Wednesday, January 9, 2013

2 YEARS !!!

2 years. How is that even possible? Absolutely unbelievable. Here for 16 weeks 2 days. 114 days. Now, gone for 2 years this coming Friday. 1/11. Online, in different babyloss/childloss arenas they use the terms angelversary and angel day. I have always thought of 1/11/11 as D-Day. Death day. Yeah. Believe me, you get some looks when you say it out loud in front of people. Oh, well.






Sully is 2 days old in these pictures. It was our 1st night home. A Tuesday. I cannot adequately express the absolute joy I felt in that moment. A love unlike I'd ever imagined. Such chubby cheeks for such a tiny baby. :-)  To go from such a high to such a low in 16 weeks is unimaginable. I am not the same person I was before Sully. I can't explain all the changes because I don't fully understand them myself. I am different. I will never be that person again and that's ok with me. It's not ok with everyone though. Tragedy, grief, has a way of weeding out the people in your life. Some people you would have expected to stick don't. Others, who maybe you were more acquaintances with than friends, totally surprise you with their support. Then there are the other loss mamas. Women you didn't know before, but through our children will be forever linked. Some you are closer to than those you've known your whole life. They get it. They understand the struggles. They are the gifts that have come from tragedies. God sent supporters, companions, confidants.

The evening before Sully died, he was happy, smiling, laughing, playing, sucking his thumb, chewing on a toy. Everything an almost 4 month old should be doing. I took a few pictures that night. I am and will be forever grateful for those pictures. For a while I studied them. Does he look pale, blueish, sick? Anything??!! No. He looks like a happy healthy baby. He was a happy healthy baby.

SIDS.  It's a diagnosis of exclusion. It's a "we can't find anything, anywhere" diagnosis. No answers. Only questions. It is not suffocation. It is not neglect. It does not discriminate. Boy, girl, wealthy, poor. Any baby anywhere is at risk. There are things that increase that risk though. With all of the risk factors however, they don't know what causes them to increase the risk or why. At present, there is nothing that prevents sids. NOTHING!  Babies will continue to die. Moms and dads will continue to mourn, to grieve.

The next few pictures are the ones I took the night before he died. They are priceless.


 look at those cheeks!!