To Remember Her in 2017

The hospital staff was AMAZING during my first two days post-partum. I had a plastic white flower outside my door. Hospital code for “the patient in this room has experienced a loss”. The support and love was constant. My parents were there immediately, and both Husband and I had our families filled in the room by the time Baby was getting baptized.

Family, friends, and staff wept with us, listened to me retell the story of her birth. I spoke or typed it a million times over. Anything, I think, to help etch it and her forever in my memories. We studied every tiny centimeter of her body. Skin perfect and smooth, just as a baby should be. Perfect miniature fingers and toes. I desperately tried to decide who she looked like.

With a few more pounds on her, she would have looked a lot like Fiona as a baby. But petite like Orion. She had SO much hair. More than either of her siblings at birth. I find myself wondering if she would have the beautiful ringlets her big sister has. Would her hair be light and golden like Orion? As silly as this part might sound, I even tried to gently open her eyes, to see if they were blue (Im blue, but the rest of my family is brown). These things all remain mystery, until I see her again in Heaven.

My sweet sweet Baby.

The hospital we were taken to had an amazing piece of equipment that allowed Ivy to stay in the room with us the whole time. A cooling system called a ‘Cuddle Cot’ kept her body temperature low enough to preserve her perfection. She looked and felt soft and squishy like a new baby should, for the majority of our time with her. Precious time that was worth its weight in gold.

Ivy should be with us, nestled in my arms nursing away.

But since she is not and can not be, her legacy is what I have to share.

Baby’s legacy will live on through a donation of a cuddle cot to a local hospital without one.

Because in situations like these….nothing is more precious than the gift of time.

Last updated April 13, 2017