The Weeks and Months to Follow

It has been just over 6 months since we lost Aiya.  My mind still goes back to the day we lost her and the weeks before.  My heart is heavy when I think of her, but it is also so full.  She has made me a better person; a more caring person.  I pray so much more than I ever used to.

Today I was thinking about after we left the hospital and went home.  I was supposed to go back to work a couple days following her delivery.  I thought it would be a good way to keep my mind off everything.  When I got home, I fell deep; down into this hole of darkness.  I would catch myself staring out the window as time passed by.  Hours would pass at what seemed like a glance.  I stayed home for two weeks. 

Having to go into our room and box up all the clothes and things we had already bought her was horrible.  I held them and cried and cried.  And threw them into a box and put it down stairs.  I still haven’t opened it.

Christmas was awful.   Just two weeks after delivering her.  I had picked out the cutest outfits for her that I knew were wrapped up for me from my family – thankfully they did not give them to me.  I did not want to go anywhere or see anyone.

In January we went back to Minnesota to collect her ashes.  I walked into the place alone, trying to keep it together.  It was time to take my baby girl home.  The lady walked out with a small white plastic jar that looked like a urine sample collection cup.  Her name was written on the side.

I lost it.  I lost all of me in that building.  My baby was dead.  This was real.  This is how I get to bring her home.

Instead of cuddling my newborn-smelling, baby girl, I get a urine cup with a bag of ashes in it.  I opened the top to see inside.  There was hardly anything in there; maybe a teaspoon of ash tied in a plastic bag.  Last time I seen her, she had 10 fingers, 10 toes and a beautiful little face.  Now she is dust.

They make preemie urns.  Her’s is a bird.  It fit her ashes perfectly.  I find myself walking through the living room talking to her.  I occasionally pick up her urn and kiss it.

At the hospital, they dressed her in an angel gown.  It had been made from someone’s wedding dress.  I will never know who it came from, but thank you to whoever you are.  It was beautiful.  I have a wedding dress from a wedding I called off 7 years ago.  That dress now has a purpose.  I will make gowns to give to hospitals in Wisconsin so anyone who loses a child can dress them in a beautiful dress if they choose.

At her ultrasound in Milwaukee, they made a disk of pictures and I believe, a video of her.  I have yet to look at it.  It may be a couple months or years from now until I am able to bring myself to see her when she was alive.

We had her wrapped in a pink blanket, at the hospital. I had received it from a lady that went through the same thing we did.  I truthfully would never have been able to get through everything, if it wasn’t for her.  She was the one person in this world who knew exactly what my heart felt like.  How scared I was.  How guilty I felt for having to make a choice for my baby.  And how broken I was every day after.  I sleep with the blanket every night.  It smelled like her for a while.  Now it is getting dirty and needs to be washed, but I can’t bring myself to wash her out of it.

I like to talk about her now.  I tell everyone about her.  About who she was to me and to this world in the short time she was here.  Because of her story, I have talked with numerous people who lost babies or went through something similar.  I feel her story is helping others cope and heal and understand that life can be unfair and they are not alone. 

But,

There is a rainbow with this story.  And it is 18 weeks along.  Handpicked by Aiya from heaven.

We had our harmony test at 10 weeks and found out the baby is low risk for trisomy 21, 18 and 13.  We also found out that we were having a girl!!  We had our anencephaly ultrasound at 11 weeks at Milwaukee’s Children’s Hospital and found out that as of 11 weeks, she has a round head and everything looked great and she was measuring on.  The next nervous step was waiting for our 18 week anatomy appointment to make sure her organs were functioning and there wasn’t a small encephelocele anywhere.  We found out that she is as normal as normal can be.  She is healthy with no concerns.

Praise.  Jesus.  We will hopefully get to hold our baby girl and watch her grow.

The day we found out we were pregnant again, I was 3.5 weeks along.  We went trap shooting that night.  Out of the woods, in the midst of 15 people shooting clays, an eagle flew out and circled for about five minutes.  Our first good ultrasound was at 6 weeks.  That night we shot trap as well and again, an eagle flew out.  She knows.  She’s happy.  She’s our guardian angel, letting her mama know it’s going to be ok this time.  I have faith and I pray hard.  The power of prayer, I truly believe, can conquer.  Please pray for this baby; for her health and for her life.

Thank you to all who has followed Aiya’s story.  To those who think about her when they see an eagle.  Or tell people about her short life and who she was.

After every storm there is a rainbow of hope and her name is Nova, in memory of her sister, and she is 20 weeks along.