I hate how the littlest things induce flashbacks now. I was baking cookies at work today and somebody had finally turned off the Christmas music. Out of no where on the radio comes on one of the songs that we had played at
Jaydens funeral. From the second I heard it I wanted to run out of the bakery and just cry. I kept thinking should I leave? but I didn't. I
tried my hardest to tune it out, but of
coarse it kept playing and playing. It brought me back to October 13
th last year, the day we had
Jayden buried...It brought me back to the numbness, sitting in the front row of all the people dressed in black, thinking....my baby is in that urn right there...Remembering the last days I had with
Jayden...I had spent the whole morning of October 1st visiting him in the
NICU and talking with his social worker...One of his primary nurses had just gotten done telling me that he seemed to be doing better and that he had pooped a little earlier, which was a good thing. His main doctor then came in and told me she was going to do a spinal tap in a few minutes to make sure none of his infections had spread to the brain...For some reason I
couldn't make myself stay and hold
Jaydens hand for the spinal tap...I wish so badly now that I had, but I didn't. I went home to get some lunch and come back later in the afternoon...Just a little while after being home I went to smoke a cigarette and I just had a
weird, sick feeling that something was wrong or that something bad was about to happen, so I put out my cigarette went inside and called the
Nicu to check on
Jayden...His nurse insisted that I talk to the doctor who then got on the phone and told me that
Jaydens blood pressure was so low that they couldn't get a read on it and that they didn't want to
resuscitate him because of the brain bleeds they had caused him to have the last time his blood pressure dropped that low. They didn't even call me!!! I had to call them based on my mothers intuition!!! I rushed to the hospital, called the whole family who met me there. I was in tears, overwhelmed, didn't know what to do. It was then that his father and I decided not to
resuscitate him but not to take the ventilator out...to let
Jayden pass on his own when he was ready...
It was then that I got to hold my son for the first time, with tears running down my face, filled with so much happiness and so much pain. The first time I held my son I had to look him in the eyes and know that I was letting him die, and it kills me. I remember later that night when his father and I went down to the
cafeteria, I
couldn't eat I just sat there staring at the sky, with tears
poring down my face and snot running out my nose, and I just started crying so loud and I fell to my knees onto
Jaydens father who just held me and told me it was alright, even though it
wasn't. It was so so wrong.
We stayed at the hospital for two nights and three days with no sleep just holding
Jayden, and kissing him and reading to him, and telling him
story's and anything we may have ever wanted to tell him. But
Jayden, my little fighter just
wasn't ready to let go. On the morning of October 4
th, at around 7a.m. me and
Jaydens father had finally fallen asleep in a couple of chairs next to
Jaydens incubator. At 9a.m.
Jaydens doctor burst into the room furious, because the night before I had insisted with the night crew doctors that they up all of
Jaydens meds and start trying to help him because obviously he wasn't ready to die. She said that I was torturing my son and that if I didn't allow them to take him off of life support (the ventilator) that she would call the
ethics committee in and she would do it anyways with or without my permission. I was in shock, I didn't know what to do, I burst into tears and threw my hands over
Jaydens incubator. She told me he was in a coma and that when he opened his eyes to the sound of my voice or looked at me that it was just
reflexes (though I still don't believe that). I told her fine. I didn't want him to be in pain anymore. I never wanted him to be in pain. I told them I wanted to hold him while he passed so that he
wouldn't be alone and scared, and that I wanted to take him outside so that he could see the light of day for the first time. I went to the bathroom. When I came back they had a wheelchair waiting for me, they had taken all of
Jaydens med cords and
IV's out to include his
PCVC. They let me pick out which blanket to wrap him in, I picked my baby blanket from when I was a baby, and my favorite
Zanzibar blanket that I had bought special for him. They bundled him up and put him in my arms. His father rolled me and
Jayden in the wheelchair out to a garden at the hospital which they call the "Healing Garden". I told
Jayden that I loved him more than anything in the world, but that it was
ok to go now, that he was going to go back to God, and that Jesus was going to take care of him now, I told him to tell Jesus that we loved him. After me and the family said what we needed to say to him, I told the doctor to go
ahead. They took out the ventilator. About a minute later the doctor checked him and told me he was gone. I told her no, no he
wasn't. I don't know what it was but something in me knew he wasn't gone yet. Just then
Jayden opened his eyes so wide and burst open his mouth as if he was gasping for air, it broke my heart, and it completely shocked the doctors. About a minute later they checked him again.
Shortly after 10a.m.
Jayden passed away.
We took him back upstairs and then social workers bombarded us with papers and all kinds of stuff for funeral
arrangements and so on...Everything about that is just a blur, I didn't want to deal with any of it, I was just in complete shock like never before. Then people came in to dress up
Jayden and take his pictures, I thought it was so morbid and
hurtful that they would do that, but they insisted it was something they needed to do and that it would help in with the "Grieving" process to look at them. They acted like I was crazy for not wanting to hold and cradle my dead son...but why would I want to, I just kept telling them he's not there anymore. We left shortly after. Someone had told the
security guard in the parking garage what we had just been threw so he let us out for free instead of charging us for 3 days worth of parking. We went home, took a shower and went to sleep. It was so hard to fall asleep even though I
hadn't slept but a few hours in days. But the worst part was waking up...And having to try to deal with the reality of everything that had just happened. Its still hard waking up sometimes and its been a little over a year now. Sometimes I wish I could just sleep forever. And sometimes I just wish I could die (not in a suicidal way) just so I could be with my son again. It hurts me so much that we were forced to take him off of life support. I feel like I killed my son. It hurts that he fought so hard to survive. Things arn't supposed to happen like this. Parents arn't supposed to burie they're kids, Kids are supposed to burie they're parents.
I went out to the cemetery to visit Jayden today. I was sitting in the grass at Jaydens grave when A man approached me. He explained to me that today is the Day of Holy Innocents (which is also the name of the area in which Jayden is buried in) He said that on December 29Th each year they hold a memorial service for all the children that were taken from us to soon and that I was invited to join in to honor my son and light a candle for him.
