We are Tyler and Morgan Malloy…
…and this is our daughter, Blakely.
Blakely is special and we firmly believe she is destined to change the world. From the very beginning, she did everything on her own terms.
In February 2019, after about four months of a nagging cough that was beginning to make Morgan sick, we decided to go into a local urgent care clinic to see if she could get anything to give her some relief. After describing her symptoms to the nurse, they decided to do a pregnancy test just to be safe (“no chance” was our exact thought). We comply, I hand the test over to the nurse and start talking through possible medications to help finally get rid of this cough.
Two minutes later, the nurse pops her head in, says “IT’S POSITIVE”, and vanishes just as quickly as she appeared. As the doctor starts congratulating us, I start crying, and Tyler’s in complete shock. We’re going to be parents?! Once we pulled ourselves together and temporarily stopped the waterworks, we walked out to the parking lot and just sat in our car for a while. We tried to put words behind what we were feeling and started praying over our baby and the transformation our little family was about to undergo.
That very same day, after we put our best poker faces on and arrived at our ministry’s house, one of the students walked up to us and said, “guys, I had the strangest dream last night. I had a dream Morgan was pregnant.” Cue our less than convincing nervous laughter. Even at that moment,
As week after week passed, our excitement built for this new chapter to begin. We found out we were expecting a little girl due in early October and did everything we could possibly think of to prepare to be the best parents we could be. We prayed over her, prepared our home for her, dreamed of what her future might hold.
Around week 33 of the pregnancy, things started to change. Unbeknownst to Morgan, she started to swell A LOT and her blood pressure began to rise, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t rationalize due to never being pregnant before. At our 35th week appointment, we encountered another shocking twist; she was diagnosed with preeclampsia and we would be having our daughter in 5 days instead of 5 weeks.
So while rolling with another curveball, we drove home and, with the help of some friends and family, we washed baby clothes, unpacked gifts, set up her room, and shopped for our hospital bag. Just to be safe, we packed our hospital bag up and hit the road the following morning for a follow-up appointment to get a second steroid shot for our baby’s lung development.
Upon arrival, Morgan was put into a gown and nurses immediately began to run several tests. After about 30 minutes of confusion, our doctor came in and told us we would start the process of having our baby today. Nothing can shock us at this point, so we let our family know what was happening and started the induction process.
Almost exactly 24 hours later, little Miss Blakely Mae Malloy arrived at 5 lbs 12 oz and 19 ½ inches long! From that moment on, we were enamored by her. She was the most perfect and precious little girl we had ever laid eyes on. We were more than ready to take her home once we were discharged 3 days later.
In the days and weeks following her birth, we made memory after memory. From random trips to Target to walks around the neighborhood and hair-brushing sessions with her dad, Blakely opened up a whole new chapter in our lives we didn’t know we so desperately wanted. We continued to dream about the days to come, prayed for protection and guidance over her daily, and rested in the reassurance of this:
Little did we know that our reassurance would be tested to the greatest measure possible.
Just over 5 weeks after Blakely was born, we noticed she wasn’t acting right. She was fussier than usual, didn’t want to eat, and couldn’t seem to fall asleep. In an effort to soothe her, Morgan spent the entire night trying everything she could think of to soothe her while trying not to start panicking or letting her thoughts begin to spiral. Finally, as I (Morgan) was trying to change her diaper while she continued to scream, I couldn’t keep it together anymore. I was sitting in the middle of our living room floor begging Blakely to eat through my sobs.
After hearing our cries, Tyler enters the room and makes the decision to go ahead and call her doctor. He described what was going on and the grunting sound she was making while breathing, we were told to take her to the ER.
By the time we arrived, her temperature was very low, her breathing was very labored, she was dehydrated and her heart rate was out of control. In the 6 hours after our arrival, we saw countless physicians, nurses, and paramedics do everything they possibly could to save our little girl. All we could do was watch helplessly, and I fell to my knees pleading with Jesus to do something...anything to save her.
Finally, her little heart wore out.
The days following her death seemed like a blur and incredibly vivid at the same time. We road wave after wave of grief like a never-ending rollercoaster. We were thrown into making decisions about her memorial service, where to bury her, and how to find the finances to make all of this happen.
He provided strength beyond comprehension and clarity in how crucial those days were in the aftermath. Each tearful phone call and meeting leading up to Blakely’s memorial service were extremely difficult, but each was done with the intention of giving God glory and celebrating Blakely’s precious little life as best as we could.
Blakely’s memorial service was beautiful. We saw friends and family from every corner of our lives. We recognized just how blessed we were to have had Blakely. We remembered the hope we have in Jesus and being reunited with her in Heaven. We worshipped…oh, how we worshipped. For the rest of our days, we will remember standing in that church full of people with our arms stretched to the Heavens letting go of all control and proclaiming that He is the way-maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, and our light in the darkness. As we laid our baby to rest, we still carried an immense burden of grief, but we also had hope.
Just hours after Blakely passed away, as we sat in the back of Morgan’s dad’s truck trying to comprehend how our world had just been shattered, she remembers simply stating this: “I know there has to be a ‘why’ in all of this. I just hope we get to see a little piece of it.”
You are our ‘why’.
We have been hoping and praying since the day Blakely passed away that her story and our journey would be used to offer you hope, and we pray that this hope continues to be revealed through each word we wrote in The Aftermath.
To read The Aftermath, click below
