Our Pictures With Dove

When Olive joined our family in 2013 it was a sweet and joyous moment to watch my two older children enter the hospital room and gaze upon their baby sister for the first time. The feelings I experienced were unforgettable; my heart was so full I thought it would burst. Now, knowing how much each of my children anxiously awaited the arrival of our fourth child, I was filled with excitement and anticipation for the moment I would once again watch them enter the hospital room and meet the newest edition to our family team. April it seemed could not come soon enough. I lived and breathed for this moment through days of morning sickness, fatigue, and the pain of my sciatic nerve. It kept me going. However, when Dove died life once again showed me that sometimes the dreams we make never quite turn out the way we've imagined them, rarely does life turn out the way we've planned.

We brought our children to the hospital on January 4, 2017 to see and hold their baby sister Dove. They walked into the room, but where there should have been excitement the mood was somber. They peeked into the basket where she laid, but where there should have been movement she was still. I moved to the side of my bed and let each child take a turn holding Dove, but where she should have been warm and soft she was now cold and stiff. Just as I imagined my children admired her adorable hands and feet, her tiny little toes, and fingernails. We lifted her hat to see her cute little ears. She had my chin, the strong pointed peaks of my upper lip, and a nose we had seen before in the faces of our two older girls. She had the beginnings of what looked to be a full head of curly hair just like her big sister Olive. She was such a beautiful baby.

Benson and Olive held Dove twice. Ginger held her three times and cried. I could see how deeply she felt this loss. With Ginger I was constantly calling her over and crawling into bed with her during the early hours of the morning to let her feel Dove’s movements. Experiencing her excitement elevated my excitement and it deepened my love and appreciation for the sacred gift of life. I know she was so looking forward to the arrival of this baby. Watching her broke my heart.

We took some pictures and then Nate took the kids back to the neighbor’s house. As the nurse came into my room to go over a few final things it suddenly hit like a wall of bricks. I had lived so fully in the moment, in the experience of holding my daughter and mourning her loss that I had thought little of the near future and of the gut wrenching experience that laid before me; that I was about to leave her, abandon her, that I was about to go home and go on with life without her. It is a feeling that haunts me to this day.

It was then that I also realized that we had not taken a picture of all six of us together. I made Nate go back for the kids and we took a family photo. It’s not the best. I had thought about putting on some makeup, but found that idea to be completely pointless by the amount of tears continually streaming from my eyes. Our picture together isn’t glamorous, but it’s real.

After we took our family photo I put Dove back in her basket and handed her to the nurse.

We walked out of the room together as a family, we walked down the hall and then we came to a fork in the road. The nurse went right to the morgue, we turned left to go out the door. I glanced over my shoulder for one final look and then she was gone. I wanted to turn around, to run after her and take her home. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare, from this horror from which there was no release. It took all my strength to walk out those doors, strength greater than my own. I was supported buy the strength of my oldest daughter holding my hand and the strength of my youngest daughter Dove holding my heart. It deepened my understanding of what it means to be a family, to be there for one another, to be a family team.

As we emerged from the hospital and I saw the sun for the first time in two days it warmed my skin and my soul. It was a reminder from the gloom of my hospital room that life goes on, that there is so much beauty in life to be grateful for, that there is still so much in life to live for.