Bless me


I know I have posted about the day Joshua passed before but like my last post during one of my writing sessions I wrote about his passing for my English class and the process was quite different than other times I have written about it. I re-read it today which probably wasn't the best choice since I will be leaving for my NICU shift in a little while. However, re-reading it also made me realize that i'm exactly where i'm supposed to be doing what I am meant to do. I haven't reached an entire full circle moment, but i'm headed that way and it's been such a journey. A journey I wish I would have never had to take, but these are the cards that I was dealt with and this is what I'm choosing to do with them. I don't want to be a victim of an unimaginable trauma. I want to make a difference and not have  Joshua's life have been in vain.
I hope i'm making him proud.
The title for the assignment was "Bless me" and writing about a loss we have experienced.

Bless me

It is April 22nd 2010 and for the very first time I am able to hold my son with out any wires, tubes or machines attached to him. It is April 22nd and for the very first time I am able to walk outside holding my son in my arms. It is the first time he has ever been outside. This is the first time I have held him in a month and he is so much heavier than what I remembered. It’s hard to imagine that just six months ago he fit in my hand. His foot as long as my pinky. I have longed for this moment, the moment in which I would be able to walk outside the NICU doors holding him but I never envisioned I would be walking out those doors holding his lifeless body so I could finally have some private time with him.

Its noon and I haven’t slept all night. It has now been two days since the doctors sat me down and let me know Joshua would not make it. His body was failing and there was nothing else they could do to save him. In his six months inside the womb and six months outside he has proved the doctors wrong and so I had faith in him that he would prove them wrong this time as well. Every ounce in body had to believe this. I couldn’t allow my brain to process that my son was going to die. How can a mother begin to even comprehend that? They have advised me to pull his life support to let him go, that his body could no longer sustain life & the only thing keeping him alive were the machines. I tell them there’s no possible way in hell I was going to pull life support. I have been his advocate for the last six months and I believed he would overcome this, I was not giving up on him. For the next two days I pray for a miracle. His primary nurses, neonatologists and surgeons who have now become family to me have come on their days off to check up on him and let me know how sorry they are. Family who has never met Joshua because there was a strict H1N1 rule where only the parents were allowed to visit the NICU have now spent the day visiting and holding vigil in the waiting room. Dr. Berrios who was the Dr who took care of him before he was transferred to Oakland Children’s Hospital comes and talks to me. She grabs my hand and looks me straight in the eye “You need to let him go” she tells me. It is in that moment that I allow myself to break down. I brought my son into this world and had done everything in my power to allow him to have a chance at life and now I was having to come to the realization that everything was just so he could die. There was nothing left for me to do, his body could not take it anymore and if I loved him I would let him go and be at peace. I talked to his nurses and agreed I would take him off life support. They would disconnect him from all machines except his oxygen to allow me to walk out to the garden and then they would disconnect him to allow him to pass away in my arms. They would allow me to have some time with him in the rocking chair before we would go through the procedure. I held my son and told him he didn’t have to hold on for me any longer, I was so proud of him for being such a strong boy and that I was sorry for not being able to protect him. I told him I was sorry that my body was not able to be a good incubator for him and that I was sorry I had allowed him to have gone through so much pain. His grandpa was standing next to me and I asked him if he wanted to hold him while I went to the bathroom. He was hesitant at first but he had never held his grandchild before and so he sat down in the rocking chair and the nurses helped me transfer him over so he could hold him. I waited to make sure his vitals stabilized and left them while I went to the restroom. My sister in law caught me outside the bathroom and asked me to go to the cafeteria to grab a bite before heading back into the NICU. I agreed and met with other family who were at the cafeteria as well. Not 5 minutes had passed when the charge nurse came running into the cafeteria, grabbed my hand and said “lets go now” and started running, without even thinking I started running with her. My brain knew what was going on but my heart had not caught up yet. Half way up the stairs I stopped and starting crying and told her I couldn’t do this, I knew what were running up to, my son was dying and I was running towards a type of pain I wish on no one . She told me “yes you can do this, I know you can” and so we kept running and rushed into NICU room B. My father in law looked at me as he held my dead son. I starred unable to move, the beeps of the machines went off letting everyone know there was no longer a heartbeat.

I’ll never forget this. This was the moment my life changed and I became a person missing half of themselves. You have asked for me to describe losing someone or to describe a family member who has altered my life but the truth is there are not enough words to be able to describe this in detail for a reader to understand. The pain I have felt since that day is un describable. Imagine the worst day in your life and multiply that by 100 then imagine feeling that pain everyday for the rest of your life. Can you imagine that? My life will forever be described as a before Joshua and after Joshua, because of him I am in this class pursuing a career I had never imagined I would pursue. Most people would think I would want to be anywhere but the hospital but the truth is the hospital I where I feel at home. I feel like some part of me is connected to him and in a way he is with me. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through the unimaginable agony that is losing a child. I can’t describe what that pain feels like because every day I learn something new about it. It has been 5 years and yet I can still close my eyes and go through this day moment by moment. HIs life has altered my life in a way that is indescribable, because of him I am a better person, because of him I am who I am today.

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