The Moment Everything Changed
I woke up to be greeted with my husband standing on the landing. He was holding our daughter in his arms, he said “Look, just look.” I remember replying:
“What, what am I looking at?”
And then I realised… what I was seeing. My daughter was blue.
I screamed.
Everything Happened at Once
I remember running downstairs and out onto the street shouting and screaming for help. Everything was happening at once, our neighbour came over, the ambulance was called and my husband was attempting this resuscitation.
I felt like I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t speak, all I could do with stare. It was a day my mind couldn’t understand what my eyes were seeing.
At The Hospital
When the ambulance arrived, I went with the crew to hospital. My daughter went straight to A&E. Someone I knew from when I was younger was there, training as a nurse.
I sat at the end of the trolley and watched those people were desperately need to try and bring her back. But to no success.
“Your child has died.”
Eventually they turned to us and told us they had tried their best. There was no response and she had been without oxygen for too long that they had to stop.
I don’t think anything could have prepared me to hear those words.
Your child has died.
Saying Goodbye
We were taken into the relative room, they brought her through in a Moses basket. We weren’t able to hold her and they took hand prints.
I remember holding her as though I could somehow keep her there by refusing to let go. I didn’t want to hand her over, I didn’t want to say goodbye, I didn’t want to admit that she had died.
When The World Carried On
The weeks that followed blurred into months and the months into years.
She died in January. We buried her in February, and just a week later, I went back to work.
I felt I just wanted it to disappear run away from everything – from pain from reality. At first, life seems to be in slow motion – people with their lives happening around me but gradually everyone else seemed to carry on – sometimes it felt as though I was left alone with my own emotions.
The world didn’t stop.
I Still Had To Keep Going
I still had my two year-old to get to nursery. I still had to feed him. Keep some routine, I had bills to pay, and my son still needed me. Inside, all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry into a pillow.
“…one was to sink, the other was to swim.”
I think a part of me felt I was watching my life from outside. I was going to be existing out of necessity, rather than actually living. I realised I had two choices in life – one was to sink, the other was to swim. So I swam some days harder than others. Even 20 years later there are days when I feel as though I’m sinking in mud.
Days when I feel I’m sinking again.
Carrying Her With Me
When these days come, I try to remind myself I have been given life and I need to be grateful. Nothing ever makes using her okay but living my life is one way of carrying hers with me.
