HARPER'S STORY :: Part V
In the days following Harper’s birth, Eric and I felt compelled to start writing. We wanted to remember as many details of May 21st and 22nd as possible. I was still in shock when I wrote most of this. It is a very raw, detailed account of what happened to us those days.
Today Harper would be 6 months old. Happy half birthday sweet girl. In memory of her, we would like to share part of her story on the 22nd of each month.
You can read the rest of Harper's story here:
-A
Now, it was just Eric and I. We were alone in our hospital room without our baby girl. As we tried to comfort each other, the sounds of newborn baby cries and laughter seeped through the walls and found their way to us. We turned on the TV to try and distract ourselves, and ordered dinner from the cafeteria. I’m not sure how we were functioning, but we were on a sort of “auto-pilot” mode.
Eric really wanted to spend one more night in the hospital to give my body more time to heal before going home, but for me the last thing I wanted to do was stay in that room. It would have been different if I was caring for Harper...nursing her, burping her, changing her diaper, and swaddling her. It would have made sense to stay if the doctors were running all of her newborn screenings on her and I was giving her skin-to-skin snuggles. It would have been so different if we would have had our Harper girl.
But she was gone. She was laying in a box at a funeral home, waiting to be buried.
I had to get out of that hospital room. Around 11:30 pm I finally convinced Eric that I was well enough to head home. We called the nurse to begin the checkout procedures, and in the dead of night left the place where we were forced to say hello and goodbye forever to our baby girl.
The nurse wheeled me out the back entrance of labor and delivery. I felt like some kind of broken, diseased, childless woman. Eric should have been carrying the car seat with Harper strapped safely in side. I should have been beaming with pride, happy to show off my new bundle of joy. Instead, we were devastated, lost, and empty handed.
We stopped by CVS to pick up some medication, and were home soon after. I walked in, went straight to my bed, and cried myself to sleep.
I wish I could wrap Harper’s story up with a pretty pink bow. I wish I could say that the next morning I woke up and it had all been a horrible nightmare. But the sad truth is that my sleeping hours are about the only hours of my day that don’t feel like a nightmare. Instead of going to sleep and dreaming the worst, I get to wake up to the worst every. single. morning. for the rest of my life. I get to wake up and realize all over again that Harper is with Jesus and I am still here.
The only thing that keeps me going is my faith. Knowing that she is in the arms of Jesus, being protected, loved, and cherished. He is able to give Harper all of the things that I will never have the chance to give her. So until we all die or Jesus returns, the pretty pink bow at the end of this story will have to wait and I will have to live my life- continuously reminding myself that this is not the end.
”Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in me also. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” -John 14:1-3