Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Lindsay

Mom to Ayden Brooks Jones 

April 27, 2009 - August 25, 2009

Greenville, NC

On April 26, my birthday, I woke up knowing that this time, the contractions were real. I was so excited! I had had the perfect pregnancy….healthy, on track, never a complication. And to top it all off, Ayden was coming on my birthday….or so we thought. All day, I waited for the contractions to get stronger, but it wasn’t until late that night when we would finally get into the hospital. Did I mention we were excited? I couldn’t tell you what one of those contractions felt like….all I cared about was that we were going to meet our little boy in a matter of hours. After 36 hours of labor, Ayden came on April 27th. He decided he needed a day all of his own. It will forever be the happiest day of my life.


He weighed 7lbs 14oz, and he was 19 inches long. The pediatricians said we had a healthy baby on our hands….he looked fantastic. We were so proud. We were also terrified. What were we going to do with this little person? We had to take him home…he was ours….it was our responsibility to give him everything he needed. The day we took him home was so scary to us. It was up to us provide for him and keep him safe. We quickly adapted and learned that it really wasn’t as scary as we thought. We learned that being parents was what we were meant to do.

As a newborn, Ayden was so full of expression….always making some interesting faces. He was also holding his head up better than most newborns, which I found to be so unusual. I have been around babies all my life, so I was accustomed to how they develop and the stages they reach and when. He always seemed to hit the milestones earlier than expected. At four weeks old, he was smiling away at us and by 6 weeks…other people. At 8 weeks, I believe he laughed for the first time. At 3 months he was holding his head up on his own, fully supported by himself. And by 3 and a half months, he was able to roll to his side on his own and was beginning to get the hang of rolling to his stomach. He was so talkative….speaking baby language of course. He would have conversations with us and just talk and talk and talk….and laugh and coo…..so full of life. If I could describe Ayden in one word, I would say happy. He was just happy, all the time. We never dealt with colic or much fussiness with him. He would cry if he was hungry or tired…but that was it. He loved to just sit with us and laugh and play. He loved to lay on his play mat and kick until he wore himself out. And bath time was his favorite time of the day. He would splash and kick and enjoy every second of it. Bath time came with some of his biggest smiles. Just a joyful, happy baby.

Ayden saw the mountains and the beach this past summer. I’m so glad we did those things. He experienced family vacations, going out to eat, visiting friends, running errands, going to church, visiting family, going to work with Mommy, visiting Daddy at work, even his first baby shower. So many people met Ayden in four months…..and now, I’m so thankful for that.  

I won’t say much about August 25th except that it is a day I hope I never have to repeat again. No one should receive that news. No one should have to hear those words. No one should have to be walked into a room to see her child lying lifeless with teams of people desperately trying to help. No one should ever have to hold that little child praying for a miracle. No one should have to feel this lost.

SIDS is something I educated myself on early in my pregnancy. I knew a lot more about SIDS than most. I knew that SIDS was not suffocation, nor was it a heart malfunction. There are many other theories, but they are without substantial proof (many of which I can personally disprove). SIDS is unexplained and mysterious. We can’t pinpoint a cause. It is also unpredictable and unpreventable. We did everything right. We put him on his back to sleep, we kept dangerous objects out of the crib, we did not co-sleep at night, we dressed him comfortably, he didn’t sleep with a pillow or stuffed animal anywhere in his crib, we don’t smoke. All the risk factors were not applicable in our household. But it still happened to us. That’s the scary part. As a parent, you do everything humanly possible to make sure your child is safe and protected from harm, but there is only so much we can do. You can’t prevent the unpreventable, and unfortunately the unpreventable is what we’re dealing with.

I am able to make it through each day because I trust a God who carries me through. I used to pray over Ayden every night, sometimes multiple times throughout the night. I would pray for his protection and safety and for his health, but I would also pray that God would help me trust Him and understand if for some reason Ayden needed to be taken from us. It was my biggest fear, but I knew that it was out of my hands. I could only do so much. I knew that if God decided Ayden’s time was earlier than I had planned, I would have to accept that and trust Him. I never believed I would be living that prayer….those words I spoke to God every night on my son’s behalf.

Lindsay blogs at www.thejonesfamily52009.blogspot.com

You can contact her at contactthejoneses@yahoo.com