“He said ‘There are a couple of reasons why your child may not be able to walk. How could all of the doctors have missed this? Why her? What did I do wrong?”
‘We noticed Milena was randomly limping, would have a sore tummy, and always wanted to be picked up and carried around. She started to scream at night.’
‘He helped me make it to 25 days clean. And then I got the call, he had been robbed and shot in a parking lot. My world crumbled. Why him? Why now?’
“We ended up talking. I opened up about my grief and he shared that his father had passed away. We started dating and against all odds, and at seemingly the worst time, 2 months later with not even 90 days clean… I found out I was pregnant.”
‘Nothing prepared me for my wife’s cesarean. Nothing. Reaching from a gaping hole in my beautiful wife’s stomach was the head of a bloody, powder white, child-like creature.’
“I recall Mel lying naked in front of a handful of doctors after they finished. Blood dripped from the sides of her hips; her stomach like a deflated balloon. But nothing shocked me as much as the next day.”
‘I would think, ‘I have time for me later. It’s their time now.’ The doctor confirmed I wasn’t dying ‘at that moment’ and sent me home. I laid across the receptionist’s desk sobbing, begging them to help me.’
“Looking back, I saw it coming but thought I could power through it. Well, even the strong need a break, and because I wasn’t taking one, my body did the work for me. It was a slow-moving storm that turned into a hurricane, and I went down. Hard.”
‘I knew something was very wrong by the way the doctor was acting. The police came, and I couldn’t understand what was going on. Why were they there?’
“They wouldn’t let me fly with her, and looking back, I now know it’s because they didn’t know who had hurt her.”
‘I woke up being wheeled to the ICU in the worst pain imaginable. All I could silently mouth was ‘How’s my baby?’ I needed a doctor to believe me.’
“I was frustrated and angry. I know my body and I know that this isn’t a migraine!”
My child was stillborn, and I will never be the same
“You realize how profound and deafening silence can really be.”
‘Hey Dad, I haven’t been feeling too well. Could you take me to the doctor? I think I might have a sinus infection.’
“‘Sure baby, I’ll pick you up after school.’ My daughter’s sinus infection was anything but.”
‘How could a mother feel such strong sadness as the result of having a baby?’
“How could a mother ever dream of regretting her children, leaving her family, or even worse, taking her own life? It’s unfathomable.”
‘It has been a rough couple of weeks for Mason due to one TINY LITTLE FREAKING TICK!’
“It’s real, it’s scary, and it can most certainly happen to anyone.”
