Coming back and starting fresh

This past week, I posted a Facebook status update that  surprised me by taking on a life of its own, and it ended up going viral. While the attention that it brought me made me very uncomfortable, it also made me realize that there is still a huge lack of 'in real life' support for carrying fatally ill babies to term, and that I need to use this huge opportunity to do my part to help people understand that they don't have to terminate. Not a lot of people realize that it's a real option, but if you know where to look online, there are fantastic websites out there where you can find a wealth of information and support; it is my hope that I will eventually be able to link to those and join them in their endeavor to help families whose babies have been recently diagnosed, as well as families who are farther along in the journey.

Since that status update got me to this point, it only seems right that it be my first post as I start up again, so here it is. It was posted on Facebook for Talitha's 14th birthday on September 30, 2013.

Sending a big 'happy birthday!' to heaven and to our middle daughter, Talitha Hope, who would have been 14 years old at exactly 5:23 am on September 30. We were blessed with her for 52 minutes, and we have missed her greatly ever since.

This year, I'm going to tell a different part of her story – a part I don't think I’ve ever told, but a part I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. (My goal in posting something every year isn't to gain sympathy, but simply to acknowledge her life, as well as to offer hope to others whose losses are newer. If you are one of those, please hear me -- it does get better. You will survive. Right now you're collapsed on the kitchen floor because you were mopping and crying at the same time and you finally completely lost it and you just gave up on the stupid floor and slumped down onto it and now you don't know what water is from the floor and what water is from your eyes and you're just a soaking, sobbing mess -- oh, wait. that was me -- but you will smile again. You will laugh again. You will always remember, but one day there will only be sweet memories and a little scar that hurts a bit when you push on it, some days more than others. And your child will always, always, always matter. Don't be afraid that you'll forget. You won't.)

(I forgot to mention that I am frequently prone to overly long parenthetical statements. On we go . . . .)

Because Talitha’s birth was so unexpected (she was over 4 weeks early), because her delivery was an emergency, and because her life was so short, my out-of-town family members were not able to reach the hospital before she died. We kept her with us for a few hours afterward so that everyone could see her as they arrived.

And because she was dying, as soon as she was born she had been cleaned up and immediately handed to us so we could spend as much time as possible with her. (We had learned in June that she had anencephaly, which is always fatal; there was nothing anyone could do to help her.)

And because of those becauses and because we had been so busy trying to cram a lifetime into a morning, we realized too late that getting her handprints and footprints had been neglected. By the time anyone remembered, her little hands had already clenched in death and would not open.

When it's not even lunchtime and your heart has already been stomped on and shredded into a million little pieces, it doesn't take much to ruin your day, and this realization seemed like the proverbial last straw -- but then a nurse who just happened to be in the room asked if she could try something.

She took Talitha down to the nursery and rocked her and rocked her and rocked her, massaging and rubbing her hands the whole time. She was finally able to get them warm and pliable enough to open. After what seemed like an eternity, she came back with these prints for me.

I don’t remember her name. I’ve never been able to thank her other than at the moment she brought the papers to me, but I often wish I could. I know that cradling a stranger’s dead newborn certainly was not what she had been planning on doing when she got out of bed that morning, and I am tremendously grateful for the time and effort she took to give me such a treasure.

It is the best birthday gift I’ve ever gotten, especially on someone else’s birthday.

So wherever you are, young nurse with the brown hair who was working at Shannon Hospital in San Angelo, Texas around lunchtime on Thursday, September 30, 1999, thank you. You gave my baby an hour or so of your time. And through that act, you gave me a lifetime of memories.

I wish I knew your name.