Couple's journey after daughter's birth makes for touching, viral story

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The excitement and anticipation of being a new parent is an exciting journey for soon-to-be parents awaiting their little one's arrival. Dayna and Matt are that couple. Dayna began anticipating what it would be like seeing the man she loved as a daddy for the first time, and how the couple's family would welcome their new addition. 

The couple called 2016 the year to 'celebrate the wins'. Little did they know, little Luella's birth would give them both a new definition of love, and bring them closer to God and restore their faith in a way they couldn't have imagined. 

According to her blog online at Dayna Mae Photography, Dayna says that after nearly 18 hours of labor, her body began to weaken. At the same time, Luella's heart rate dropped, and both Dayna and Luella suffered from a rising fever. Sheer panic came over Matt's face.

"A c-section was never in our plans. We hadn’t talked about it." Dayna said. "It wasn’t what we were believing for, and then my midwives and doctors said the word, and a little piece of inside my heart broke."

Dayna and Matt knew then that their only option was to pray over their 'Lucy' and for getting them through the difficult birth. Luella Mae was brought into the world October 23, 2015.

"As I look down at the greatest gift He has given us, aside from His Son, and fall more and more in love everyday," Dayna says of Luella. "I celebrate the WINS as I know, through our circumstances that look dark, or as lies we believe cloud our perspective, He is MY Good Father, and I’m infinitely loved by MY creator. His plan for me is good. He can be Trusted with the deepest part of my soul, and He is the restorer of all things the enemy tries to steal."

In a Facebook post that has since gone viral, Dayna mentions one of the first moments she and her husband left little Lucy for an evening out. The two heard from a missionary at a worship conference, and the story shared shook Dayna to her core. 

"That missionary was in an orphanage in Uganda, and he has been in many before, but this one was different," Dayna wrote on Facebook. "He walked into a nursery with over 100 filled cribs with babes. He listened in amazement and wonder as the only sound he could hear was silence. A sound that is beyond rare in ANY nursery, let alone a nursery where over 100 new babes laid. He turned to his host and asked her why the nursery was silent."

The woman's response was something that has stuck with Dayna ever since. 

"She looked at him and said, 'After about a week of them being here, and crying out for countless hours, they eventually stop when they realize no one is coming for them...They stop crying when they realize no one is coming for them. Not in 10 minutes, not in 4 hours, and maybe, perhaps, not ever...'Broke. I broke."

Dayna ended her post in the best way she could have--with a message and promise to her own daughter.

"I made a promise to her. A promise that I would always come to her. Always. At 2:00am when pitiful desperate squeals come through a baby monitor, I will come to her. Her first hurt, her first heartbreak, we will come to her. We will be there to hold her, to let her feel, to make decisions on her own, and we will be there. We will show her through our tears and frustrations at times, that it is okay to cry, and it's ok to feel. That we will always be a safe place, and we will always come to her."