“I woke up 15 minutes later, still delirious when my doctor opened the door. I sat in silence. Click…click…click. The silence continued. I knew something wasn’t right. I put one arm on his back and one over my eyes and began to sob. I am a ‘fixer’ and I couldn’t fix this.”
“It was horrific. Todd and I decided to separately seek counseling. We were no longer in a relationship, but we knew that we had to be the best co-parents to the girls. That same year, we were engaged to be married on our original wedding anniversary…again.”
“It started like any other cold. Runny nose, sniffles, a light headache. ‘I don’t feel good, mom,’ she complained that morning, 5 days before. ‘Me neither,’ I groaned. I was suffering as well, and I assumed we both had the same thing.”
“But they fail to mention how that baby grows. That little one who once rested so perfectly upon your chest doesn’t fit there quite so well anymore. And you forget to hold the baby. But that babe, your growing babe, still needs you.”
“They expected her last breath to happen any moment. An hour goes by. A nurse still by my side waiting to call time of death. The doctors are shocked. We all are. We were not expecting this.”
“But as I would learn, I wasn’t actually alone.”
“I was 22, pregnant with my first baby boy. I should’ve been ecstatic, preparing to welcome my sweet boy. Instead I was attending appointment after appointment to find answers as to what was wrong with him.”
“I had a missed call. My husband then got a call. We looked at each other… ‘Answer it!’ ‘Louis, are you with Audrey?’ ‘Yes, she can hear you.’ The words she spoke stopped time for me. Everything she said next was hard to process. I was shocked. It all felt right. We felt a calmness that can’t be explained.”
“I looked at her puzzled, so she continued. ‘And. You are happy he is here AND you are happy you don’t have to see him right now. You don’t have to choose.’ After we left our session that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about that one little word.”
“I want them to know they will lose people. People they love, people that are important to them. But just because we lose someone, doesn’t mean they are gone.”
