This past few weeks have been ridiculously hard. Covid-19 is scary enough as it is, but I find myself having flashbacks to the NICU. It's mostly the signs up in washrooms on how long to wash your hands for, the smell of the antibacterial soaps and sanitizers and that dry feeling my hands have from all the washing.
Work has been especially hard because I work in a department where two of my co-workers are new father's. We are working from home, so when we are on conference call I can sometimes hear their babies crying in the background. One person is leaving on paternity leave and just the comment of him changing diapers was heart wrenching to hear. if all had gone well my Luke would have been home with us right now. I would have been on my maternity leave, tired from being woken up at night sore from breastfeeding, or so I hear that's how it happens since I never actually had a chance to feed him. I know it's been months but for me it's been a heartbeat.
They closed the cemeteries because people have been using them like parks and now I can't even visit him. Sometimes I feel like I'm in an alternate reality, this isn't real, I'm still asleep, or maybe in a coma everyone is okay on the outside and I'm just living in this hell waiting to wake up.
The only thing that has been slightly easier is being able to carry conversations with people that are not relatives. As long as we don't speak about how I feel and keep it neutral I can make it through the conversation, but I feel myself wanting to bring him up or pull out his photos and I stop myself because I think some people may be tired of hearing about it even though for me still running through my mind 24 hours a day 7 days a week whether I mention it or not.
I'm tired drained and I feel empty.

Oh mama, that all sucks so much. I'm so sorry. It's so much to carry. Hearing other people's babies make the noises mine never will puts me right back in that place of fresh grief. I often feel like my whole world ended when my daughter died and I just can't forgive the rest of the world for moving on without her in it. I would love to hear more about your Luke if you want to share here (no pressure). I don't have any answers or probably any real comfort but I hear your pain. I wish you could be with your sweet boy today.

Leah, thank you for the kind words. This site had truly been my saving grace. I tried many years to have a child. So much fertility treatment and disappointment everytime we got a call and weren't pregnant. I started getting fit for a trip a couple of years ago. I told my his husband that I wanted to wait after the trip in September of 2019 to try again. Early July I got so sick and when I went to the doctor's, two tests said I wasn't pregnant. Finally my husband told me to go to the hospital cause I wasn't eating and I was exhausted all the time. Turned out I was 8 weeks pregnant. I can't tell you how I felt laying on the ultrasound table. I didn't believe the technician until he turned the screen and showed me the heart beat.
I surprised my husband then on my dad's birthday surprised my family with the announcement. All the things you think of doing if you ever get pregnant. All my check ups were perfect and I was only gaining in my belly. Which is a shock with all the weight problems I had had in my life. But I was great, just super nauseous all the time. But I didn't care I was happy.
November 10th I was having a quiet day at home alone and I wondered why I had to pee so much. Turned out my water broke. I was not even 28 weeks yet. I got to the hospital, was told I had to stay to see if we can keep him in as long as possible. I kept asking why they can't just take him out now, and they said it was best practice to keep the baby in me as long as there was no sign of infection. On the 14th he showed signs and I was rushed in for an emergency c-section.
When I finally got to meet him the following morning and saw that little being, I was his completely. The world be damned as long as I had him and he had me.
He is the perfect mix of my husband and I. I miss his soft skin, his little squirmy movements when they would lay him on me. I would prepare myself at midnight and hold him till 5 or 6 in the morning, or as long as I was allowed to. He had e-coli which led to sepsis, which led to seizures which finally left him with no brain activity. I was his mom for 10 days and then I held him when they took him off support and he passed in my arms. I felt him go, and I lost my heart in that moment.
I miss his little hand that would grab my pinkie so lightly it was like a dream. I'm angry my child had to die, and like you say, angry that this world has the nerve to keep turning and moving forward without him.
Thank you so much for asking about him. I seem to take any chance to talk about his little life. He fought so hard the whole time and I'm so proud of him, and proud he's mine. I felt whole when I held him. I still sing to him "you are my sunshine" because it was what I would sing to him every day in the NICU. I kiss his photo good morning and good night and I talk to him through the day.
I'd like to very much hear about your little girl whenever you are upto it.

Sending love.

Luke's mom, it was so beautiful to read about your boy... am so very sorry he had to leave and go with the angels... if only things were different for all of us in here... xxx

Mary,

Thank you. If I had one wish ever it would be for all of us to have our babies back healthy in our arms.

Luke's mom, that was so beautiful, thank you for sharing about his life. He sounds like the most wonderful baby. If only our love for our babies was enough to protect them and keep them with us. My daughter was supposed to be our rainbow baby, our much wanted joy after a miscarriage and cancer. My pregnancy started out perfect. Then we found out at our anatomy scan ultrasound that she had severe abdominal wall and heart defects. We knew her chances were low but I read so many stories of other babies like her who survived and thrived. We hoped to be among the lucky ones. She was born at 34 weeks and spent her life in a high level NICU. For a couple weeks she seemed to be doing well. I pumped desperately and learned how to change her dressings and dreamed about bringing her home one day. Then we trialed her off the ventilator and it didn't go well, to the point where her heart stopped. A few days after that she was diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis. Treatment options were limited by her abdominal defects. After an agonizing week it became apparent that treatment wasn't working and we were faced with the choice of a risky surgery that best case scenario would lead to increased suffering for her over time or withdrawing care. We opted to withdraw care and like your Luke she died in my arms. A part of me will always feel like if I had been a better mom or a better nurse (I'm a nurse) I would have protected her better, saved her somehow. Probably I will never forgive myself for that. I know that I'm biased, but she really was the most beautiful little baby. Sometimes I still can't believe I have to keep going without her.

I remember that hope. When I would leave the nurses to clean Luke's tubes and change his bed, times I couldn't be in his room, I would wander the hallway outside our NICU and read all the success stories on the walls. Some of the babies had a much more rough start than Luke and I would think of what picture I would submit and what blurb I would write. Foolish me, all false hope. He was perfect, everything about him was just perfect. My body failed him and I will always blame myself for not being able to protect him. Truth be told I still don't know how I wake in the morning, it's an odd auto drive.

An odd auto drive is such a perfect way to describe it. I keep getting up and more or less functioning, but everything feels so bleak.