Tristan's Birth Story
January 1st 2019.
The first day of the new year, a Tuesday. I was 30 weeks and 6 days pregnant with our little no named baby. I remember feeling off that day. I had been getting really sharp shooting pains in my cervix which is totally normal but boy did they hurt, taking my breath away kind of pain.
I got into the shower hoping that would calm things down since I had also been getting more braxton hicks. I remember talking to the baby while in the shower, rocking back and forth while the hot water ran on my back. I was telling our baby “ not today little one, it's too early, just a little bit longer sweetheart”.
After the shower I remember standing in the kitchen making the kids some lunch and the pains started up again. Hailee looked up at me asking “ mom are you ok?” every time I would stop and make a sound as if someone hand punched me in the crotch. “ Ya honey, I'm ok I think the baby is just kicking me” Hailee then said “ I bet the baby is kicking your placenta” and proceeded to laugh pretty hard. I think that deep down I knew something was going on and changes were happening but I did not want to go into the hospital. Honestly I think I was hoping I could experience contractions at home and not go until they got intense, knowing obviously that I was too early to deliver a healthy baby but the fact that we have been told since 20 weeks that the chances of baby surviving after birth were not long and that I was most likely going to go into labor before the due date, I think that I just wanted to experience labor unmedicated, at home.
Well the day went on, the pains were off and on but I continued to ignore them as best I could.
Since Josh had the day off we decided to go to dinner. He was concerned and kept asking me, “ time to go to the hospital yet?” “nope “ was what I kept telling him. We decided to go to a local mexican restaurant because chips and salsa were sounding pretty dang good. Trying to get comfortable sitting at the table was not happening, the food didn’t taste good and our youngest was not wanting to sit down. The pains were getting a bit too much so I had to stand up, rocking back and forth seemed to help a little bit. Luckily we were in a back corner so I could hide a little. We went home finally after waiting forever for our churros I had to have. But they were worth it. I could have just had the chips and salsa and churros and been perfectly content. On our way home I decided it would be a good idea to call my Midwife to let her know what I was experiencing and to see if she had any suggestions. Everything I read on the internet said I was experiencing “lightning crotch” which is exactly what it felt like, but this was not stopping. With no answer from my midwife I texted her knowing that she would call me as soon as she got my message. After getting home she called back and told me to try an inversion ( knee to chest) for 15 minutes to see if moving baby up would help the pains. She was thinking the baby was somehow pressing on a nerve and those cervical nerves are super sensitive. Well here I am butt in the air, knees on the edge of my couch and hands on the ground trying to get this baby to wiggle out of wherever he/she was sitting. The look I imagined on my husband's face as he was trying to figure out what I was doing was enough to help ease the discomfort. This continued for hours, and between putting hailee to bed and then wyatt to bed I would take a few more minutes to do an inversion. Wyatt was also still nursing to sleep at this time so while nursing him I started to get some painful “braxton hicks” which I guess in retrospective I was actually having some productive contractions. It scared me so I immediately unlatched him from me and luckily he fell asleep quickly on his own. I was still uncomfortable and unable to sleep so I took some more magnesium and prayed that it would calm things down enough for me to get some sleep and keep the baby in. After a short while my body was able to relax enough and I fell asleep.
5am January 2nd, I was woken up by a warm gush in my underwear. . for half a second I thought to myself “ did I just pee”? But intuitively I knew that it was blood. I carefully wiggled out of bed so I didn’t disturb the sleeping toddler next to me and crept to the bathroom , my heart racing. It felt as if I was walking in slow motion but fully awake. I pulled down my pajama bottoms and sat down on the toilet to find a large amount of blood in my underwear, and I thought to myself “ shit , this is it. This is the end of my journey with my son.” As I sat down collecting my feelings and getting myself together, knowing that I would now have to wake up my husband, and figuring out who I am going to have to call at 5am to come to my house to watch my kids so that I can go into the hospital , I felt more blood pour out of me along with my mucous plug. With shaking hands and legs I managed to clean up myself and the bathroom the best I could, I found an old towel that I stuffed into a pair of old clean underwear that I managed to put on and grabbed my phone. I first called my midwife to tell her what had happened. To my relief she answered the phone right away. “ do you want me to meet you at the hospital?” she asked. I told her no, to get some rest since I was not sure what the hospital would want to do at this point besides just want to monitor me and the baby. She did tell me to go in right away as she was concerned about the amount of blood that I had lost. I hung up the phone and called my friend to come and watch the kids . Once I knew I had a plan for the kids I felt it was time to finally wake up my husband and unintentionally scare the crap out of him. “Josh, hey” He shot up as he seemed to know what I was going to say needed his immediate attention. “ we have to go to the hospital, I’m bleeding” He was up and dressed in record time. I made him some coffee to calm myself down since we were just waiting for my friend to arrive to help with the kids. I called labor and delivery to give them a heads up of what was happening so they could be ready for me ahead of time and I sat at our kitchen table holding my belly, as to get as much contact with our baby as I could.
6 am rolled around and out comes my son, half asleep looking for mommy. I scooped him up and felt the need to never let him go. Internally I was terrified that something bad was going to happen and thought I may never see my kids again. Maybe it was a bit dramatic but I had had this intense fear of this for a couple months before, I had even started the process to get life insurance that very week, even had the health assessment the day before all of this took place because I wanted to make sure my family would not have to worry about any medical costs from all of this. This fear was crippling , I would think to myself, “ wyatt is only 2, he is not going to even remember his mom. As much as he loves me and needs me, his memory of me will not stay”. My friend arrived and as I handed him to her, my heart broke, on the floor in a million tiny pieces. I couldn’t hold it together walking out that door hearing him cry out for me as I cried to myself and praying that I would come back home to my kids.
My husband held my hand and we drove to the hospital in silence to savor the tiniest moments and tried to keep it together since we did not want to assume the worst was happening, that we would get to the hospital and not have our baby anymore. He asked a couple times on the way to the hospital “ is the baby ok, is it moving?” I reassured him that the baby felt as normal as it had been before, moving around and helping to keep my fears at bay”. Deep breathing was the loudest thing you could hear in our vehicle the rest of the way to the hospital.
A month prior I had the same thing happen only not as much blood and not twinges of pain. We were sent home from the hospital within a couple of hours since there were no signs of baby being in distress. I was thinking that might be what we would be in for again. Part of me felt silly for going into the hospital again but then the amount of blood and pain I was feeling reassured me that I was doing the right thing by going back in.
Josh dropped me off at the doors to the hospital so he could park. I told him I would meet him up on the L&D floor. I walked inside the hospital with another woman and her mother. The mother was holding a pillow and a bag, the woman had a very obvious pregnant belly as she waddled inside next to me. We shared a “ i know why you're here look” her sweet mother looked at me and said, “ you're having a baby today too ?” My belly was measuring 37 weeks even though I was only 31 weeks and I was going up to L&D so I can't blame her for assuming I was doing exactly what her daughter was doing “ no, I hope not” I told her. I felt envy for this beautifully full term pregnant momma. She told me that she is getting induced today and was ready to meet her baby. I felt envy for the fact that this was exciting for her, that this was her plan and she would be leaving the hospital at the end of this with a baby that she would get to snuggle, smell and see grow. Knowing that would most likely not be my story this time, I just smiled and prayed they didn’t ask me anymore questions on our intimate ride in the elevator to the 3rd floor.
When we arrived I spoke to the woman at the desk letting her know why I was coming in. It was a really busy early morning in labor and delivery. There must have been 3 pregnant moms and their families waiting for their turn to get a room. I gave her my insurance information, Luckily my baby listened to me and waited until January for my insurance to kick in. I stepped back to wait my turn. In the meantime standing by a plant, avoiding all eye contact with the other families as I swayed back and forth feeling the sharpness of what I now know was my cervix making changes. I was hoping I was not leaking blood through my pants and the towel I had shoved in my underwear. Finally Josh made it up to the waiting room with me by the time it was my turn to go into our room. I was so thankful to get out of the eyesight of excited expectant families and find out what my body was trying to do.
Thankfully our nurse was really kind. I got hooked up to a monitor and changed into a gown. O how I hated getting into a gown. It made me feel like a “sick patient” but at this moment it was easier to go ahead with the request. My nurse wanted to look at my bloody pad and towel to estimate the blood loss which they continued to do for the remainder of the time I was in labor and delivery. How it worked was after I changed my pad I would leave it face up in the trash, I would tell her when she checked on me. She would take it and put it on a scale to see if the blood loss was increasing, staying the same or decreasing.
As the dark morning turned more sunny, they had the on call OB come into my room to talk and get to know me. Since I hadn't had insurance until that month really I never tried to have an OB. So the nurses were all confused as to who my care provider was in this case. I was still receiving prenatal care from my incredible midwife but since there was nothing to do for baby and with no insurance there wasn’t really a point at that time to spend all this money out of pocket to have appointments with an OB that I didn’t know, trust and who couldn’t do anything more for me than my midwife was already doing.
Fortunately for me, the oncall OB was a dream. He was so patient, and kind and really listened to me and my husband. He wanted to check my cervix for dilation since I was having some contractions and with the bleeding. He also wanted to see if my water sac had broken which I told him there was no point since there was no fluid anyways. But in retrospect it probably was.
So he had to use a vaginal speculum to try to see dilation or something but because of all the blood he was not able to see anything and after manually checking my cervix I can't even remember if he said a word about any cervical changes. The OB didn't seem concerned at all that I was going into labor, no one did. They all said that it looked like after my bleeding discontinued that I would be able to go home. He then left after telling me to get some food in my belly. So Josh and I ordered some much needed breakfast, I think it was french toast. The hospital food is actually super delicious and I was starving!
That day I was supposed to have a doctor's appointment with maternal fetal medicine to check the baby's position and talk about delivery options. I had never met with this maternal fetal medicine group so basically it was to also establish care. Luckily her office was in the same hospital so after they opened around 9am they wheeled me down to my appointment.
They performed an ultrasound which seems to be an unfortunate task to keep having to see the lack of fluid and the squished up baby parts that were so hard to make out. But this sweet ultrasound tech was the first to show us our baby as a baby and not an unfortunate situation. She was warm and kind and she tried so hard to get the best view of the baby's squished face. I told her I was never given an ultrasound image and she was shocked and printed us out a couple on a large paper. Even though it is hard to see clearly it still was so amazing to have those images.
During the ultrasound she confirmed that our baby was still in a breech position unfortunately being a doula I know how hard it is to find a provider that is willing to deliver a vaginal breech baby so my fear of cesarean was looking more likely. What was also seen was that my placenta was still really close to my cervix opening which could be life threatening for me and my baby if I were to deliver vaginally. My next visit was with our MFM provider which as many doctors before has said she also told me that my chances of my babies survival was 0%. I know doctors have to tell you straight but I just wanted someone to tell me everything could change. Nope, not once did a provider utter those hopeful words. So I went back up to my room, again drained from crying for the millionth time of hearing the same words over and over.
Thankfully when we got back to our room, our breakfast was waiting for us. I was just about to eat when the MFM I had just seen came into have a talk with us. And guess what she told me. That I could not eat! Can you believe that! I was soooo upset. But i didn’t show it. I just listened to her rattle off about why we should really think about performing a cesarean soon since most likely this baby would not be able to stay inside very much longer. I was so hesitate on taking her advice. I just wanted to hang on to every tiny hope that my body would just go into and stay in labor on its own. My thing was that if my baby was not going to live very long I wanted to cherish every single moment of labor. Each contraction no matter how painful it was, it was all i wanted was to feel the pain of labor and to catch my son on my knees and bring him up to my chest even it was only for 5 seconds before being whisked away to the NICU.
My OB came in after she left and I told him how she wouldn’t let me eat. He was a bit bugged by that and told me to EAT!! Ahh the best words i had heard all day. By this time it was after 11 am or so. I was told that I would have another visitor from the head of the NICU department to discuss my plan for resuscitation. Ugg I just wanted this carousel of negative nancy doctors to stop but I knew that it was necessary to yet again discuss my son's 0% chances of survival. This man came in and had a refreshing french accent. He sat down next to my bed and described what condition my son had ( even though I'd heard it 10000 times). He described that the first step was to make sure his lungs worked. Breathing was our first goal. If we could accomplish that, then there would be a chance that dialysis would be possible. He described that most babies with underdeveloped lungs that require intubation of oxygen require a pulmicort tube inserted in the side of the rib cage because the lungs are not strong enough and a hole is created leaking fluid. So this tube is inserted which is very painful. I was just trying to be so hopeful that it wouldn’t happen. That the oxygen would be great and his lungs would not rupture. So I agreed to that as well if we needed to do that.
I don't remember much of the rest of that day. But they did decide to put an IV in my arm and move me to another labor and delivery room where they said it would be more quiet since at this point I was just being monitored for my bleeding. Josh continued to stay with me until about dinner time and then he left to get the kids and come back to the hospital so they could see me. It was so nice to see the kids. Wyatt was not too sure of the hospital or seeing mom hooked up to IV’s and in a gown and what was going on. After a few minutes he finally wanted me to hold him. Hailee , being older could understand a bit more of what was going on.
It was getting late and the kids were really tired so Josh decided to take them home around 8pm. The plan would be that I'd just check in with them in the morning with any updates and we would go from there. Wyatt was still nursing to sleep at this point so I was pretty nervous about Josh being able to get him to sleep but we didn’t have any other options.
After they left the nurse came in and did another check I believe on the bleeding and always having to adjust the fetal monitor. I ended up getting a stretching band that you wear over your abdomen to hold the monitors in place better. I felt as if I would have contractions here and there and each time I looked at the moniorts it never recorded them so instead of trusting what I was feeling I was allowing the monitor to dictate what I felt wasn't “real”. The last time the nurse came in she offered me an Ambien since falling asleep in the hospital is really hard and I agreed.
The nurse that I had now seemed to be in training. She had a more experienced nurse with her in the beginning but not for the routine check ins.
She came back in with my Ambien. At that time I felt some pulsing in my vagina and was thinking it was just from the blood flow so I didn’t mention anything. She didn’t check my bleeding at this last check and she obviously was not paying too close attention to my monitor. The contraction monitor was definitely not working correctly. But I also think I was not wanting to make a big deal out of nothing so I didn't ask. I figured if they weren’t concerned then I shouldn’t be either.
She left and I did my best to fall asleep. And I couldn’t. I noticed that the light from the buildings across the street were coming in through the window and that was probably keeping me from falling asleep. I decided to get up and close the blind. As I sat up I felt as if I was sitting on something. “ That's strange, I thought” at that point I reached in my underwear to see if I could feel something. I felt something warm and pulsing!
I knew immediately what it was, my baby's umbilical cord.
At that moment I took a breath and knew what was about to happen and at that point I was in survival mode. I paged the nurses , “ hi, how can I help you?”, “ the umbilical cord is out” , “ we’re on our way”. In a matter of seconds I had laid on the bed to throw off my underwear, knowing they are going to try to push the cord back up. As the more experienced nurse is trying to push this cord back up the blonde newer nurse asks where my husband is. I said, “ he took the kids home” I grabbed my phone, hit the dial on his number and handed her the phone. I then heard “ your wife is being rushed for an emergency c-section”. I can only imagine what he thought at that moment. Later he had told me that he had just gotten home 30 minutes prior to the call and had just gotten Hailee asleep. Ain't that for luck?
As this nurse is trying to shove the cord back up and I could feel panic and frustration in her voice as she says “ I can’t get it to go back in” I then said “ should I turn over on my hands and knees?” , “ oh, ya !” she says. I proceed to put my now naked ass in the air , my chest down on the bed to get my baby to back up off the cervix to allow her more room to get the cord out of the way. Then there were what felt like a team of nurses came in to help. The unhooked my monitors, and started to wheel me out of the room. All the while they were going back and forth as to , “ has anyone paged the on call provider”. Finally someone covered up my naked back side with a blanket before going down the hall to the OR ( thank goodness, I was grateful for whoever that person was). As I was being wheeled quickly down the hall I had one nurse on my bed with me and her hand still holding the cord in my vagina yelling that she couldn’t feel the head as I yelled to her “ he’s breech”. I didn’t know the sex at that point but the words “HE” came out. Then I had one or two nurses on each side of my bed as it bumped into walls and doorways doing their best to get to the OR as fast as possible. As we were approaching the OR I heard one nurse ask the nurse holding the cord what the pulse was and as she shook her head no. I knew that meant that she couldn’t feel any pulsing which was not a good sign.
We got to the OR and I remember seeing a blue OR table, a man and maybe one other person. The Doctor was not there quite yet I think. I heard a man ask me, ( i'm assuming it was the anesthesiologist) “ do you want a c-section”. Looking back I know that he had to get some sort of consent to treat me but at the moment I was very confused by his question. I said “ What?!, why would you ask me that?” “ yes i want a c-section”. I just remember hearing him laugh at my answer.
I proceed to climb onto the OR table and onto my back. The nurse's hand is still holding the cord in my vagina. This is when I went from survival mode to anxiety attack mode.
All of a sudden I hear voices just muttering quickly what needs to happen. “ Where's her IV?” “ In my left arm I'm shouting” “Do you want me to shave her?” ( well that's embarrassing) “ no there is no time for that, just splash her with the iodine.” I saw and felt that cold Iodine being dumped all over my abdomen and with the hustle and panic I could feel in the room I was terrified they would forget I was not asleep yet and just cut me right open then and there. At that point the anesthesiologist was trying to put the face mask on me to put me under. I kept thinking “ they are going to cut me open” So in my panic i kept throwing the mask on me to tell them i wasn't asleep yet. And to be honest that was such an awful part, feeling that mask being held over my mouth and nose with such force, i couldn't breathe and it was really scary. At that moment I sincerely thought that I was going to die right there on the table and I was so afraid my kids would grow up without their mom. So I threw the mask off of me 2 more times. At that moment a nice man FINALLY looked at me right in the eyes and said “ you are ok, we need to put the mask on you so that we can get your baby out”. Just that 2 seconds it took for him to explain what was happening allowed me to get back into my survival mode and just take one deep DEEP breath and say “ tell my kids I love them” with tears in my eyes the mask was shoved back on my face as I breathed in really deep to get to sleep as fast as possible. I was out.
That was probably the most that I can remember with great detail. The rest of the story is a bit foggy as I woke up from anesthesia. Most of the story is from what others have told me and then some bits and pieces that are in my hazy memory. Trauma is a crazy thing and what it can do to our memories to try to protect us.
Some things that I remember in those first moments of waking up are holding my Midwives hand really tight and not wanting her to let go of it. I then remember holding my brother Coffee's hand the same way just feeling so thankful to be holding someone's hand that I knew and felt safe with. The next moment of waking up in a haze is seeing my husbands face, seeing him wearing white scrubs they make the partners wear when going in for a c-section. He said to me “ its a boy and he has dark hair” then he mumbled something about 100% or 30% oxygen and he’s stable” In the mist of the haziness I remember screaming that i was in a lot of pain and they had some sort of machine pump with morphine and something else hooked into my IV that I could push this special button every 15 minutes when the light turned green. I remember staring at the button and waiting for the green light so I could push it. After each time I pushed it I was back asleep. At some point I was trying to tell someone to call my photographer Rowan to come. Then the next moment, which I now know was around 2 in the morning, I woke up and saw her standing in the back of the room. I was so happy to see her. So many pictures that I have from her are so precious because I truly don't remember most of those moments she has captured so it has been a great blessing to have those images to fill in the gaps of my very foggy memory.
Around the same time they were talking about wheeling my bed up to the NICU to see my son. These memories are very foggy but what I can remember is being really really frustrated that I couldn’t hold him or get closer to him. In one of the images I'm in my hospital gown and the next I'm in just my nursing bra. I'm thinking that I took it off in the frustration of trying to get as close to his bed as possible. You can see these are the pictures that I've added to this story. I remember seeing this baby with so much dark hair, not moving, just tubes and wires and cords everywhere. I don't remember much after this moment. Not even leaving to go back to my room or the next many hours afterwards. I'm pretty sure due to the trauma my brain has blocked out a lot of memories to protect me.
My husband was up in the NICU as much as he could be, after my I’Vs were detached it was easier for me to go up to the NICU to see him more, with my urinary catheter attached. I believe this was still January 2nd just later in the day my kids were finally able to come to the hospital to meet him. Hailee and Wyatt we're still unsure of what to expect. This whole time I hadn’t told my kids what might happen with their baby brother in fear that they just wouldn't understand and I didn't want to confuse them. So I was a bit worried about how Hailee, my oldest, would react.
At first she was afraid to touch him, and I don't blame her. She has never seen a tiny baby hooked up to all of the monitors. But after our incredible NICU nurse Wendy explained that she could touch him and she could even read to him , Hailee finally relaxed and started asking questions. She listened to his heart with Wendy's stethoscope and read many, many books to him. Wyatt was very confused as to what was going on and I didn’t expect him to understand, he had just barely turned two. He had the hardest time understanding why I was unable to hold him. I honestly kept forgetting that I couldn’t because I guess I did just have major abdominal surgery. But that just seemed so less important than what was going on in front of me.
One thing that I will say that maybe will help any other parents that will have a NICU baby was that when his nurse was just doing things that I could have done. Such as changing his diaper or feeding him my pumped colostrum with a q-tip, it really upset me. I felt and still feel robbed of this opportunity to actually do something that his mom should be doing. I never felt like his mom and it still is something I struggle with. There is a big dissociation that happened from having him removed from my body and then not getting to hold him , or barely even touch him until we were told that it was probably time to take him off of life support. So if you are ever in this circumstance, advocate for your right to do as much as you possibly can to try to connect with your little human. Something as simple as changing his diaper can make a huge difference in a mother's heart. I never got to do this for him and never will be given the chance again.
The next day was about the same, sleeping when we could, watching Tristan sleep in his bed of wires. I only ever saw him open one of his eyes one time. Because of all of the medications that he was being given to help his breathing, his pain, his blood pressure and heart rate he was very tired. Even too much stimulation would cause his blood pressure to increase. I think I was so depressed and everything felt so out of control that all I wanted to do was sleep. I felt as if there was nothing that I could do and when I was with him all i wanted to do was hold him and i could barely hold his hand. My husband was with him a lot as I would go to our room to sleep.
The night into the early morning of January 2nd was the worst of the days , but we also knew that it would come sooner rather than later. His heart rate and blood pressure were starting to not respond to his medications and he was on the max dose of his medications. So Josh and I got 2 reclining chairs and slept as much as we could right next to his NICU bed. The sound of his breathing machine and constant beeping of his monitors was a constant reminder that any moment this could be over. It was impossible to get any sleep and I knew that this was going to be a very long and hard day emotionally and I did not want to be too foggy headed and tired to remember each moment. So around 5 am I decided to go back to my room so that I could try to get some rest. A couple hours later I was woken up by the NICU provider that was in charge of taking care of Tristan. She told me that his meds were maxed out and now his blood pressure was becoming unstable. She said it would be a good idea for me to go back to the NICU. I put my hair up, brushed my teeth and walked up to his room.
The nurses and providers were so amazing and worked with us to soak in as much holding time that we could with him still with us. Unfortunately that meant that he had to be connected to his breathing machine at all times and without bumping it. So they wheeled in a hospital bed in our tiny area and they closed the curtains around us, trying to give us as much privacy as they could. This was the moment I had been waiting for since I found out I was pregnant, I was finally going to be able to hold my son skin to skin. That moment was the sweetest and the first time I think I truly smiled and felt like his mom.
Our kids were able to see him and spend time reading to him and touching his little hands and feet. It was so precious, these last few moments. I knew that I needed to give my turn over to my husband at some point so that he could also feel the joy that I did in that moment, holding our son. Carefully he was placed in Josh's arms and together we stared at him as long as we could and gave him so much of our hearts until we felt like it was time to pull out his breathing tube. It felt good to be able to take that discomfort away from him although we knew that this would also cause him to pass away.
The medical staff was really amazing and patient with us. The provider that we had spoken with previously, the head of NICU, explained to us that he would pass away very peacefully. He would not suffocate or suffer from this lack of oxygen. It would be as if he was falling asleep. Which he already was sleeping 99% of the time due to the medications he was on. That came as a comfort and felt as if we were allowing him to take the next step on his journey. It felt like a really important role as his mother and father to give him peace and comfort. We held him in our arms as the nurse removed the tape from his mouth and removed the long breathing tube from his trachea. I felt relief for him as that was pulled out of his body. He was finally free of all tubes and could just be snuggled in our arms. After that we were moved to an empty room across the hall. It had more room for our kids and his parents. Our nurse Wendy and my brother codee stayed with us in these last moments. Josh's parents took our kids into another room to play so we could have this quiet moment alone while his heart slowed down and took its last few beats in my arms, wrapped in a blanket snuggled into my chest. It would be easy to say that this was the hardest moment, but it wasn’t. That came much later.
This moment felt like I was giving him peace. Now our son, Tristan was able to rest and be free of pain.
There is not a day that goes by that my heart doesn’t hurt for him. For a baby to hold to my chest and smell that sweet newborn smell. My milk came in very quickly and I felt as if I had to give it to other babies that needed breast milk. I was fortunate enough to be able to feed three babies with the milk meant for Tristan. In my healing journey, this felt like exactly the right thing for me to be doing. I felt like his milk would not go to waste. Something that I was supposed to be doing for him would not go to waste.
The healing journey after losing a child is not linear. It is not something you just get over. It feels lighter some days and really heavy others. It goes from having hard days, weeks, to having hard moments. But no matter what , when you feel the pain , it is always the same amount of hurt that you feel.
If you find yourself down this road, know that every feeling that you feel is valid. There is no wrong way or right way to grieve. There is no timeline that you should feel better, that the pain will no longer be there. Find comfort in speaking about your pain. You will be surprised by how many other families have been or are currently going through the same thing. It helps knowing that you are not alone. It's a strange and lonely feeling when you realise the world doesn’t stop when your child dies. It keeps on moving , but your world is on pause. And that is ok. You will be ok, even if it doesn’t feel like it for a long time.
Some of the things I had for after he passed that helped me with my healing were:
These books,
Tear Soup by: Pat Schwiebert, Chuck DeKlyen
The Gift in the Wound: Mark L. Dayton
His bear
When Tristan passed away we were given a white bear in the hospital that I put in his bassinet with him while we were there and now that bear is my biggest comfort when I am having a hard day. I snuggle it close into my chest as I would have done with Tristan. I talk to the bear and give it kisses. My kids and husband also love to snuggle it when they are missing him. So that is also something that I recommend doing. I've never been a stuffed animal person but to have something tangible to hold and feel and snuggle has brought immense comfort. Especially for those lonely nights that are full of painful tears.
Keeping some of their hair for trinkets is also a great thing to do. I had an amazing friend create some beautiful necklaces with Tristan's hair inside and it has been so helpful to actually be able to see something that was on him. Something that belonged to him. I do however wish I would have kept some more that I could touch. But I didn't want to cut any more hair off of him than I did.
My last recommendation that I also discussed early was hiring a bereavement photographer. Rowan did this for free for our family and I know many other photographers do the same thing. I will forever be grateful and cherish each of these photos of our son.
