In the last segment I shared a quick summary of what the week at the hospital held but didn’t go through much of it. The more I write the more I realize I have so much more to process- here it is.
Like I said before I woke up briefly to my husband sobbing like I’ve never seen before and just as if my heart hadn’t already been ripped from my chest, crushed into a million pieces, and thrust back in, as if it even worked, this broke it all over again. I quickly fell back asleep not able to handle what was coming and part me thinks I had some control of that moment and part of me thinks I didn’t. I wanted to be there for Billy in the moment and to hug him and comfort him but I couldn’t move or walk, I couldn’t talk or form a thought even. I was on a lot of medication and still mostly numb from the c section. So I feel terrible for falling back into my slumber but I had less of a choice and my body was taking over. In that moment that he was crying I thought he was holding Huxley. I learned later that he was not holding him. Billy wanted to wait for me to be okay before he or I held him. He was actually trying to find something for him to wear in our bag. We brought a few sizes of things but he was over 12 and half pounds… he needed some big clothes and we only had one thing that was even an option. Our doctor went to Billy hugged him and offered to dress Huxley. She did so (as I’m told) with great care, tears covering her own face, and in no rush even in the early hours of the morning after a very long shift. DidI mention our doctor is amazing. If you haven’t gathered that from the last few stories let me say it here, she’s one of the best, doctor and people.
Later when I woke and got to talk to Billy I learned just how big Huxley was and how perfect. They said he was the healthiest looking baby, with a long, thick and cushy cord, beautiful placenta. Everything looked perfect so why was he gone? No one had those answers. We’d hoped we’d see something to help us understand after he was born but everything pointed to a healthy baby. He was big but didn’t look like a baby born to a mom with gestational diabetes, he just was big. I didn’t have gestational diabetes and he didn’t look it either but they went ahead and retested me afterwards just to see if maybe we missed it and hoping to find some answers but everything came back normal. Again, no answers. Billy and I talked and decided we didn’t really want answers. Answers would only give us somewhere to place blame and we didn’t want to do that. We didn’t want something to be mad at for the rest of our lives. We did have my placenta sent to be checked for anything that we should look for in the future, it also came back normal giving us nothing. So we gave up and stuck to our decision. We didn’t need or want to know, it wouldn’t change the outcome anyhow. I said in the last post that Billy didn’t leave empty handed- in that statement I meant that I’d be leaving with him. But we as a family would leave empty handed and hearts broken no matter what answers came to us so we dropped it and focused on each other.
The next few hours are hard to recall. I only remember bits and pieces. Billy leaving to go see our other children and let them know I was okay. Me holding Huxley for the first time. Trying to change clothes while half my body was numb so I could take photos with Huxley 24 hours after giving birth. When Billy was getting ready to leave I remember him asking if I’d be okay and I said only if the nurse stays here with me. Fortunately she heard me and reassured me she’d be in there monitoring me for at least 2 more hours and would be happy to stay with me even if she wasn’t required to be there. So he left. That’s when I asked to hold Huxley. Why I wanted to do this alone is beyond my comprehension. Maybe I knew I’d break and I just wanted to break alone? Or not make Billy watch me break when I knew it would hurt him to see me hurt even though he’d watched everything up until then and would do more than this in the upcoming weeks. Maybe it was my way to protect Billy just for one little fracture of time. I just, I guess I just wanted to save him one moment of not having to watch me fall apart because I knew he’d be there for me holding me up later. Anyways the nurse asked if I was sure, I said yes and asked why she thought I was unsure. She said it was just kind of soon post surgery and wanted to be sure I was feeling strong enough to hold him. I’m still not sure if she meant physically or emotionally but the answer is no, I wasn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. She handed him to me, all 12.9 pounds of him and he was perfect. Heavy and perfect. He had Mollys nose, Billy’s feet, my eye shape, Samuel’s cheeks. I could see all of us in him. The nurse offered to take my picture and she did, I’m grateful for those. I cried and kissed him as much as I possibly could for as long as I had the strength to hold him.
Even Morse Sweetly 