Where to begin? I have no idea really.
Ethan is our fourth child, third son. He was unexpectedly born prematurely for no known reason. My water had broken 3 months too early, with no pre-term labor or dilation at all. For 10 days I lay on strict bed rest in the hospital, having constant monitoring and medications - praying to stave off delivery. Then an infection set in for both Ethan and I, and an emergency c-section was necessary. That beautiful moment when I heard my son cry, that was the one and only time I ever heard that.
He was on life support and countless interventions for four days, at the end of which his body told us it was time to let him go back to God. He had 3 pneumothoraxes, sepsis, a grade 4 brain bleed, and resulting brain damage that would leave him unable to move, breathe on his own, speak, see, hear...that's when my mind stopped hearing the neurologist at that conference table. So Josh and I cuddled with Ethan for the first and last time. We told him we loved him. Asked him to visit us often, not to be a stranger. We took pictures with him, the proud parent pictures, you know the kind. Assured him when he closed his eyes he would open them to see Jesus, who would keep him safe until we got there ourselves. I sang "You Are My Sunshine" to him and held him while he died. It was the most beautiful, and hardest, moment of my life.
The last year I have crawled through Major Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, both resulting from the trauma of my son's birth story and death. I clawed my way through that first year of grief, filled with so much love, beauty and pain. As part of my healing process I journal about my grief and the love my son inspires. Feel free to check it out if you like. Fair warning, it's not sunshine and rainbows. Not all of it at least. It's raw and real. And I'm damn proud of it, of myself.
http://ethanslove.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment