Never the same

Almost three weeks ago my entire world was ripped apart. And now I am at home where nothing has changed and everything has changed.

Three weeks ago I was planning the final details in preparation for my son finally to come home. It was my due date and I was anticipating labor at any moment. Mark and I were laughing and excited. Everything was beautiful and perfect.

I picked Mark up from work to go to my doctor's appointment to discuss inducing labor because we couldn't wait any longer to meet our son. Mark didn't normally come to my doctor's appointments but that day he did. We sat  in the room waiting for the doctor. She came in and measured my belly. Normal. Then she started to listen for Sam's heartbeat. Nothing. She said, "maybe this doppler is broken." I said, "you are scaring me." She ran out and right back in. Listened again. Nothing. We went right across the hall to the ultrasound machine. Nothing. She searched and searched. Nothing nothing nothing.

I don't remember a lot after that. Neither does Mark. I remember screaming and Mark just holding me really tight. I think he was holding me as much to support me as to support himself. Four days earlier I had been at the doctor's and Sam had a perfect heartbeat. Stable at 135 bpm. Now nothing.

We had to go to the hospital and do the unthinkable. I had to birth our dead son. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. I would never have survived it without Mark at my side holding my hand for literally every second. I remember I just kept thinking that this is the last thing I get to do for my little baby boy. So, I could do this and be strong for him.

He was born October 26, 2011. He was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I have never felt pain like that. To look at my beautiful son, 8 pounds 4 ounces, 21 inches long, a perfect button nose, ten fingers and ten toes, dark curly hair, and long eye lashes. Everything was beautiful and perfect except he was silent and still.

I would give anything to trade places with my little son. There are so many things that I wanted him to experience and see. So many wonderful things in this world that I wanted to show him. I had planned and thought a lot while I carried him in me about how I would protect him from the cruelties and ugliness in this world for as long as possible. I had thought about how to keep him safe as a teenage boy learning to drive. I had thought about protecting him from falling down the stairs when he learned to walk. I had planned how to prepare him for the cruelties that children can inflict on one another as they face their insecurities. All the dangers I had anticipated for him, but I had never considered any dangers while he was in my womb.

Mark said to me a few days after Sam's death that not a day would go by where I didn't think about Sam. I didn't fully understand then what that meant. But even just three weeks after my beautiful son was ripped away from me I am able to understand. Not one moment passes where I am not thinking of him. No matter what I am reading, listening to, or talking about Sam is on my mind. And how could he not be? His story is woven into the fabric of who I am.

"What does it mean?
What does it mean?
What does it mean to be so sad?
When someone you love
Someone you love is supposed to make you happy
What do you do
How do you keep love alive?"


--Ryan Adams "How Do You Keep Love Alive"