Seriously?!?

Max was taken back to the intensive care unit.  More doctors showed up to help him.  We were allowed in the room with him this time, but they never stopped working on him.  I couldn’t watch, but I couldn’t leave…I could only pray. 

I stood up and talked to Max through my tears.  “Max, Mommy needs you.  Hang in there buddy.  I love you, Mommy needs you.”

He responded to my voice.  The doctor called me to Max’s side and told me to keep talking to him.   So I just kept repeating, “Mommy needs you.  Mommy loves you.  Max, Mommy needs you.”

He wasn’t getting better.  They were breathing for him and shocking him over and over.  I couldn’t watch anymore.  We stepped out of the room.  It wasn’t long before they came out and told us that he didn’t make it.  I knew it was real this time.  I knew we had just lost our baby.  Aaron knew too.  There was no more fight in him, and we knew he would not be coming back. 

We went in to see him.  He looked so perfect.  He looked like he was sleeping.  He even seemed to have a slight smile on his face.  In the ambulance, they had cut his clothes off of him.  So he was lying on this little bed with only a diaper on, and it was open.  Sometime, through all of the trauma, he had dirtied his diaper.  My instinctive thought was, “I need to change him.”  That thought cut like a knife.  I realized I wouldn’t need to change anymore of his diapers.  How could this happen to us?

                                                  (Sleeping peacefully on Mommy's chest)

Soon, a lady was asking us if we wanted a keepsake of our child…a lock of his hair?  A footprint?  I was in a complete daze…was this real? 

A nurse cleaned Max up.  She took off all of the tubes and wires and wrapped him in a blanket.  She asked if I’d like to hold him.  How bizarre…a stranger, asking ME if I wanted to hold my child.  I sat in the rocking chair and I rocked my sweet boy.  I talked to him, kissed him and rubbed his little head.  Oh God…it was so hard for me to do.  Just hours before, I was holding and kissing my happy little boy.  In that hospital room, his little body was lifeless and cold.  God…please rewind time. 

It was time to call our parents.  How were we supposed to call them at 10 pm on a Friday and let them know that their grandson had just died?  What were we going to say?  Nothing that we could have said would have made it any easier.  The fact was… Max was gone. 

One nurse soon wanted to know what funeral home we would like to use and another was asking about organ donation.  Seriously?!?  We were just on our way to a restaurant!  How did we get here?

My aunt and uncle were an hour away on a fishing trip.  They showed up at the hospital to hug us, help us and take care of Morgan.  Our friends (that we were visiting) helped us pick a local funeral home that would bring Max home for us. 

After several hours of hell, we were supposed to go back to our motel room.  I was so ready to get out of that hospital, but how was I supposed to leave without Max?  I wish I had stayed and held him all night.  As difficult as it was to hold his lifeless body, it is much more difficult to have empty arms. 

I miss him so much.  As I write this, I can barely see the computer screen through all my tears.  But I want you to know that I have never lost faith.  I have never lost hope.  I will gladly suffer every day on this earth, if it means I will spend eternity with the people I love in heaven.  My hope is in a place I can’t see, but I know exists.  Just because my prayers weren’t answered the way I had hoped, doesn’t mean they weren’t heard.  Today, I am so thankful for so many things.

Robyn

 

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him. -1 John 5:14-15

 
“You – if you are an apostle – will not have to die.  You will move to a new house, that’s all.” –St. Josemaria Escriva