Abigail Kumiko

Wednesday night, my sister-in-law, myself and 6 kids (and 1 dog), drove to Utah. I was going to attend a funeral for my friend's baby. My sister-in-law was going to visit her grandma who is very ill. She wanted her children to meet their great-grandma.

I love my friends Katy and Chris and know they are amazing and chosen parents to bring a baby in this world for just 14 hours. Abigail is now part of their eternal family. Abigail is truly a miracle baby from the very beginning - and I feel fortunate that some of the events in her life (in utero) included a trip with me and her mom to Puerto Rico - swimming in a waterfall, hiking the rain forest, kayaking at night in the ocean.  

As Katy said at the memorial, "Abigail is a baby who only knew love... she was never pricked by a needle... she was never out of the room from her family... she was only "not" held for 10 minutes the whole time"

From Chris, "Abigail is fortunate to have been born to a Japanese (on his side) family and has at least one picture for every minute that she was alive."  Abigail lived about 840 minutes and over 800 pictures and 6 hours of video were taken.  There are beautiful pictures taken and I will post some as soon as I can.  

Here is her Obituary from Deseret News:

Abigail Kumiko Mitarai 

Abigail Kumiko Mitarai April 28, 2009 "I carry your heart, I carry it in my heart" Our Beautiful Daughter, Abigail Kumiko Mitarai, was born and lived a courageous fourteen hours before returning to our Heavenly Father. She departed this earth from within the loving embrace of her mother's arms. Abigail was loved and cherished long before she took her first breath. We are lucky to have been blessed with Abigail and have been grateful to experience many glorious times and memories with her before she was even born. We knew before she was born she was a Daddy's girl and she is her Daddy's joy. Even though Abigail was only here a short time, we felt her love and she let us know that she knew we loved her. Abigail is survived by her parents, Chris and Katy Mitarai, grandparents, Joe and Tina Ballenger; Mark and Hiroko Mitarai; great-grandmother, Katie Murphy and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. She is loved by many and touched countless lives during her journey. We would like to thank our family and friends who prayed for her and us these past months. We know it is through these prayers that we were able to hold Sweet Abigail for fourteen precious hours. We already miss her greatly but are thankful to have Abigail in our Eternal Family and she has left an everlasting impression on us and we will never be the same. She was sweet and her spirit radiated love. She was precious, pure and filled with light. We would like to thank Dr. T. Flint Porter and his incredible staff, the caring and compassionate nurses at IMC Hospital's Labor and Delivery and Maternity Units, Angel Watch for making our journey with Abigail as sweet as possible and Julie Williams with NILMDS for taking priceless photos of our Abigail. Abigail, we are so proud of you. You were too pure and beautiful for this earth. Thank you for your courage and thank you for being our daughter. We know now the true meaning of love. It broke our hearts to say goodbye so quickly, but we look forward to holding you in our arms again. We love you! Funeral services for Abigail will be held on Saturday, May 2, 2009.

Abigail was truly an angel and gift. One of the cards for Katy and Chris was about a butterfly. Abigail came and "got her wings" as a butterfly - and was here but a moment.