So I was in labor for 13 hours, but I did get the epi so it was not a physically painful time, but mentally it was awful. You know how people always talk about how difficult times have the quality of a bad dream? It was like that, sort of like a nightmare. The room was dark, DH and I cried, and when my mother and father came in my father cried like I had never seen him. He's sort of the tough guy type and he just broke down. His whole body shaked with sobs. It was then that it occured to me how much this baby meant to my family. On the final push I felt such a pain in my heart, like an anvil was lying on my chest. After he came out I waited for a cry. I knew he was gone, but thousands of years of evolution have wired women to listen for the cry of their newborn. I was no different even though they told me he has passed away 24 hours before. At first I did not want to hold him because I was afraid of the emotions I would feel. DH said he could NOT hold him. I changed my mind and they handed him to me. I am so glad I got to hold him. Looking back it was the one good thing that came out of the event, being able to hold my son. He was swaddled in this blanket that had little dinosaurs on it and he had on a blue cap. I lifted up the cap to see that he had lots of brown hair. I could not get over how big he was! He had ten fingers and toes and was just so beautiful. Matthew also changed his mind and held him several times as well. Watching him hold Jimmy was also a wonderful event. I think it was the first time Matthew realized what we had and lost. We held him for about four hours. We wanted to hold him longer but we were afraid that the longer we held him the harder it would be to give him back. I wish we had held him longer. A friend of mine in my support group bathed her baby and I wish we had done that. One thing I have learned is not to feel guilty or beat yourself up for what you did or didn't do during that time. No one goes into it thinking that the worst will happen. You don't have a "to do" list if your baby dies. And in the midst of the pain you cannot be expected to do everything right. One of the women in my support group did not hold her baby because she did not think she could deal with the pain. Her husband did. I often wonder if she regrets it, but when you are in the middle of the event, you just don't know what to do. While we had wondeful nurses who made a memory box for us and encouraged us to hold Jimmy, they did say one thing to me that I still have a hard time dealing with. While we were holding Jimmy they told us that after we gave him up we could ask to have him brought back to our room, but they would have to warm him up because they were going to put him in a freezer. What the F*^@#? Who tells a mother and father that they are going to put their baby in a freezer? The whole night I pictured my precious baby, my lil' Jimmy in a freezer! They should have just done what they needed to do and explained any delays in bringing him back with some other excuse. We stayed the regular amount of time in the hospital for a vaginal delivery. A few people came to talk to me about grief groups and such and the nurses gave me the memory box. I could not look in it and in fact, DH and I didn't look in it for days. Inside it were a lock of his hair, three pictures, his hat, one of his blankets (not the dinosaur one), and his footprints as well as his id bracelet and a diaper they posed him in during one of the pictures. These items are sacred to me. It is all the physical reminders we have of him. I would do anything to protect those items. I remember getting in the elevator to leave thinking how strange this is, all I am leaving the hospital with is a box of mementos. My mom arrived at the house before me and removed all of the baby items to the nursery. I will have to add pics of James Travis' nursery some day. That day was the worst day of my life. I've had some pretty shitty days, and that one was by far the worst. In fact, if you were to take all my bad days and add them up it would not even compare to that day. Yet believe it or not, I am going to try it again. I am a few days away from ten weeks pregnant now. I often daydream about how the day when I give birth to this baby will be so different. I want everyone to come see the baby, I want balloons, flowers, music, food, and most of all, lots of light. I have told DH that I want to bring the baby home from the hospital in the blanket lil' Jimmy was in but DH says no. He says that the blanket is sacred and he doesn't want the new baby to vomit or piss, or whatever on the blanket. To me though, the blanket has special powers. I know it sounds weird, but I think it has protective powers. I'm going to sneak it to the hospital one way or another.
Monica
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