Friday, January 30, 2009
Recently, I was listening to wild horse by the rolling stones. I know that song probably evokes romantic feelings and memories for most people but when I listen to that song I think of my children. One thing I have always imagined would kill me, was if one of my children ever died. I don’t necessarily handle the normal pains of life well, but I can keep standing. Ever since I had my first child I knew that the death of one of my children would take me clean off of my feet. It would be merciful for God to let me die with them. It was a situation I hoped I'd never face.
Three years ago, I was holding my 8 pound 6 ounce baby boy in my arms and felt his life slip away. I had made a deal with the physicians, since medically there was nothing they could do to save his life, he would be handed directly to me after he was born. I didn’t want him handled by strangers in the few moments he would have in this life. They warned me, that once born, he would only last a few minutes before he would pass away from lack of oxygen.
My water broke early; I hoped I had peed my pants but my husband took me to the ER in Palm Springs just to be safe. Once there, I was told they were going to do an emergency c-section. I should add; I was pregnant with twins, they were very concerned with preserving the life of the “viable” twin, it was his amniotic sac that broke.
Everything happened so fast. When they handed Jacob to me he was beautiful in every way except his overly extended stomach, the glaring evidence of the disease that had ravaged his little body. I held onto him with all my might, wild horses could not drag me away but he was being taken away, against my will, by a force greater than that. I watched his pink shade slowly turn to blue, from the fingertips up. He opened his eyes one time, squinting, he looked at me, as if to say “I don’t understand.” I told him I loved him, I prayed and I held on with all I had. He started to go limp and I thought the struggle was over, but then he would tremor again, for a while he continued to erratically heave, making attempts to gasp for air. Finally after he had been still for a while, the doctor came over with a stethoscope and pronounced that he was gone. He was born April 17th at 6:00 pm and he died at 6:05 pm.
After a few minutes passed, the nurses took him from me to clean, diaper? and wrap in a blanket. Meanwhile, I was moved to another room. Then they gave his little body back to me in the other room. The nurses said that my husband and I could spend as much time with his body as we wanted and to call them when we were ready to give him up. A good friend came and dressed him for me, in an outfit I had carefully picked out for him ahead of time, because of the spinal block, I could not get up and do this simple motherly task myself. He was handed to me again, only this time I held him for the next six hours or so. I would not let him go except to let my husband hold him. Of the life I had nourished and the soul I had loved for 8 months; this was all I had left, a little broken body. Sometimes in those hours, I would hold him tight and refuse to look at his face so I could imagine he was alive and this nightmare had never happened. Other times I starred straight at his face, I wanted to memorize every feature, he was perfect, but gone. Sometime after midnight I noticed he was getting very stiff and his skin was mottled. I talked to my husband and we decided it was time to let him go, physically that is. I asked the nurse what they were going to do with his body. She said they would take him downstairs to some refrigerated place until we arranged for the mortuary to pick up his body. I thought of my baby being alone in the dark in a refrigerator unit. As a mother I agonized over this, but what choice did I have?
Later, we took him home for good, his ashes, in a little blue urn, with a small teddy bear etched into it. Sometimes I would sleep with the urn at night. I had slept with my other children, why not? I did not tell people I did this; I knew they would think I was crazy. Many times I shook the urn and I would hear rattling in there, I imagined it was small fragments of his bones. Often, I would hold the little blood speckled blanket they wrapped him in and search for some smell of him, but never for long because I didn’t want to replace it with my own smell. Then I would put it back in the airtight plastic container where I keep all his things, his outfit, his blanket, his birth and death certificate, his foot prints, and a tiny lock of his hair.
Life went on, for everyone else but me. I kept my hurt deep inside, it was like a buried treasure that I could take out when I wanted to. The pain was mine and no one could take it away, it was all I had left of him. I would go to the market or see people driving down the road and think "they don’t know what’s happened, their lives are going on" but mine had stopped. How could the world go on like nothing had happened? My son was dead.
Jacob had Polycystic Kidney disease; he wasn’t supposed to have it. It runs in my family but it only kills us as adults. I have the disease, I was told it was impossible for him to have gotten the recessive form that kills infants. The doctors said that Jacob could be a case study because what happened to him was almost unheard off.
Jacob's kidneys stopped working when I was five months pregnant. That meant no amniotic fluid. Without amniotic fluid a babies lungs become like two little pancakes glued together. They did extensive ultrasounds through-out the pregnancy. About two months before he was born the doctors told me that nothing could be done to save his life because his lungs were not only glued together, but the cysts on his kidneys had pushed up on his lungs, not giving them enough room to grow.
When I was pregnant I would rub Jacobs back and talk to him, he responded like all my other children with kicks and such. I dreaded the day of his birth, it would be the day of his death. His umbilical cord, was our connection, his life-line, which kept him alive and supplied with oxygen from my blood stream. Once that cord was cut I knew it signaled the beginning of his death.
This story has no way to be tied up for a neat ending.
I have no profound words for you.
I have no little piece of wisdom I can share with you, the reader.
Writing this doesn't even make me feel better.
I just want the world to know he lived.
In memory of:
Jacob Brent Jeffries
6:00pm-6:00pm
April 17, 2005
Recently, I was listening to wild horse by the rolling stones. I know that song probably evokes romantic feelings and memories for most people but when I listen to that song I think of my children. One thing I have always imagined would kill me, was if one of my children ever died. I don’t necessarily handle the normal pains of life well, but I can keep standing. Ever since I had my first child I knew that the death of one of my children would take me clean off of my feet. It would be merciful for God to let me die with them. It was a situation I hoped I'd never face.
Three years ago, I was holding my 8 pound 6 ounce baby boy in my arms and felt his life slip away. I had made a deal with the physicians, since medically there was nothing they could do to save his life, he would be handed directly to me after he was born. I didn’t want him handled by strangers in the few moments he would have in this life. They warned me, that once born, he would only last a few minutes before he would pass away from lack of oxygen.
My water broke early; I hoped I had peed my pants but my husband took me to the ER in Palm Springs just to be safe. Once there, I was told they were going to do an emergency c-section. I should add; I was pregnant with twins, they were very concerned with preserving the life of the “viable” twin, it was his amniotic sac that broke.
Everything happened so fast. When they handed Jacob to me he was beautiful in every way except his overly extended stomach, the glaring evidence of the disease that had ravaged his little body. I held onto him with all my might, wild horses could not drag me away but he was being taken away, against my will, by a force greater than that. I watched his pink shade slowly turn to blue, from the fingertips up. He opened his eyes one time, squinting, he looked at me, as if to say “I don’t understand.” I told him I loved him, I prayed and I held on with all I had. He started to go limp and I thought the struggle was over, but then he would tremor again, for a while he continued to erratically heave, making attempts to gasp for air. Finally after he had been still for a while, the doctor came over with a stethoscope and pronounced that he was gone. He was born April 17th at 6:00 pm and he died at 6:05 pm.
After a few minutes passed, the nurses took him from me to clean, diaper? and wrap in a blanket. Meanwhile, I was moved to another room. Then they gave his little body back to me in the other room. The nurses said that my husband and I could spend as much time with his body as we wanted and to call them when we were ready to give him up. A good friend came and dressed him for me, in an outfit I had carefully picked out for him ahead of time, because of the spinal block, I could not get up and do this simple motherly task myself. He was handed to me again, only this time I held him for the next six hours or so. I would not let him go except to let my husband hold him. Of the life I had nourished and the soul I had loved for 8 months; this was all I had left, a little broken body. Sometimes in those hours, I would hold him tight and refuse to look at his face so I could imagine he was alive and this nightmare had never happened. Other times I starred straight at his face, I wanted to memorize every feature, he was perfect, but gone. Sometime after midnight I noticed he was getting very stiff and his skin was mottled. I talked to my husband and we decided it was time to let him go, physically that is. I asked the nurse what they were going to do with his body. She said they would take him downstairs to some refrigerated place until we arranged for the mortuary to pick up his body. I thought of my baby being alone in the dark in a refrigerator unit. As a mother I agonized over this, but what choice did I have?
Later, we took him home for good, his ashes, in a little blue urn, with a small teddy bear etched into it. Sometimes I would sleep with the urn at night. I had slept with my other children, why not? I did not tell people I did this; I knew they would think I was crazy. Many times I shook the urn and I would hear rattling in there, I imagined it was small fragments of his bones. Often, I would hold the little blood speckled blanket they wrapped him in and search for some smell of him, but never for long because I didn’t want to replace it with my own smell. Then I would put it back in the airtight plastic container where I keep all his things, his outfit, his blanket, his birth and death certificate, his foot prints, and a tiny lock of his hair.
Life went on, for everyone else but me. I kept my hurt deep inside, it was like a buried treasure that I could take out when I wanted to. The pain was mine and no one could take it away, it was all I had left of him. I would go to the market or see people driving down the road and think "they don’t know what’s happened, their lives are going on" but mine had stopped. How could the world go on like nothing had happened? My son was dead.
Jacob had Polycystic Kidney disease; he wasn’t supposed to have it. It runs in my family but it only kills us as adults. I have the disease, I was told it was impossible for him to have gotten the recessive form that kills infants. The doctors said that Jacob could be a case study because what happened to him was almost unheard off.
Jacob's kidneys stopped working when I was five months pregnant. That meant no amniotic fluid. Without amniotic fluid a babies lungs become like two little pancakes glued together. They did extensive ultrasounds through-out the pregnancy. About two months before he was born the doctors told me that nothing could be done to save his life because his lungs were not only glued together, but the cysts on his kidneys had pushed up on his lungs, not giving them enough room to grow.
When I was pregnant I would rub Jacobs back and talk to him, he responded like all my other children with kicks and such. I dreaded the day of his birth, it would be the day of his death. His umbilical cord, was our connection, his life-line, which kept him alive and supplied with oxygen from my blood stream. Once that cord was cut I knew it signaled the beginning of his death.
This story has no way to be tied up for a neat ending.
I have no profound words for you.
I have no little piece of wisdom I can share with you, the reader.
Writing this doesn't even make me feel better.
I just want the world to know he lived.
In memory of:
Jacob Brent Jeffries
6:00pm-6:00pm
April 17, 2005
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