By Michaela Gordoni
Alexa and Carlos PenaVega’s daughter Indy was born stillborn last year, and telling their other kids was painful.
“It’s hard,” Alexa, who’s mom to Ocean, 8, Kingston, 5, Rio, 3, and Indy, told PEOPLE. “I think just being very honest and open with them that this sucked. It’s hard. The hardest part, honestly, was coming home from the hospital, and Ocean was at the front door waiting for me, not having any idea of what happened.”
“He sees my belly and he’s like, ‘You have the baby. Where’s the baby? Your belly’s small,’” Alexa recalled.
“Because we didn’t tell him I was [leaving to have] a baby or anything. And that was the hardest because I still was grappling with what happened,” she continued.
The PenaVegas weren’t prepared to give their kids the news right after they walked through the door.
“Even thinking about it now, my heart hurts thinking of him because he was so looking forward to another baby,” PenaVega said. “But now, something that I actually think is very special that I even have is, I think of heaven every single day. So you live life differently.”
“Yes, it was heartbreaking and it was really hard for our family to walk through that season, but it was also a gift because we all live in a very different way than we were,” she continued.
Alexa shared a photo of Indy for the first time on Indy’s birthday, April 13. In the photo, all of her children are looking down at a physical photo of Indy, lying in a hospital bed.
“Happy heavenly birthday Indy girl. 🤍Our little world changer. Psalm 34:18,” she captioned the post.
PenaVega says she would still love to have another child.
“I’m still allowing my body to heal just because I want to know, okay, what happened? I have a ton of questions, but we also chose not to do an autopsy,” said Alexa. “For me personally, I felt like if I had somebody to blame, whether it was a doctor or a hospital or whatever, I don’t know that I could live with being able to point the finger at somebody.”
“It was out of everybody’s control at that point. I can’t rewind it. So I’m either going to move on or live in this place forever, and I wanted to move on,” she explained.
“But in that, I have some questions to get my body in order. And as soon as that happens, I would love to have more babies,” she said. “I just love kids.”
Alexa shared earlier this year that they felt God’s miraculous peace when Indy died.
“It was all out of our control. We had to give it all over to God,” she said. “The burden was too heavy for us to carry so He took the weight off of us and draped us in His peace. Over this last year we have watched LIFE come out of her life.”
The PenaVegas look forward to seeing Indy in heaven.
Read Next: Jill Duggar Dillard Lays Stillborn Daughter to Rest: ‘Hold You in Heaven’
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