A mother who posed with 20,000 bees in a unique maternity photo shoot has suffered a still birth.
Emily Mueller, 33, revealed that her baby died in the womb over the weekend.
In a heartbreaking post on her Facebook page Mueller details everything from when she first suspected there was a problem when she stopped feeling the baby kicking, to the the moment she gave birth surrounded by caring nurses and doctors.
‘So many people awaited the arrival of our sweet famous baby who was the star of our wonderful bee maternity photo shoot. Jesus decided he needed his own beekeeper and took our precious son, Emersyn Jacob, back up to Heaven with him,’ Mureller wrote.
Emily Mueller, 33, shared that her baby, a boy, was ‘born an angel’ and was stillborn
Mueller became unsettled about not feeling any movement from her baby. She and her husband went to her midwife’s office to check for a heartbeat when she was told the news
The family got to spend a day with the baby boy and took a record of his footprints
‘Our hearts are deeply saddened and broken more than we could have ever imagined. All we truly want are prayers for our family during this difficult time as they have been allowing us to move forward and heal.’
Emily, who has three other children, Cadyn, 10, Madelynn, three and one-year old Westyn said she was preparing for an upcoming event on Thursday and didn’t notice her baby’s lack of movement.
‘By evening I began to realize I had not felt baby move much and had contractions that felt different than any I have had before,’ she wrote. ‘I just told myself he was sleeping but as the time passed, I felt uneasy about it.’
She and her husband decided to go to the hospital to check things out for themselves in order to hear a heartbeat but were sadly told the devastating news that their son had died just days before the due date.
‘Our baby has died. Our baby will never come home with us,’ she wrote. ‘This wonderful rainbow baby we were blessed with has now become a storm in our lives.
‘Finding out your baby died is unfathomable. Learning you have to be induced and deliver your deceased child is way beyond that. My heart instantly ached for any woman that has told me she had a stillborn.’
“I can’t and don’t want to explain that feeling to anyone. Turning to your husband and seeing him die inside. Seeing him completely break. Seeing your children feel and suffer your pain in front of your eyes. The pain is unbearable,’ Mueller wrote in a heartbreaking post on Facebook
Mueller says she believes her baby died from a blood clotting issue that has caused other family members to suffer miscarriages
‘I truly thought we would be sent home with a smile, telling us to just wait for the arrival of our sweet Emersyn, who was due in 6 days,’ Mueller continued.
‘I can’t and don’t want to explain that feeling to anyone. Turning to your husband and seeing him die inside. Seeing him completely break. Seeing your children feel and suffer your pain in front of your eyes. The pain is unbearable.’
‘Every detail of that moment is forever sketched into my mind and I cannot stop replaying it,’ Mueller wrote. ‘Dr. Sutter sat on my right side looking at the screen and turned to me and said, ‘Your baby has passed.’
The Muellers found out Emersyn was a boy after they had returned from the hospital because the family, who had previously been waiting to find out his gender until he was born, ‘wanted to know who we were mourning.’
She says that she believes her baby died from a blood clotting issue that has caused other family members to suffer miscarriages.
‘I have a very strong feeling that this was a blood clotting issue as those traits have been affecting our immediate family for some time,’ she wrote.
The couple decide to send the placenta in for testing, but there is a possibility they may never know the cause of their baby’s death.
Buzzing baby: The experienced beekeeper posed with 20,000 swarming bees in her maternity photos in South Akron, Ohio in August
Bee my baby! Mueller, who runs a bee removal business, had no fear when the bees sat on her belly and three even stung her along the way
Honey for my honey: The bee’s were attracted to the queen bee in Emily’s hand, but that didn’t stop some bugs from flying elsewhere and nearly into her open mouth (above)
In August, Mueller posed with 20,000 bees as part of a maternity photo shoot.
‘Bees have been a huge part of our lives for the past few years so I wanted to incorporate them into something important to me – like my maternity photos,’ she said at the time.
Mueller, who runs Mueller Honey Bee Removal with her husband said she’s always felt comfortable with bees. The two own 24 hives for their company and tend to a whopping 1.2million bees in total.
For her, the bees aren’t just a part of her work, they’re a meaning part of her life. When opportunity knocked, she decided to incorporate the bee’s into her maternity photo shoot.
‘A lot of people think I’m insane but I’m so comfortable with bees so it was never something I had anxiety about,’ she said.
But just how did she manage to tame an entire hive to sit around her swollen stomach?
The morning of the shoot Emily was called for a job that required her to remove a hive from a park. She decided to put the loose hive to creative use for her photos.
‘I had been called to a swarm removal that morning so I fed those bees sugar to make sure they would be content and gentle enough to work with,’ she says.
She strategically planned the shoot to have all the insects safely and calmly settle on her baby bump for the perfect photo.
Bee blessings: Emily shares that the bees not only represent her work but also represent death and life, and in this photo shoot they symbolize her three children and three miscarriages
Harmless Honey: After sitting through the shoot she exclaimed the photos were ‘worth it’
The key to the shoot lied with the queen bee. Mueller delicately extracted her from the hive and held her in a cage in her hand.
‘Then I put the queen bee in a cage and tied it to a branch in a tree in the garden. She is larger and bigger so it was easy to identify her,’ she adds.
Mueller had her husband carry the branch holding the hive near Emily so that the bees could settle nearby, on her body.
All it took was a shake of the hive and bees came flying out and settled right on Mueller’s body, near their heiress in the beekeeper’s hand.
‘Having them all on me was this clinging sensation. They all stick to you and they are very warm, so it’s almost like when a kitten is walking on you,’ she describes.
It may have felt comfortable, but that didn’t stop three bothered bugs from stinging her during the shoot. Despite the shockingly loud shriek of the honeybees, Emily says she kept her cool.
‘I felt calm throughout, though I did get stung three times,’ she explains.
‘I accidentally squished one with my butt and another under my arm pit, and the third time I was pretending to eat a bee jokingly and I squashed one against my lip,’ she adds.
Her photo shoot stings, however, are nothing to the experienced beekeeper who says she’s been stung a whopping 350 times this year alone.
‘I wore a dress that was long and covered my stomach and legs so the bees would be on the outside of my body as a cautionary measure, but I knew it was safe,’ she says on her precautions.
‘The photos were worth it. I love them,’ she exclaims.
Bee fan: In Emily’s work she tends to 24 hives such as the one above, with 50,000 bees in each
Nature gal: She smiles and shows off hive in her company (above), which started when her father gifted her a hive to make honey. Quitting her former job, she pursued the bee business
For the mom-of-three the striped insects have a much more emotional meaning.
‘Bees represent life and death and they are very spiritual creatures,’ she says.
‘I have three children and I had three miscarriages so it was in tribute to them all,’ she adds.
Her unique photo shoot not only caused an online buzz but also offer an insightful look into the friendly nature of the notoriously painful creatures.
‘I just want to raise awareness about how gentle they are,’ she says.