Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Ashley

Mom to Nylah

Born with her twin brother on March 21st, 2010

Passed away of SIDS on June 20th, 2010

Sarnia, Ontario

Life was going great my husband and I decided to get pregnant on mother's day two year's ago, so I then stopped taking my birth control and shortly after within a few week's I became pregnant with our first daughter. She was born healthy and turned out to be my birthday present :) I had turned 21 and had found out I had a baby girl all in one night, how great was that!When she was about three months I told my then fiance that I wanted another baby ( I had baby fever ) and we wanted our kid's close in age. Well my husband agreed that it would be nice to try again.

So again after not to long of a wait I took an at home pregnancy test and it said I was pregnant again! We were so happy and excited to bring another baby into the world to call our own and to love just as much as our first born. I had then gone to the doctor to get a blood test done to confirm the pregnancy and sure enough it was positive and I was only a few week's along. They scheduled my ultrasound which wasn't for another few week's after my positive results. The time came to my ultrasound day, I was so excited and I updated my Facebook status saying I was going to my ultrasound that morning and a couple friends of mine were saying how excited they were, and a couple were joking saying it could be twins.So my husband and I dropped off our daughter at my friends house and then we made our way to the hospital to see our little peanut.

During my ultrasound the lady who was doing it had the screen pointed to her and I wasn't able to see anything. She was looking around in my belly and had found something ... She looked at me and then looked back at the screen, she put her hand up to her mouth and said she had to show me something and as I'm sure any mother would think, I was thinking something was wrong with my baby. She asked me if I was ready and I said yes as my heart was pumping faster and faster she turned the screen to me and I saw 2 babies!!!I was so shocked I started crying and couldn't believe my eyes! The lady asked me if I wanted to bring my husband in and I said yes, so she went and got him and told him he better sit down for this, then the lady asked if I wanted to tell him or should she and I said well why don't we just show him .. so he was starting to freak out, and she started up the ultrasound again and he saw the 2 little babies in my belly. He was so shocked as well and was just lost for words and came out with " Are you F***ing S***ing me!!!!

We were both so mixed with emotions - Happy, scared, shocked. As my pregnancy went on, I was sick the whole time just like I was with my first born but thank goodness for Diclectin or else I wouldn't of been able to hold down anything including water. I got bigger and bigger, to the point that I could barely walk and joints were killing me. I'm only 5'3" and had a HUGE belly with little legs.Everything was going great! I was growing at a good rate, at each ultrasound the twins were doing so well and growing and measuring up to what they should had been although Cade was transverse and Nylah was breech. We wanted to find out what we were having this time around and found out it was a boy and a girl - Baby A - Nylah, Baby B - our son. Then on the day of March 21 2010 ( 36 week's pregnant ), we decided to bring our oldest to grandma and grandpa's for the night so we could relax a little before the twins came ( I was due April 17th and was scheduled for a C section April 6th ).

Well after dropping our daughter off, my husband and I decided to go to Wal-mart to pick up a few things and on our way out of the house and onto the driveway my water broke! I started freaking out because I had never experienced my water breaking on its own. My husband was so excited and trying to get me into our van while I'm screaming OMG! OMG! OMG! Thankfully the hospital is only 5 minutes from our home, he ran and got me a wheelchair and we went up to the maternity floor. They brought me right in, hooked me up to everything put in an IV and catheter and then brought me to the operating room where they then did a spinal and proceeded to go on with the delivery of my beautiful twins. At 8pm Nylah was delivered and at 8:01pm our son was delivered. I had many complications after from the delivery in which resulted in me and my twins having to stay in the hospital for 8 days. The twins were healthy and doing good Nylah was 5lbs 14 oz and our son was 6lb 1/2 oz, our son was the one that needed to stay in the incubator for a couple days and almost needed surgery due to liquid being in his lungs.

Nylah was doing so great .. eating no problem, sleeping well. So after long 8 days of being in the hospital and barley seeing my newborns or my husband and oldest child we were sent home. And so it begins..We were all doing so well, life was going great .. twins had a weight check up each week and they were doing beyond good. They were so healthy!

Then the day of June 20th 2010 - Father's Day came, My husband and I were out in the living room sleeping because we would always put one twin in our bed and the other out with us just so they wouldn't wake eachother and could be comfortable. Well the night before I was feeding Nylah and my grandmother had called all upset and so I finished feeding Nylah and brought her to my husband so he could take care of her while I went over to visit with my grandmother who needed me and so my husband was the one who had to put Nylah to bed. I came back home and asked how Nylah was and he said said she was a little cranky ( she had colic ) and fell asleep in his arms, so he brought her to our bed and he put her to sleep which was on her belly because that's the only way that the twins would sleep and they were actually starting to sleep through the night and doing so well with moving their heads and keeping them up. So I went to sleep on the couch thinking OK well she is fine if he just put her to bed.

So morning came and it was about 6 in the morning and my son woke up for a feeding, so I fed him and went back to sleep and waited for Nylah and my oldest to wake up. My husband had woken up and as did our oldest daughter and went out to get us coffees and bring his dad his gift. Well I had fallen back to sleep because I was exhausted. Thinking Nylah was just having a really good sleep because she had slept for a long time before. Well my husband came back home and woke me asking if I had checked on Nylah and I said no because I fell back to sleep, we I got up fast and we both went to check on her .

I opened the door to our bedroom and saw Nylah laying there on her belly still, I rolled her over and she was gone. I jumped off the bed screaming with my husband screaming and running behind me, we called the ambulance and they came right away, ran in looked at her and said there was nothing they would do. I have this feeling inside of me right now as I'm telling this story, I just feel like my chest is heavy, I have a butterfly feeling my my stomach, I just want to scream and cry but I have to try and hold it together for my husband and other two children. I feel so depressed and my life has just turned upside down, I didn't even want to look or hold my son because she looked just like him.

I'm afraid I'm not being the best mom to my other two children because of this. Why was she taken from me! What did I do wrong!? Is it my fault!? Why haven't they figured out the cause of SIDS!? Why can't they STOP this? Why did God to this to us? My son is now without his twin sister! WHY WHY WHY!!!! She was turning 3 months with her brother the very next day!!! All I can do is try to be strong. I visit her pretty much everyday. We buried her in the infant section of the cemetery hoping she can play with all the other kids.I only hope that she is able to be happy where she is and be safe and know we can't wait to be with her once again.

We love you our baby girl " princess " We will never forget you and will always be here for you. We just want to be able to hold you in our arms again and take back everything we did wrong, love you and kiss you and have everything the way it is supposed to be! I want people to be able to see I have three children and not just see the two I have and tell me how cute they are, I want to be able to say I have three without have to go into detail about where my Nylah is. I want to be able to mention her and talk about her without being worried if people are sick of me bringing it up or not wanting to hear about it because it saddens them.

You can contact Ashley at c_aradychewsky@hotmail.com