillbirth would be a story I’d tell.
So, while no other name for a girl had ever come to me for our third baby. Naomi was instant upon her arrival.
April 2019 — Pictured above was the first time I preached about Naomi in the book of Ruth at my husband’s hometown church while pregnant with Josiah. The other photo? That was November of 2022, which was the second time I preached about Naomi in the book of Ruth. This time, I was at a weekend women’s retreat at my friend Amanda’s church near Austin while pregnant with Abner. She recently reminded me of that weekend, asking me via Messenger if I remembered what I had preached on. I did. Of course, I did. Naomi. 💕
Is that not a God thing? It’s as if she was a part of me and our growing family from the start. That’s God.
Now, let’s talk about Hope…
July 1, 2023
I don’t recall now exactly what day or where we were, but I know it was while we were in Italy last summer that I told Calvin how I thought Naomi’s middle name should be Hope…
Naomi Hope Williams
Naomi Esperanza Williams
The Hope in her name has a double meaning:
1. It serves as a reminder of the following verse in Scripture:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
I noticed many people in Scripture would name their children based on the faithfulness of God, yet also, at times, based on the pain or suffering they experienced. So, giving Naomi the middle name Hope reminds me of the verse above. Hope deferred led to brokenness and grief. This broken world deferred the hope I had of birthing her full-term, alive and well. Deferred was the hope of caring for and nurturing her, of introducing her to her brothers and all our family and friends, of watching her grow and grow, of having her as our daughter here on earth.
2. The Hope in her name also, most certainly, reminds me of the hope (we have through Jesus) that I will see her again one day. Hope may have been previously deferred, but praise God that our hope in Jesus (and the eternal life He promised and gave His life for) allows me to see my daughter again!
Now to share how God confirmed it to me with a chair, a priest, and a prayer…
On our last day in Rome last summer (two weeks after delivering Naomi), we encountered a huge basilica as we returned to our Airbnb. Unaware until entering, it was The Basilica of Sant’Agostino in Campo Marzio. It is dedicated to St Augustine of Hippo (354-430), whose mother, St Monica, is buried there. I’ll admit, I sat on a bench outside as Calvin entered first. My legs were done for the day. He immediately came back out, down the stairs, straight to me, and said, “You’re going to want to see this one, Crystal.” I got up, walked up the steps, and walked in. When you entered, a statue of Mary and baby Jesus was immediately to the left, and it was adorned with blue and pink baby bibs and onesies. My heart ached the moment I noticed them. I later learned that this famous sculpture, Madonna del Parto (Madonna of Childbirth), is often visited by mothers-to-be, praying for safe pregnancies and deliveries.
A single chair was right next to the sculpture of Mary and Jesus. It was as though the chair was set out as an invitation to sit in silence and allow all the emotions welling up inside to wash over me. So I walked towards it, and I sat. As I brought myself to look up at Mary and Jesus, tears streamed down my face. Uncontrollable, they flowed and flowed. The silence in the basilica was almost as great as the pain I felt inside.
Suddenly, a priest tapped me on the shoulder, and Calvin stood beside him. He had asked the priest to come pray over me. Of course, we had a slight language barrier, but I did my best to tell him about Naomi in Spanish, and he, in return, attempted to encourage me and then prayed for me in Italian. During our brief conversation, I understood most of what he shared with me. He asked for our daughter’s name, and I answered. I went on, in tears, to share how I had just delivered Naomi two weeks prior. I then understood him to say how she is now in Heaven as she died in purity and how I will see her again.
While I didn’t understand every word of his prayer over me, I did hear him pray “Speranza” (Esperanza/Hope) a few times, and I felt immense peace as he prayed. I didn’t get the priest’s name. I thanked him as he told me again how I would see her again. Before I knew it, he was out of sight.
June 14 will mark a year of her being in Heaven and us here. We have plans to celebrate her short, sweet life while here in Bristol. Never did I think I (or our little family) would be back in Bristol for the anniversary of her stillbirth. Bristol was a place I grieved her and God comforted me, a safe haven in a way, immediately after it all happened. How kind of the Lord to bring us all back here for the year mark. The boys, Calvin and I, hope to release balloons for her with letters attached to them. I don’t know if this is the right way to remember a stillborn, but, until we see her again, it’ll be our way to honor and celebrate our daughter,
Naomi Hope Williams.
