Just Jake
August 14, 2011 at 4:34 pm | Posted in Death, Grief, hospital, mourning, parents, silver lining | 21 CommentsTags: death, grief, happy, Jake, life after loss, parenthood
Dear Jake,
I cannot believe that you would have been 6 years old today. In some ways it seems like so long ago since I held you and in some ways it feels like last week. I have so much to thank you for and I do not think I have ever told you.
First, I would like to thank you for choosing us to be your parents. I remember running downstairs after taking the pregnancy test and seeing the positive result. I could not wait to tell your dad. I was completely filled with joy. I have not been truly happy since that day. Do not take this the wrong way, I have been happy. It is just a different kind of happy and it is often bittersweet. That wonderful March day I was just so blissfully unaware of the tragedies that life could and would bring.
Second, you made me understand how short and precious life really is. You showed me in your brief time with me how pure and simple love can be.
Lastly (at least for now), I want to thank you for the strength you have given me. It is difficult for me to explain but the night your youngest brother Sawyer died you are who was with me. In the emergency room, you are the one who held me up in the hallway. I am sure without you I would not have been able to stand let alone walk. I kept telling myself if I could live in a world without you, I could and would somehow find a way to live without Sawyer.
I wish that we were having a birthday party with you today. We are not. Perhaps you are having a cosmic celebration with your little brother, your Mom Mom and your great-grandmother. Whatever you are doing please know how much I love and miss you.
Super Star
July 10, 2011 at 12:38 am | Posted in hospital, silver lining | 12 CommentsTags: happy, hernia, life after loss, twins
Our little super star was such a good sport. He happily played while waiting for his surgery.
He was not able to eat or drink that morning. I dreaded him asking for something and not being able to give it to him. Luckily, he was so busy playing with his cars that he only asked once. I responded by handing him more cars.
Evan and I could hear him chatting as the nurses and surgeon wheeled him away down the hall. We waited in his room.
He was brought back to us from the recovery room. He was in and out of sleep.
When he did wake up the first thing he asked for was his car. The second thing he asked for was more cars. However, he did not turn down the apple juice or popsicle the nurse offered him.
And before we knew it our super star, his blue tongue, Lightening McQueen and all the other cars were happily on our way home.
Thank you all so much for sending positive thoughts, good wishes and love!
Hospitals, Hernias & Holidays
July 2, 2011 at 11:32 pm | Posted in emergency room, Grief, hospital, parents, twins | 10 CommentsTags: fathers, hernia, Jake, motherhood, Sawyer, twins
Yesterday I called Evan and told him to come home immediately. As I hung up the phone, I questioned if I overreacted. We had been at a close friend’s house playing. All was normal except when we left one twin ran to the car and the other was dragging his left foot. I asked if he wanted me to pick him up. It is not unusual for him to get tired and ask to be carried. However, when I picked him up he screamed to be put down.
Finally I got everybody in the car. As I drove I thought maybe he was having an allergic reaction. Maybe he could not walk because his feet were swollen. Or maybe his shoes were too small and he needed new shoes. I opted to stop at CVS rather than the shoe store. At this point, they both were screaming. She wanted ice cream. He wanted to sit down. After buying Benadryl, 2 toy cars and frozen yogurt to go, we were back in the car. I made the call to Evan. One of us needed to take him to the doctor.
At home I stripped him down to look for hives. He was very swollen in his groin area. Evan got home and took him to the after hours pediatric urgent care. I fully expected a call telling me there was an unexplainable allergic reaction (like many others in the past) and the hives would be gone in the morning.
Instead Evan called to tell me that he was on his way to the ER. The hive was actually a hernia. I needed to go to the ER. Luckily, I was able to drop off the well twin back at our friend’s house. Thank you again!!
I got to the ER just in time for the ultrasound. He screamed, cried and begged (politely) for the ultrasound technician to please stop. Evan and I held him down. Ok, Evan held him down. I had to go cry in the hall.
After the ultrasound we waited to speak to the surgeon. While waiting, I went to the bathroom. The bathroom was right across from this hospital’s “consult room.” The “consult room” was where Evan and I held Jake for the last time. It was where we were when the ER doctor told us that Sawyer was dead. They were different “consult rooms,” in different hospitals but they looked the same. Standard issue plastic couch and chair. Generic flowery art. Striped carpet.
As I reached the door of our ER room I looked through the glass panel of the door. Evan was holding hands with our very much alive son. I thought of the glass partition which Alice Wisler so insightfully used to describe bereaved parent’s desire to be so close and so distant from their living children. I walked back into the room.
The surgeon arrived. He originally said that we would be checked in and surgery would be the next morning. An hour or so later, we were told that due to life threatening cases and the holiday weekend we would need to go home. We were discharged early this morning. Surgery will be scheduled for this week. I am going to kiss the twins one more time right now.
Sawyer’s Story (part 10): The Unthinkable
February 4, 2011 at 11:12 pm | Posted in emergency room, Grief, hospital | 14 CommentsTags: child loss, death, grief, Sawyer
We stood in the room with the ER doctor. We did not want to believe what he had just told us. How could Sawyer be dead? Just a few hours before he was alive and fine. I felt like my head would never stop spinning. Had he gotten a virus? Had he choked? Were there signs we had missed?
A medical examiner had come into the room at some point. He said he had to ask us some questions but we could go see Sawyer first. We both jumped at the chance to go to Sawyer. I just wanted to hold him. Maybe if we saw him and held him everyone would realize this was just a big horrible mistake.
As we were taken to the room where Sawyer was it was explained to us that all we could do was literally “see” him. We were not allowed to hold him. We were not allowed to kiss him. We were not even allowed to touch him.
We were brought through the door to the room in the ER that earlier I had desperately wanted to open. There was Sawyer. He was lying on this huge hospital bed. He was so small. He was so still. He had tape on his face from one of the tubes. I screamed. I just wanted to take the tape off of his face. The doctor or maybe the medical examiner said I could not remove the tape. In fact, Evan and I could not even get very close to him. I could not stop screaming. I just wanted to hold him. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare. I ran out of the room.
I waited for Evan in the hallway. I tried so hard not to think about the fact that it was time to feed Sawyer. I tried even harder to get the image I had just seen out of my head.
Sawyer’s Story (part 9): The ER
February 2, 2011 at 4:40 pm | Posted in Death, emergency room, Grief, hospital | 9 CommentsTags: child loss, death, Jake, Sawyer
In the hallway of the emergency room I did not know what to do. I stared at the door willing myself to be on the other side of it with Sawyer. I thought Evan was driving right behind the ambulance so I did not understand where he was. I later found out he jumped in the car and followed the ambulance. However, when Evan got to a main street he realized he did not have his glasses on. He did not have his contacts in his eyes either. He drove back home to get his glasses.
Meanwhile, I continued to cry in the hall. The ER nurses and doctors were going about their business. They were doing their jobs. I kept thinking, “How can they possibly be going on with their lives when something is very wrong with Sawyer?”
My cell phone rang. It was my brother. He told me that he was taking our parents to the airport. I told him I hoped to call him back soon to let him know that Sawyer was fine.
Time seemed to stand still. Why had I not heard back from the doctor? Where was Evan? The hospital chaplain came to talk to me. I knew what this meant. The hospital chaplain came to talk to Evan and me 5 years earlier. They came to talk to us about Jake. I could not talk to the hospital chaplain that night in the ER. I walked away. I might have said something but I do not remember.
I called one of my oldest and closest friends. I knew it was 4 something in the morning but I called anyway. I remembered she told me she had gotten up the day after Thanksgiving to go shopping at an extremely early hour. She answered and offered to come to the hospital. I thanked her but said no. I hoped to call her back soon to tell her everyone was fine.
Evan finally arrived. I had nothing to tell him. No one had given me any updates. The hospital chaplain was back. This time she took us to a room. I am not sure how long Evan and I were in that room. Eventually, a doctor came to talk to us. He told us they were doing everything they could but Sawyer was not responding. He said he would be back with another update.
I paced and every once in a while I sat on the floor. Evan asked me to sit next to him on the couch. I tried but I could not sit still.
The doctor returned. He said the words I could not believe we were hearing again. “Your son is dead.”
Little Angel
We were given an angel to cherish and love. 
So tiny, so perfect, a gift from above.
When we looked at his face it was calmness we found
And that peace seemed to spread to all he was around.
His love touched our hearts like fine threads of spun gold
And we thanked G-d for giving us this angel to hold.
But we did not know then that time was our foe
And too soon, with a whisper, our angel would go.
Our hearts almost breaking, a touch soft as lace
Seemed to wipe at the hurt as it coursed down our face.
We still have our angel to cherish and love.
Those gold threads now shimmer from Heaven above.
And though we can’t see him or cuddle him tight,
We won’t say goodbye, Little Angel, goodnight.
– Author unknown
Sawyer’s Story (part 8): The Ambulance
January 26, 2011 at 6:50 pm | Posted in Death, emergency room, Grief | 13 CommentsTags: child loss, death, Sawyer, twins
I felt like I was moving in slow motion as the ambulance drove the 3 miles to children’s hospital. I kept trying see what was happening to Sawyer. I could not see very much because there were so many paramedics in the back. I asked the driver many times if my baby was ok. Every time I asked he would respond, “I really can’t say ma’am. Just calm down.” Inside I was screaming. How could I possibly calm down? And, who was this “ma’am?”
It did not help matters that the ambulance driver went down the road with the bridge that was out. The bridge had been out for months because of all the rain we had in the fall of 2009. I thought that maybe the ambulance driver knew something I did not and emergency vehicles could go over the bridge. I was wrong. The bridge was out for all vehicles including Sawyer’s ambulance. The driver turned around at the bridge. He then asked me for directions to the hospital.
We finally arrived at the children’s hospital emergency room. I had been there twice before. One time for each of the twins. Those times we went in through the regular entrance. Each time the twin was fine and we all left through the same entrance.
Sawyer was rushed into the ER through the ambulance entrance. I ran down the hall following Sawyer. He was whisked into a room. The door closed. I was not allowed in. I just stood in the hallway and cried.
I tried my best to rationalize what I had seen in the back of the ambulance. I had seen Sawyer’s EKG. It was a flat line.
“Do not judge the bereaved mother.
She comes in many forms.
She is breathing, but she is dying.
She may look young, but inside she has become ancient.
She smiles, but her heart sobs.
She walks, she talks, she cooks, she cleans, she works, she IS,
but she IS NOT, all at once.
She is here, but part of her is elsewhere for eternity.”
–Author Unknown
No more NICU
November 28, 2010 at 4:56 pm | Posted in father, mother, NICU, transient tachypnea | 6 CommentsEvan went to the NICU first. He reported that it was not at all like with Jake. There were no huge machines hooked up to our baby. In fact, he was the biggest baby in there. I just wanted him back in our room – back in my arms.
It was time to feed him so Evan wheeled me to the NICU. It was a trip I had made many times before to see a different baby boy. I choked back the tears. Inside the NICU it looked the same. The isolates, the nurses, the babies and our baby boy. I knew he was a different baby boy but it was all too similar. The room was hot and it began to spin. I got sick and begged Evan to wheel me back to my room.
In the hospital room I cried and tried to pull myself together. Evan stayed in the NICU and would come back to the room to give me reports. All the reports were good. We were told that often once a baby is admitted to the NICU the baby will usually stay until it is time for the baby and the mom to go home. I pumped and sent milk to the NICU. I worried about not bonding with the baby. I worried about not being able to name the baby. I worried about not being a good enough mother.
The next day I worked up the courage to return to the NICU. It was still hot. The room still was spinning but I was able to feed our baby boy. Bridget, Jake’s NICU nurse, was working that day. She was not Sawyer’s nurse but she came over to talk to us. We had not seen her since the morning Jake had died. It was comforting to see her. She had recently had a child of her own. She told us how often she thought of Jake. Bridget looked at our new baby and as she spoke about him I knew that this was different. This baby was not Jake. He would not stay in the NICU for long. However, I still did get sick as soon as I got back to my hospital room.
The next day our baby boy was brought back to our room. And we named him, Sawyer Brady.
I am Sawyer
Looking back now maybe this was Sawyer’s way of letting us know that everything was not perfect. Maybe he was trying to prepare us for what was to come.
Sawyer’s Story (part 2)
November 23, 2010 at 9:38 pm | Posted in father, mother, NICU, parents, pregnancy, transient tachypnea | 6 CommentsThe morning of November 17th we drove to the hospital. It was all going according to plan – we had even packed a bag. The previous two emergency c-sections Evan had to leave the hospital to go get our things.
It took a few times for the doctors to get the epidural correct but before we knew it I was being wheeled into the operating room. I remember the doctors calmly talking about their day during my c-section. There were three people in the operating room with me and Evan. In contrast, Jake and the twin’s birth were both crowded and far from calm. At 1:52 our beautiful perfect baby boy was born.
We all went to the recovery room together. I could not help but to think back to the recovery room after Jake was born. Evan and I were there without our baby. We did not know if we would ever see Jake alive again. Now, here we were holding our full term 8 lb, 1 oz. baby boy. Not only could we both hold him but I was able to feed him.
We all left recovery and went to our hospital room together. I did not want to let go of him. Two hours after being back in the hospital room I tried to feed him again. His color seemed to change. We asked a nurse to come in the room and take a look at him. She said that she needed to take him to the nursery to check him out. The nurse came back a few minutes later to tell us that he was being admitted to the NICU for transient tachypnea.
My brain could not process what was happening. Our baby (who still had no name at this point) was perfect. He was a full term baby. He was 8 pounds! Jake was 14 weeks early so of course he would go to the NICU. I had even thought there would be a good chance the twins would go to the NICU. How could our full term singleton possibly be in the NICU?
Several doctors and nurses explained to me that transient tachypnea was very common. It is extra fluid in the baby’s lungs which would normally be squeezed out when the baby went through the birth canal. During a c-section there is no squeezing so the fluid was still there. I heard the words but it still did not make any sense to me. This could not possibly be happening.
Sawyer’s Story
November 21, 2010 at 9:36 am | Posted in NICU, parents, pregnancy | 4 CommentsTags: child loss, grief
Notes:
1. Thank you for the birthday wishes for Sawyer and for thinking of us. It means more than I can express in words.
2. I am not sure I will be able to write all of Sawyer’s story but I will try. I had hoped to write in chronological order but as I already mentioned in this post – that plan has changed.
I had high risk pregnancies with Jake and the twins. Once you are high risk you seem to stay that way. So, like the first two pregnancies we went to OB and perinatologist appointments. However, unlike the first two pregnancies, this time the doctors all said the same thing. “Everything looks perfect.” The appointments were shorter because the baby was always doing great and within normal ranges. We had many ultrasounds all of which showed our perfect baby.
The c-section date was set at 37 1/2 weeks. It was a bit early to reduce the risk of going into labor. As I mentioned in this post, I had a slight vertical incision and a horizontal incision during Jake’s c-section. Once you have a vertical incision doctors don’t like you to go into labor (because of the possibility of your uterus rupturing).
I did go into early labor at the end of October. We went to the emergency room. I was given shots of Turbutiline to slow the contractions down. We spent the night at the hospital. In the morning I was released and given Turbutiline pills to keep the contractions under control. Everyone assured us that this was very common. It seemed to work. I just felt like I had 18 cups of coffee while I took those pills. It is not a feeling I was very fond of but I desperately did not want a premature birth (or a visit to the NICU).
November 16 arrived and I was still pregnant! We went that morning for a scheduled amniocentesis to doublecheck that the baby’s lungs were fully developed. Later that afternoon the results came back that the baby’s lungs looked great.
My parents were taking care of the twins while we were in the hospital. I had never been away from them for that long. At the suggestion of our therapist ( who we had been seeing since Jake) I wrote them each notes for every night I would be gone. Evan also taped me reading stories to play them at bed time. I was packed and cleaned the house. It was all so very different from the chaos of the two previous emergency c-sections. All was going along perfectly as we hoped and planned.
August 27th
August 27, 2010 at 9:14 am | Posted in NICU | 12 CommentsTags: child loss, death, grief
When we got to the NICU I knew that there was not going to be a miracle for Jake. The ventilator and the medications were no longer helping. Jake had made the decision for us. We did not have to be the ones to decide to take him off the ventilator. This was just one of the many gifts Jake gave to us.
Bridget, the NICU nurse, said that I could hold him. I had never held him before. I knew this would be my first and last day to hold Jake.
Holding Jake
Evan was also able to hold him.
Evan Holding Jake
At 6:14 am Jake’s heroic struggle ended. Jake gave it everything he had, and we were and still are so proud of him. Sometimes the challenges you face in life are simply too much.
The NICU nurses helped us to give him a bath and to dress him. He had never been outside and they suggested we spend some time with him on the terrace outside the NICU.
Family picture
We were very lucky to have been chosen by Jake to be his parents.
I miss Jake today and every day. Some days are just tougher.
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