It's been so difficult for me to choose one significant memory that stands out above the rest... the one I want to single out and share. So many moments come to mind immediately. The ultrasound where the tech wouldn't say what we already knew. Calling my mom to tell her Avery was gone... The list is endless.
I think though that the tenderest moment, one that I cannot and do not want to forget, is when Daniel and I were left completely alone with Avery in the hospital room. We were saying our final goodbye to her and spending our last moments ever with our daughter on this earth.
Daniel sat down with me on the bed and took Avery into his hands. We looked at her together, huddled close, tears streaming down our faces. I remember looking up at Daniel, miserably, and saying, "Daniel, what happened to our little girl?" It was almost pleading, begging him to give me answers I couldn't find, but knew full well he couldn't either.
I picked up the camera and took more photos of her, capturing her ink stained feet one more time. As I snapped more photos, I realized how much she was physically deteriorating. It felt unfair to keep taking her picture, as if I was compromising her dignity. I set the camera down and Daniel and I both agreed it was time for her to go. For us to give her up and say goodbye. It was the hardest thing we've ever had to decide together. Something we never thought we'd discuss... Not what color to paint the living room, or what to make for dinner... We had to decide that it was time to say goodbye to our daughter, after just seven hours with her. To give her to a nurse to take away so the funeral director could pick her up and take her to the funeral home to prepare her for her casket. How could we endure that? I still can't fathom it, though I've been living it for two and a half years.
It was God orchestrated that our pastor happened to arrive then to pray with us. He'd been away on a trip to Tennessee and just happened to get back in time, before Avery was taken away. Everyone came back into the room as Pastor John (one of my old high school teachers, my old youth pastor, the pastor who married Daniel and me) prayed over us. I do not remember what he prayed; all I could do was stare at my little girl, desperately trying to memorize every inch of her, the curves of her face and the feel of her skin. I ached to remember her always. Every precious detail.
Daniel made the horrific call to the front desk, requesting that the nurse come take our baby. It was awful. I don't know how I actually managed to hand Avery over to nurse. How I let her little body leave my hands for the last time. As the tears flow now, recalling it, I know they poured then.
After the nurse took Avery, she turned around to place her into the bassinet. I waited for her to move so I could take one last glance at my little girl before she was gone forever. But to my horror, when the nurse moved to the back of the rolling bassinet, I saw Avery was covered with a blanket... just like a dead body under a sheet.
I felt angry and upset that my last chance to see her was taken away. In these moments, this was not a dead body, a stillborn baby... This was my daughter, my precious baby, my little girl. She looked like her Daddy. And in this last second, I was angry on top of my grief. If that nurse could have just waited until she wheeled the bassinet across the room and behind the curtain before she covered her... It probably never occurred to her what a big deal that was. I'm sure she was just doing her job, shielding all of the normal happy moms that might be out in the hallway from seeing my dead baby. But she ruined my last moment. Maybe it shouldn't matter, but to me it does. She was the only nurse who took care of me during Avery's birth that had never experienced a loss. And she was the only one who did insensitive things... more than once.
Despite the nurse's inability to meet our needs, our last moments with Avery were so tender and precious. I felt so much love for Daniel, that we were holding each up through this, facing it together. And even though I felt so sick with grief and devastation, such a sense of dread and reluctance, I still felt so much love for that little girl. I still do.
