Nightmares

At times I have a lot to say about my son being gone and others my mind is blank, but the pain in my heart is consistent and overwhelming. It screams with each beat "I WANT MY BABY." I miss him so much, there are just no words to do the relentless ache I have for his presence any justice. I often find myself conflicted as to whether I want to scream, cry, or pack all I could possibly fit into my car and drive as far away as possible. Given the rage that is now an every day part of my life, I continue to shock myself with the fact that all I really do is lay in bed and stare off into the emptiness that should be filled with my son. I went out for the first time since Boston passed away last night. I'm very thankful for the close friends that were there with me. In ways it went better than expected, however, the thought never left my mind that I so much would have rather been at home with my Bosty. I don't want to be able to have the free time to "do what I want." I want my weekends to be filled with the precious time I had alone with him since his big brother stays with his dad on Fridays and Saturdays. Quinton absolutely adored Boston and was such an amazing big brother, but I always looked forward to the weekends and being able to just sit and enjoy my time with him without any interruptions. He completed me. After having him everything just felt right. My sons were the two halves that made me whole and now that he is gone there will never be anything that can fill that void. It is the most helpless feeling on earth knowing that there is nothing I can do to take that pain away. I can attempt to distract myself, but my heart will never beat the same. Instead of thumping with the consistent joy he brought into my life, it is now off beat and the fact that it still beats at all feels so horribly wrong. A lot of people have told me how strong I am, but they are wrong. I am weak, disoriented, and lost. The only way I could find my way out of the mess my life has become is if Boston was still here.

Up until a week or so ago when I was finally able to get his belongings back from the hospital, I slept with the sleeper I changed him out of before taking him to daycare that morning. Now that I have his blanket and the outfit he was wearing at the hospital, I sleep with them. It breaks my heart. Each night while I lay in bed with his stuff I beg him to come visit me in my dreams, and I literally mean beg. I also always say "Bosty, please come lay with mommy. I miss you." There has been a few times where I am quite positive that I truly felt him here with me, or that I will randomly smell his wonderful baby scent for a moment and feel like it is his way of letting me know that he is there. As far as dreaming of him goes, the ones I have had are devastating and far from what I hope for each night before I go to sleep. To save anyone reading this from the true morbid-ness that has invaded my dreams, I suppose I could sum them up with the fact that each time I have dreamt of him he is still dead, but instead of having him cremated I brought him home with me and am continuously angry at someone for moving or touching him because I'm afraid that he will break. I want these type of dreams to leave and never come back. I want to see my chubby spit bubble blowing Bosty, not the one that was taken from me in a casket. I am often angry with myself because regardless of how many times I watch the videos I have of him or go through his pictures trying to force the good memories into my brain, my mind has become some awful broken record that is stuck on the horrible ones of seeing him dead. At least at the hospital it still looked like him, besides the off color of his skin and how cold he was, but it was still him and just looked like he was sleeping. I am not at all trying to speak illy of the funeral home, they were very good to my family and I and I know they did the very best they could, but it just did not look like him. I'm not sure what I was expecting to walk in and see at his visitation, but I recall the sheer terror I felt the second I saw him because it was not the Bosty that I adore laying there in front of me. His cheeks were no longer the chubby ones that I loved so much, his eyes lids were sunken in, and his head was slightly off in shape. Even though it was so upsetting seeing him that way, I wanted so badly to bring him home with me. I wanted to grab him from his casket, run right out the door and keep him with me forever. It sounds incredibly crazy, but when we left his funeral the hearse was parked right out in front of the church with his casket in it and I literally had to talk myself out of trying to get it out and into my car. The following quote is from the article "Parental Grief And A SIDS Death" that I shared the link to in my last blog post.

"Probably the most stressful and anxiety-provoking act in human existence is the separation of a woman from her infant. The response to this, which humans share with most of the animal kingdom, is an overwhelming combination of panic, rage, and distress." -Ruskin, in Horchler and Morris, 1994, 16.

I would dismantle me to put you back together again. 

One month

Such a large part of me died the same day that Boston did, but unlike when people actually die and leave earth, I am still here and forced to deal with what is left. I know that even though he died that I am and always will be his mom, and that he will always be my baby, but what do you do with the parts of yourself that no longer get to actively take care of your child? I feel like I constantly carry them around like weights. I am tired and exhausted and I don't want to carry them. I want to carry him. I want to be tired because my son keeps me up at night, not because I can't get the image of him laying lifeless in front of me out of my head. I will never forget the moment I saw him that day at the hospital. It is burned into the back of my brain and it is one of those awful images that you don't want to look at, but can't get yourself to turn away from.

 I had just finished my last break at work and was about to walk back upstairs to take more calls. I pulled my phone out of my pocket one last time and at that moment I received a text from my mom that said "baby isn't breathing calling 911." She had just gotten there to take him to get his first shots. I called her right away. No answer. I called back and she was crying. I know no one would ever joke about that, but I really thought that when she answered she was going to say "Never mind. Sorry for the scare, he's fine." All I can really remember is that she said the ambulance was on the way and that I needed to tell work that I had to leave right away and meet them at the Emergency Room. I could hardly walk or talk, but somehow managed to get up the stairs and tell the guy in charge of our training class. My mom has apologized numerous times for telling me the way she did, but I'm actually thankful that it happened that way instead of a random person at work having to pull me aside and tell me what was going on. He offered to have someone drive me, which I probably should have agreed to, but drove myself. I talked to Boston's dad the whole way there and I remember both of us repeatedly saying that he would probably be fine by the time I got there.

I carry a dreadful amount of guilt with me because when I first arrived at the hospital I couldn't get myself to go in the room with him. I was half way in the door and there was 5 or 6 nurses surrounding him and I literally could not get myself to actually look at him. I had to be brought into a different room and a nurse sat me down and all I could really get to come out of my mouth was "Oh my God", "What the f**k", and "Why?" I was going to apologize for the language for anyone who might be offended reading it, but trust me there is no way to handle a situation like this gracefully.

I only truly recall a few parts of mine and the nurses conversation (some of my recollections might not even be correct as far as timing and order but this is how I remember it). I recall asking her quite a few times what was going on but they really weren't sure yet, so I finally asked her if his heart had stopped. She hesitated and then said "Your son is very sick right now. His heart stopped beating." She followed with something along the lines of they were doing everything they could to get it to start again. I also recall her mentioning that they were having someone come down for "pastoral care" which I believe I responded with another "Oh my God, why!?"and I think I asked her if that meant he was dead. She told me that it was "routine protocol" and didn't mean that they were done trying, but I think it was at that point that I knew it was unlikely my son would be coming home with me. I had her go check on him again. While she was out of the room my uncle who is a deacon at St Michael's Catholic Church walked in. I have no idea what was said at this point but then the nurse came back in and asked if I wanted to go into the room with him. I hesitated but knew that I needed to and my uncle came in with me. That was the first time I actually looked at him. It was the scariest and most awful moment of my life. He was a weird grayish color and was hooked up to a bunch of monitors. He also had a breathing tube in and was being given CPR. I could hardly stand up so they got me a chair and I sat right next to him. I was afraid to touch him, but a nurse told me I could hold his hand, so I did. He was already kind of cold. It was very hectic in the room. I remember them calling out each time they were checking for a pulse, but I watched the monitor the whole time and his heart rate stayed a flat line. My uncle was standing behind me and I remember hearing him say "Come on Boston, breathe." Our pleas to him were not answered because not long after someone asked for the time (it was 3:46PM) and a nurse grabbed my hand and kneeled down by my side and said "I'm so sorry." All I could respond with was "No" over and over again. They removed the cords that hooked him up to the monitor and for some reason I vividly remember them taking the breathing tube out of his mouth. Then they changed his diaper and handed him to me. He made a noise not long after being placed in my arms and I thought "Thank God! They were wrong!" but the nurse told me it was just the air leaving his body. 

I let a couple people know what had happened myself, and as the words were coming out of my mouth I kept thinking that it just had to be some awful dream. How could my baby really be gone? As my family and friends started showing up at the hospital I almost started to get angry, not at them, but I think each person that came started bawling the second they walked into the room and saw him, and it was just confirmation that it really was that bad. He was really dead and there was nothing I could do to change it. As a mother that is the most horrid feeling on earth. How come I couldn't fix him? That is what moms are for, that is what we do. When they cry, we fix it. When they are hungry, we fix it. When they are sad, mad, sick or whatever it may be, we are there to fix it. I am responsible for giving him life. I carried him for 9 months. I gave birth to him. I fed him. I loved him. I catered to his every need. Why couldn't I fix my baby when he needed it the most!? I knew that having a second child would have it's challenges, but this was not supposed to be one of them. You plan and plan and plan for 9 months for the things that having a child brings, but you don't ever consider that all of those plans can be brutally ripped from your life in a matter of minutes. Instead of making decisions about normal things, like what clothes my son would wear to daycare the next morning, all of the sudden I was being forced to decide if I wanted molds made of his hands and feet. I was hesitant at first when the nurses asked me, but only because I did not want him to leave my arms. It was also hard to let other people hold him, but for the same reason. I wanted to hold him. I wanted everything surrounding us to disappear, and just sit there and hug my baby. At some point my mom came back into the room and told me that I didn't have much longer with him, so I asked if we could be alone for awhile and everybody left the room. I talked to him and told him how much I love him, and how so so sorry I am that this happened. "Oh my Bosty" probably came out of my mouth at least 20 times as I kissed his forehead over and over again and ran my fingers through his crazy hair. And then the door opened and the detective and my mom walked in. I asked the detective how much longer I had with him and he said "Two minutes, because things are going to start happening and I would not want you to remember him that way." It took everything in me not make a run for it out of that hospital with my child in my arms. I am his mom I shouldn't have to be told how much time I have left with him. I should've had the rest of my life. When it was time for me to leave, the detective promised me that he would make sure that he was well taken care of. Handing him over was the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. I kissed his forehead a couple more times after placing him in the detectives arms, and then I left. I didn't want to leave, I didn't want to get in my car, I didn't want to go home. I wanted to run back into the hospital and beg to stay with him, but I knew I couldn't, and so began my life without my son. 

It has been exactly one month since Boston died.  If anything, it keeps getting harder. At first everything is such a shock that you don't really realize how difficult living without your child is. I know people say it will get better, and maybe someday it will, but there is a huge part of me that never wants to be okay without him. Regardless, I will never be complete. It doesn't matter if it is 5 years from now or 20, there will be an emptiness in my life and heart that only he could fill. 

I came across this article last night and am glad I did. It's a long article and I don't expect very many people to read it, but I know that me losing a child makes many people uncomfortable in the sense that they're not sure what to say because it's hard to imagine what I'm going through. It provides a very accurate description and can give insight for those who are wondering. There is a section about a 3rd of the way down called "Parental Grief And A SIDS Death" that I highly recommend anyone and everyone to read if they have the chance. Here is the link http://athealth.com/topics/the-death-of-a-child-2/

"What a life to take, what a bond to break, 

I'll be missing you"

What happens when you die?

"Undetermined." That's the answer I have to live with for the rest of my life as to why my baby is no longer here. In the numerous pages that go into vivid detail on his autopsy, all that stands out is that it repeatedly states "no abnormalities." I guess it's not that I really wanted them to find something wrong with him, I just wasn't expecting the reason to be that there is absolutely no reason behind his death. Not a single thing wrong with any part of him, not a single toxin in his body, nothing. My perfect little baby was taken from me forever and even after examining each and every inch of him, no one can tell me why. This makes me want to scream and throw the most awful and childlike tantrum you could ever imagine. It's not fair and I am so bitter and angry at life and people. I can't stand it when people talk about how much their life sucks and how bad of a day they've had. I know I have to understand that everyone handles things differently and that things that might seem minuscule to me seem awful to others, but I lost a child and just received a 14 page packet on what they did to my precious Bosty after dying, only to tell me that I will never know why. I promise you, you don't know just how painful life can be. 

I didn't think I was going to post anything about his autopsy results, but after reading through them I am once again left sitting here with such a rage inside of me that it is impossible to keep it all in my head. I don't want anyone to know what going through this feels like, but I do want the world to be angry with me, and I want to know that people understand that SIDS is real and it needs to be talked about. In all of the blogs I've read written by other parents who have also unfortunately lost a child to this mysterious monster, I have found that a lot of us share the same anxiety of telling people that our child died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, because it doesn't actually explain anything and raises a lot of questions. What does that mean? What happened? What actually caused the child to die though? We do not know, and the one hope we had of finding answers left us with nothing but more questions.

So after receiving this devastating blow of being told I won't ever know why he died, the only question I can answer is what happens when you die? A lot of things happen when you die. People cry. A lot. People contemplate on a daily basis if they could have done anything to change your fate. People miss you. People dream of what it would be like if you were still here. People ache for your presence, even just one more time. I would give anything to have even two more minutes with my son. I have also found that behind each of those answers, more questions lurk, because what REALLY happens when you die? I have never been so eager to know. I wish I would have been more set in my beliefs so I had some hope that I could be absolutely positive I will see my son the day that I physically leave this earth. Of course I hope more than ever that heaven exists and that my sons beautiful face will be the first thing I see when I open my own eyes on the other side. At the end of his funeral as we were walking out behind his casket I chose to have the song "I'll Be Missing You" playing, mainly because of the part that says "In the future, I can't wait to see if you open up the gates for me." That statement holds very true in my heart. If there is a God, I hope he understands my pain well enough to know that is what I will need, for my Bosty to be the one to greet me. I sit here and wonder also if people age in heaven, or do they stay the same age as when they died? In many ways I hope he will be the exact same as when he left. A chubby two month old with a huge crooked smile and messy hair, but then I worry about the fact that I will probably be an old woman. Much, much older than I am now. Will he know who I am? At the same time though, I think regardless of my age when I die, that my soul in some way will revert to what I am now and Boston will recognize me as his 22 year old mom, because a huge part of me certainly died the same day that he did. When I join him I hope that we can start right where we left off and that I will be able to do all the things that I no longer have the chance to do with him here, like hear him laugh for the first time, help him learn how to sit up, to crawl, to walk, and talk. I wish there was some way to get a free pass to heaven for an hour, actually even for just 5 minutes, so I could make sure that my baby is happy and okay. That's the worst part, not knowing.

"You're so wonderful to think of, but so hard to be without."

If only's

I have found that I am vividly aware of two things, how empty and how full Boston's belongings are. Every time I am in my car, the spot where his car seat was placed haunts me, right along with his empty bottle sitting in my backseat never to be filled again. Every time I pull into my garage his empty stroller awaits me. Every time I go to bed his empty swing reminds me that I will never be able to place him there again. Beside his swing is a newly opened package of diapers that should've been long gone by now. His can of formula still sits within reach right beside them. Every time I walk through my living room the urn full of his ashes taunts me with "if onlys." If only I would have been the one to pick him up from daycare that day, would he some how have found it in himself to breath again? If I was the one in the ambulance with him, would he have known I was there and held on for me? If I would have gotten to the hospital even 2 minutes earlier, would've he survived? If I never stopped breast feeding? If I drank more water when I was pregnant? If I took more vitamins? Exercised more? If I wouldn't have gone back to work a week and a half earlier? I want to know if there is something I could have done that would've kept my son here, that would've saved me from having to say goodbye to the forever I thought I had with my baby.

I have not stopped wondering why doctors, or why people in general, don't talk about SIDS. I guess I never truly thought twice about it before this happened. Why would I? Why would anyone? My son was a perfectly happy and healthy 2 month old. There were no warning signs or red flags. The only thing he struggled with was constipation after I unfortunately wasn't getting enough to feed him and had to switch to formula, but that isn't out of the ordinary or any reason to think this would happen. On March 17th I dropped my baby off at daycare and had absolutely no idea that I would never get to pick him up again, or that it was the last time I would ever see him alive. It's not that I wish doctors would try to scare people. I can understand that when a baby seems to be perfectly healthy during pregnancy and after birth that there might not seem to be a reason to mention SIDS, but there is, because I was just like any other mother out there. I had a healthy baby and assumed that meant there was no reason to think anything bad would happen to him. My son layed down for a nap at 2:45 PM. My mother arrived at 3:00 PM to take him to get his first shots because I couldn't take time off work at my new job yet. 15 minutes, that's all. In 15 minutes my baby went from alive and well to lifeless for no apparent reason. He was not laying on his stomach, he did not have a blanket accidentally cover his face and suffocate him. He went to sleep and 15 minutes later he was dead. They didn't actually pronounce him dead until right before 4 PM at the hospital but I think everyone there, including myself, knew that he was already gone. In a way I feel bad because I know this post is kind of morbid, but at the same time I wish someone would've scared me into knowing it was possible. Everyone knows that people of old age at some point will leave this world, and sick people too, but no one talks about or thinks about the fact that children can die long before they should. I can't help but think that if someone would have warned me, that I could've saved my son.

"If only, my child, I could send,
A basket filled with love,
And pretty blue forget-me-nots
To your new home above.

If only I could send a hug
Past every twinkling star,
And a suitcase filled with kisses
Up to heaven where you are.

If only I could rock you
As I did not long ago,
And sing you one more lullaby
Before you had to go.

If only's fill my every thoughts
As my heart is aching for you.
With faith, I'll wait until the time
If only's all come true."
-Ron Tranmer

Thinking of you

I've had quite a few people ask me if it is hard to share what I have posted on this blog taking that it is all very personal. It is hard, everything about him being gone is hard and though it is a very personal experience, I find some type of comfort in talking about him. I wish more than anything that I did not know what this type of pain feels like, but I do. Being around people is difficult for me, even something as simple as running to a gas station. Any time I go to a public place I have to sit there and talk myself into actually going inside. As crazy as it sounds I feel like I have a big sign on my forehead that screams "I am not well, I just lost my son." Obviously there is no big arrow over my head pointing this out to people, but when you lose something as precious as a child, it leaves a wound so unimaginably large that it is hard to think people can't see how much you are hurting, that they can't see the gaping hole of all your crushed hopes and dreams. When I was pregnant with Boston, and in the 68 days I was so blessed to have with him, I imagined him growing up to be so wonderful. Someone intelligent and loving and life changing. So what do you do when your child doesn't get to grow up? When they don't get to share the infectious love and laughter you know they would have brought the world? You talk about them. You tell people how special they are, how much happiness they brought you, and how much they changed your life. I will not let my sons death be in vain, and I will not let memories of him escape this earth the way that he physically did. Although he is not by my side he will forever influence how I live my life.

Boston would have been 3 months old today. It is hard not to dwell on all the things I am missing out on without him here, but for right now I am going to talk about all of the things I was lucky enough to experience because of him. I got to spend 38 whole weeks of my life excited and anxious for the little being growing inside of me. I got to see his adorable face on ultrasounds and fall in love with him before even meeting him, and then finally after a couple of days of on and off contractions, my water broke around 6 PM exactly 2 weeks before his due date. He made his way into this world just short of 5 hours later at 10:48 pm on January 9th, 2015 and I fell in love with him all over again. The baby that I dreamt of constantly for those 9 months, and whose little face I saw on those ultrasounds was finally right there in my arms. A perfect 7 lb 4.9 oz healthy little boy. He really was perfect. When the nurse who helped deliver him was moving us to our room in the maternity ward, she held him up so the people at the front desk could see him and said "Look at how cute this baby is!" He also slept far better than I did the first night he was born and pretty much the entire next day. I had the nurses keep him in the nursery the second night we were in the hospital so I could catch up on sleep, and when I asked her how he did while being there, she told me he was by far the most content and easy baby to care for in the nursery. After being discharged from the hospital and arriving home he was only truly awake and alert for about 6 hours the whole first week of his life. He would wake up to eat and fall right back asleep. The only time he ever truly cried was when he was born. Bosty was a whiner. When he was hungry he would whine, but that was all. It was a ridiculous whine too, and many of the people that witnessed it would say "Really? That's all you got?" He didn't cry during the night either. I was quite worried at first being a single mom with a toddler and brand new baby, but he made it easy. He was so content. During his first couple weeks he did not appreciate baths, but grew to tolerate them and when I would lay him in the little sling part of his bathtub he would cross his arms and scrunch up his face and just sit there. He would also let out a weird little scream when I would take his bottle out of his mouth to burp him as if he was trying to yell at me to give it back. He loved to eat. Constantly. I am so thankful the majority of his life was spent in my arms. Every time my mom would come home from work she would ask "Do you ever put him down?" Nope. It was very rare to find him any where but in my lap. On the rare occasions he was set in his swing, I would walk back out into the living room to find him smiling and talking to himself. It melted my heart. He had just started turning into quite the talker. I would sit up in bed with him for hours saying whatever ridiculous things I could come up with to hear his beautiful little voice and see his silly crooked smile. I will think of that wonderful smile to get through today, and the simple fact that he knew nothing, and gave nothing, but pure love.


Thank you to this sweet 3 month old angel for giving me the best 68 days I've ever had.

I am not prepared.

Tomorrow I go back to work. I am nervous for a long list of reasons. It doesn't feel right in the sense that going back means this is it. This is the start to my "new normal." I feel like in the back of my mind I have been living on this hope that someone, anyone, was going to call me or come to my door and tell me that this has all been some huge mistake and give me back my son. I know I cannot live in denial forever or hang onto irrational hopes that Boston is coming back because he's not. My baby is really gone. I've read quite a few stories and articles about the stages of grief that parents go through after losing a child, the first one is typically shock. Your body and mind go into some weird prolonged state of it, attempting to make sense out of an overwhelmingly difficult situation and giving your emotions some much needed time to catch up. This is very true in my situation. I have been holding onto all of these little things to get myself through a day. At first, the day he died, I held onto the fact that I was still going to see my son. Not that it was comforting knowing he would be in a casket, but I still got to see him, he still physically existed. The day after his visitation was his funeral. His dad and I got to spend time alone with him before the service started and I once again could at least look at my child right there in front of me, rearrange his blanket the way that he liked it, and play him his favorite songs. It may seem odd to some people, but at his visitation and funeral I stood by his casket the entire time and ran my fingers over his face, hands, stomach, toes, legs, and hair. I tried to memorize every single part of him knowing that it would be the last time I would ever have the chance to. During his funeral service after they had closed his casket, I held onto the fact that he was still there just a few feet away from me, but at the very least still physically there. I picked up his ashes the following Monday. It was harder for me to find things to hold onto after this, but in general I have clung tightly to the fact that this is all still new, that at this point I still had my son for longer than he has been gone, that I still come across his things in random places, that my memories of him are still fresh and that I have not yet had to go out into the real world, the one that does not revolve around the fact that he just passed away. I am not ready for my day to consist of anything but mourning the loss of my son, however, I know that whether I go to work tomorrow for the first time or wait six more months, it will be the same awful slap in the face from reality reminding me that no matter how much I wish the world would have stopped for him, it didn't.