One hundred and nine days ago I had all the innocence I had acquired for 23 years ripped away from me. I had never known a significant loss, and I didn't know losing her was an option.
I can't stop asking why. Why her?
Today I was reading about stillbirth research, and there are something like 26,000 stillbirths each year in the US alone. Most of those happen full term. And many of them have no warning. Not that a warning would make it any easier. I had no idea that happened though. I thought when a baby died in utero you knew it was likely, you knew about a disease or a risk. That was naive.
26,000. 26,000 families devastated every year by their baby dying suddenly. And that's just the United States, and that's not including miscarriages and deaths from SIDS.
And why? I literally did everything I could to give that child a healthy life during pregnancy, and made sure she had everything she would need when she was born. I wanted nothing more than to be a mother, nothing. So why her? Why any babies? Why would any parents ever outlive their children? It should never be allowed to happen.
It's a question I will never have an answer to, but I can't stop asking.
In moving forward, the only thing I can do is keep up with the research, and hope that something soon comes along that can prevents tragedies like this. Today I found a test that they are designing in Australia, (here's one article about it) that tests the blood to see if the oxygen level the baby is getting is low. Hopefully it's something that will work, and be available very very soon.
One thing is certain though, I will never be naive again. And I know that there was nothing that could have prepared me for what happened, but I feel like I should have known more. No one ever wants to talk about these risks though. So there are just families who go through this, unprepared and in complete shock. If nothing else, I wish we had known what would happen in the hospital after she died.
We were actually blessed to have a staff that did everything they should have. They let us hold her and keep her with us as long as we wanted. They took pictures for us. They gave us hand prints and footprints and a lock of her hair. They made a memory box for us. All of those things were things we needed and many of them were things we never would have thought to ask for in those moments.
I've read a lot of stories about moms who barely got to hold their child or who didn't get a picture. Those things are so so precious. And at the time you don't fully realize that. Because you are in such shock and everything is so overwhelming and really you have no idea what is happening. But if I hadn't had that time with her, I don't know what I would have done when we left the hospital. If I didn't have pictures of my gorgeous child I would have gone completely crazy by now. The time with her, the pictures, the memory box, those were all things we needed.
Luckily the staff did all of those things for us, but not everyone gets that experience. So if nothing else, I wish we had been given that knowledge before, the information about what to do when the worst does happen.
Although if I could make the choice, no one would ever need such knowledge. No parent would ever be left with just memories and a lot a questions.
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