Hannah -- (sorry guys, this one is graphic)

It's catching up to me now. I didn't want it to because my sitter will be here in about twenty minutes so I can go for a job interview. I don't want to think right now. The laundry helped, the sweeping helped, Little Man Meatball entertaining me helped, Little Miss kept me on my toes but the day is going to start winding down soon and that interview isn't going to last forever. The kids will go to bed and I'll have to think about the bad news, the horrible decisions, the physical pain, the doctor telling me it was over.

====

Hours later now and I was right about the day winding down. Always in the back of my mind was her, Hannah, my little girl. She's four today, as of 6:15 AM on this day in 2004, she was born at the IWK in Halifax. Big Cranky was with me at the end, Miami was with me at the beginning of labour. I was induced on the 27th in the afternoon and labour started. Normal regular contractions, normal regular labour. Sometime through the night I asked for pain medication, Big Cranky rubbed my back through the whole thing, the nurse was holding my hand while the other was putting in an IV and giving me that blessed button to push for more demerol. My water broke a few hours later and labour progressed. The never checked my dilation or effacement, they didn't have to. Hannah was too tiny at six months gestation, so tiny I didn't need to be fully dialated, just trust my own body to know when it was time to push. I never wanted to get to that point, I could have stayed in pain forever because I didn't want to let her go but it happened and I did it and there she was. Tiny, perfect and still.



We never heard her cry, it was too late for that. I wish I could have because when I heard Chloe and Everett, I wondered if they sounded like their big sister or maybe she sounded like Lily. We'll never know. I never got to see her eyes, I wanted to see them so badly but they never opened, they couldn't, she was gone. I wonder now if they were a piercing blue like her father's, would they have stayed that way or would they have faded to an ocean grey like mine and Lily's. They brought her to me wrapped in a receiving blanket and I couldn't understand, she couldn't get cold, she couldn't hurt anymore. I pulled it apart and looked at my beautiful baby girl. She looked like her father, the spitting image only softer, gentler features with amazing full lips. She fit so perfectly in my hand, like a little doll and we marvelled at just how tiny this angel was. I wanted to keep her forever, I wanted to hold her forever and I felt like if I just wished and hoped and prayed hard enough that she would take just one breath for me, just one. I begged God for a flicker of hope that she was really in a better place but I couldn't think of anywhere a child should be but in their parent's arms.



I never wanted to let her go but I did. I let the nurse take her and she was blessed, to go in peace and love. I was given a box of cards and pictures, a teddy bear, her hospital outfit and hat, the blanket they wrapped her in -- to go in grief and pain. Everything but my daughter in that box. Not a week before I was pregnant and excited, now I was hollow and devastated. I picked up her ashes the next day and made the five hour drive home with a tea-cup sized urn on my lap.


Four years later and I still remember every emotion, every thought, every twinge and ache. I still see her, I can still feel how tiny she was, picture her fitting almost perfectly in my hand. It's funny how time steals the pain away. It hurts so bad and then one day you realize you didn't cry that day and then you have more days like that, the ones you don't cry but you always think. I always wonder if there were better choices, more options, something else. I know in my heart there really wasn't anything else we could do for her but I want every single day to have her back and part of my little family with Lily, Chloe and Everett.

Please, if you read this, hug your babies and know just how lucky you are to have them. Know just how beautiful every day is with them no matter how much they make you angry. Tell them you love them because it can taken away. That is something I know all too well.


Happy Birthday Hannah, Mommy will ALWAYS love you.....

***For more information on what caused Hannah's stillbirth, please visit: http://hannahslegacy.tripod.com/ and please support IWK Genetic Research.***