My 6 Week Old Daughter Died
Our sweet baby girl Ali was born on February 3rd, 2021 and passed away March 16th, 2021.
There is no baby in our arms
I am producing milk for a baby that will never use it
No cries wake us at night
Our glider no longer rocks the baby to sleep
Our bassinet is empty
Our changing station clean
Our carseat unoccupied
Our stroller never used
And our hearts broken
I blame myself, I blame the Universe/God, I blame the hospital, I blame how intentional I planned things, I blame how I carried her, I blame my readiness or lake of readiness, I blame my past...
But nothing can or will change the reality that my child is gone.
She never got to hold my hands as she learned to walk
I’ll never hear her little feet pitter pattering round the house
She never got to run in the woods, ride a bike, learn to swim
We never got to learn if she was going to be a lefty or righty
What foods she might love
Would she love the things we loved?
I selfishly wish she got to know her mom.
I will never get to hear the
“Mom you’re embarrassing me.”
“mom I love you.”
“mom I’m mad at you.”
“mom you’re so cool.”
“Thank you mom”
“Mom I miss you.”
I will never again be able to hold her tiny hand and tell her how much I love her and how beautiful she is. Now I get to think of her in heaven or hold her ashes in my hand and remember…
All the things we had, all the ways I loved her and all the memories we shared.
What I would give to have to avoid gassy foods, to be woken up by a little one that needed me, to arrange my day around feeding and taking care of my daughter.
I’m folding her laundry and receiving sweet gifts from people we love of clothing and baby things for our baby who now will never use them.
Those sympathetic eyes that now stare back at me — trying to understand how I may be feeling or what the right thing to say may be…
I spent 3 years of my life taking care of my 90 year old grandfather with dementia — I was with him as he died
Yet I don’t even get to take care of my baby girl for more than 6 weeks… instead I get to watch doctors try to save her only then to have the long, slow, round-a-bout conversation that there was no hope, there was nothing left they can do…
We stood next to her tiny body hooked up to 25+ wires, eyes shut, body looking completely lifeless… saying come on Ali, we want you here, we love you, come back to us
How does one answer how many kids you have after one has died?
It sure feels as tho we failed as parents and that we and Ali got robbed of a beautiful life she would have had in our family. Deep down we know it’s not true, that we didn’t fail her but completed us so perfectly and now our family feels incomplete without her here.
Honor asking — will we try to have another baby? Kids have a miraculous ability to accept and move forward. Is that what we are supposed to do? Just move on….
Accept that my baby is now an Angel
And instead of me someday getting to watch and protect her from heaven, instead she is doing that for us…
All I wanted was to love and protect her and clearly I wasn’t able to. I wasn’t able to keep my child alive as much as I may have wanted to. She came and went too fast.
I spent 9 months growing her, 14 hours birthing her and all I got was 40 days with her…
I’m still sore from bringing her here and she is already gone.
All the physical gifts for Ali, all the money people gave us to support her now gets spent on funeral/cremation costs… and spending it on ways we can remember her instead of creating memories with her
Why do some people get to keep their children and others don’t.
I’ve become hardened, insensitive some may say, stoic.
I went from the worst physical pain, to indescribable joy to excruciating emotional pain in a short 6 weeks.
I will always look down at my stretch marks and wish Ali was here
My google history —
Wenk funeral home, when to pull the ventilator on a baby, breastfeeding after death, my baby died how many death certificates do I need, cdt medical, vitamin k deficiency, spontaneous brain bleeding in infants, what do seizures in babies look like, herbs to stop producing milk, how to tell an 8 year old their baby sister died
I am a walking trigger
Did I even birth a baby?
It’s a dreamy nightmare
May the world someday make sense again.
May I find faith in what has happened and peace as we move forward.
I share all this first because it’s therapeutic for me to write, second because perhaps it will help you live in more gratitude and third because the only thing constant in life is change — if you are worried about something, act on it, if you miss someone go see them... life moves way too fast to second guess yourself!