Capture your grief Day 5

5. Memory: What memory do you have of your child that stands out for you the most. It may be a positive or negative memory. When you think of your child what is the first memory that comes to your mind?

So many memories, it's so hard to know which one stands out most for me. We had 4.5 months with Grace and spent so much time with her. I don't have just one memory that comes first, it just depends on the day. I do have a few that are much more prominent than others, so I will share those.

Many know, that my pregnancy with Grace was probably our biggest surprise and most unplanned baby. My pregnancy with her was filled with so much chaos, we moved 4 times, Adam left the Navy and began a new job, we had school issues with Tyler, and began homeschooling him, we bought a house. There was just so much else going on that we didn't (sadly) focus as much on her. I didn't feel like we'd prepared enough for her and I felt very overwhelmed at how I was going to handle all that we were dealing with, as well as a baby. I remember more or less, panicking when I realized I was in labor with her, thinking "oh my gosh, we are actually having another baby, this is real. I need more time, I'm not ready!"
My labor was so fast. It was so intense and painful because it was so fast. But one of my very very favorite memories will always be, when I looked down and her head was delivered and I saw my beautiful daughter for the first time, I saw her face and suddenly, every single thought above was gone. Replaced with overwhelming joy, and love. She wasn't even fully born yet and I was madly in love, and extremely ecstatic. It is such a good memory. My heart was so happy.

This memory is not so great. Even though the Dr explained to me what CDH was and what ECMO was when Grace was being transferred to Toledo to be prepared to be transferred to U of M, and her exact words were "if we do not get her to U of M, she will die" (not could, will) I didn't think she was really that sick, the whole time I was at Flower. I think I was really in shock. I had been told what was going on, but still didn't really get it I guess. I kinda thought we'd get to U of M, and either she'd have a small surgery, and we'd bring her home within a couple of days, or I also had crazy disillusions that we'd get there and they'd say " wow amazingly we were wrong! She's fine, go ahead and hold her and nurse her etc" Well. Obviously, that is not how the story goes.
We got to the hospital and parked, and went to the main lobby (which really, wasn't even close to the NICU) and got directions. They asked if I wanted a wheelchair and I declined. I had only given birth, I wasn't in need of a wheelchair to go see my baby..Uh yeah. Should have gotten the wheelchair, it turned out that from the main lobby, the NICU was quite far! I had to stop a few times to just rest because well, I had only given birth about 8 hours prior. So we get to the floor the NICU was on and we saw a door that said it was Holden NICU but it looked to us like it might be a back door, that we were supposed to go into a different door, we'd never been to a NICU so didn't know. We saw a woman at a desk up ahead and went to her and told her why we were there, and I'll never forget she said "um, youre in the wrong place. We only have healthy babies here" and the way she said it was so rude. It just hurt.
We went down the hall to the NICU, and we were led to our baby. We walked a short way down and entered a room, the absolute second we walked through that door, I realized that all of my expectations and thoughts of what was going on were completely wrong. I honestly felt my heart break. I never knew I could feel such pain. The tears immediately started just falling. Like rain.
Her nurse said "are you mom?" and I think I managed a nod. She said "come here and see your daughter" and made the dozens of dr's surrounding her, make room for us. To hold her hand, she allowed us to cradle our arms around her in her bed. I could not stop crying. I couldn't even talk. My heart was truly shattered.

And one of my absolute favorite memories will always be this..