As we all know by now, there will always be unexpected grief and heartache in this world. But God will always make good on his promise to somehow work all things, even the tragedies, together for good. During an interview, Matt said that he didn’t know what he was going to do when his cherished wife, Liz, died hours after giving birth to their baby girl. But something inside led him to her pregnancy blog.
According to Matt, Liz’s first-time pregnancy wasn’t an easy one. Severe morning sickness plagued Liz and doctors put her on bedrest for a bit. Matt kept the blog going, keeping everyone at home updated. But neither he nor Liz realized just how important that blog would become. Just seven weeks before Liz’s due date, doctors rushed the new mom into the delivery room for an emergency c-section. Thankfully, the surgery went well and their healthy, albeit premature, baby girl came into the world. As a preemie, Madeline just barely tipped the scales at 3 pounds 14 ounces. Her proud parents gazed lovingly upon their precious blessing until the nurses rushed her off to the neonatal intensive care unit. Matt broke the good news on the blog, still reveling in the euphoria of becoming a new dad. Liz couldn’t wait to hold her sweet, tiny girl. But doctors wanted the new mom to get 24 hours of bedrest first.
Then, nurses put Liz into a wheelchair and took the eager mom down to see her little angel. As Matt tenderly helped his wife out of the wheelchair, things took a terrible turn. Liz suddenly felt light-headed and collapsed into Matt’s arms. Nurses tried calming the nerve-wracked husband, chalking it up to exhaustion. But he just knew something was wrong. “Suddenly there’s this ‘code blue,’ people rushing past me,” Matt recalled. “All of a sudden it hit me. She was going to die, today, here in this hospital. And she was never going to hold her baby.” Things escalated quickly. Joy turned into terror, which then turned into agony as Matt’s wife died hours after giving birth to their baby girl. A blood clot managed to travel from Liz’s leg to her lung, causing a rare but fatal pulmonary embolism. Liz was just 30 years old and had only been a mom for 27 hours. And Matt found himself having to follow up on the joyous pregnancy announcement on the couple’s blog with the worst news imaginable.
God certainly blessed Matt with Maddy for a reason. His beautiful daughter kept him from crumbling completely. Yet, the tragic loss of his wife completely devastated Matt. The heartbroken husband knew he needed to grieve. But he also knew he needed to be present for his daughter. Something inside Matt compelled him to go to the computer and continue updating the pregnancy blog. We know that something was the Holy Spirit. What started as a way for Matt to get the news out about the tragic turn of events, God transformed into something therapeutic. Matt poured all of the emotions he felt as a sudden widower into the blog. He kept going back, posting more updates. And before he knew it, tens of thousands of people were reading the blog every single day. Support flooded in from strangers all around the world. And the blog became a lifeline, pulling Matt through the grieving process toward hope. It’s remained a place where the loving dad chronicles his adventures in raising a precious daughter and in finding life after heartache.