When I was rolled out of the operating room Ava was resting on my chest, and the first thing I did was look at her ears. When a baby is developing in utero the kidneys and ears develop at the same time so often times a congenital disorder with one can be seen in the other. Ava had no amniotic fluid left when she was born which suggested a problem with her kidneys. I traced my fingers over her tiny…
Have you ever had a really good cry? You know, the one where you just let go and sob and your stomach heaves and your shoulders crumble and sometimes you even lose your balance and have to sit down. The one where the sadness is purged from your body one teardrop at a time until you run dry, and when you’re done you take a deep cleansing breath and suddenly the world feels right again. That cry that is so…
Sometime during the day, after Ava died, a purple ribbon was placed on the outside of my door which would serve as a signal to anyone who passed by my room that my baby had died. I had been marked. I think that ribbon scared a lot of people. I think I scared a lot of people.
I’m about to write my daughter’s entire life story in a single post. It seems too difficult, but writing this is an important part of my acceptance of her death. Until now I have managed to keep her alive through my stories and writing about my pregnancy. Once I finish this part of her story, that’s it. Her life will be over on this blog and the remainder of my posts, the remainder of my life, will be spent in the…
Logan started daycare this week, or school as we’ve been calling it. While he was there I decided to spend a few hours at work on Wednesday and Thursday reacquainting myself with the computer system and all the changes that have occurred since my unexpected departure nearly three months ago. I am not “officially” back for a few more weeks but I have been having so much anxiety about it that I thought it would help me if I eased…
I haven’t posted in almost two weeks but I’ve had this post sitting in my draft bucket for longer than that. I don’t know why I haven’t put it up. I’ve edited it so many times that I’m actually just reading it over and over without making any changes, but still I’m hesitant. I’m not ready to tell the story of my c-section and Ava’s brief life before everyone reading has some understanding of what we were thinking and feeling about…
The first few weeks after Ava died were filled with some of the deepest grief I have ever experienced. When the surgeons reached inside of me and pulled her out it was as if they removed a piece of me as well. I felt like my guts had been ripped out (literally and figuratively). I cannot describe it any better than to say I just felt empty. My heart and my stomach were a bottomless pit of dark, black, nothingness….
When I checked in to the hospital I thought we would be stuck there for weeks, maybe months. The baby had been stable during my monitoring and I was feeling more movement everyday. I was looking forward to having another ultrasound because I was certain it would show marked improvement. I was caught completely off-guard when things deteriorated so quickly.
After finally getting a solid night of sleep I woke up on Sunday morning feeling refreshed and full of hope. We ordered breakfast and I got dressed before my nurse came in to start the day.We hadn’t met before but she was just the kind of nurse I needed. She was smart and experienced but she was also funny and laughed at our dark humor. She updated the whiteboard: 26+3.
I was completely exhausted after our NICU class and it was only noon. We ordered lunch and then waited anxiously for my parents to arrive with Logan. We had spent our first night apart and we missed our little guy. We wanted to see our happy, healthy, perfect son and squeeze him until he begged us to stop. My parents had been texting me updates throughout the morning and it sounded like Logan was having a wonderful time and a good…