Leaving the hospital without her…

Everything happened so fast the night Brooklyn was born… I had to be taken to the OR after delivering her because my placenta would not come out. My parents were still in the Philippines and my mom was not scheduled to arrive back until the next evening. Luckily, my mother in law came to the hospital that night and I remember seeing her when I was brought back to the room… I would fade in and out at times from the sedation I had received, but I remember seeing Brooklyn, seeing Marcus’ mom next to us, and seeing her hug him as he cried… I saw the pain on his face, and it killed me. I couldn’t help but blame myself… And yes, medically I know that this was not anyone’s fault, not even mine, but as a mother, I couldn’t help but feel that I was supposed to protect her, carry her, and I couldn’t… My body had failed me, failed my husband, and failed my daughter.

We were moved out of Labor & Delivery later that night… I remember the staff speaking to us about funeral home options – something we did not want to think about, I remember our nurse bringing us a little, white box with a green bow filled with her pictures, hand prints, and foots prints… I remember holding my girl, kissing her, over and over, trying to memorize every little thing about her… Her face that was shaped like mine, her thick eyebrows, dark skin, the tiniest bit of hair on her head, the cutest little nose, her tiny hands that could wrap around my finger, and how she looked just like her Daddy… She was perfect, she was beautiful. I remember all of this, but I was so numb… It didn’t feel real. It couldn’t be. And when I let myself feel her loss… It would swallow me whole, it drowned me in so much pain and sorrow, and I couldn’t handle it…

We clung to one another and her tiny, pink blanket that night… And I don’t know how we made it through… But morning eventually came and it still didn’t feel real… Our girl was gone and I couldn’t understand why. We had cried and prayed every day, every night… I had begged God to let me take my baby home… And I didn’t want to leave without her… But we were discharged home that night. I remember being wheeled down to the lobby by my nurse, passing so many excited faces who would soon meet a new addition to their family… Those people had no idea of my empty womb, empty arms, and my broken heart. A heart that would never be the same. And as we drove away, I looked out of the window at the world around me and I couldn’t help but see how the entire world had kept moving. Nothing had stopped… But how? How could that be? Our world had stopped completely. Our lives were broken…. And I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face. And as we drove to our home, the home we had built, the home we had worked so hard for and wanted to fill with children… We didn’t know how we would get through this… But the one thing we did know, the one thing we promised each other was that we would get through it together…