But I understand now why no one really talks about losing a child, a baby. The pain is too much to relive. It’s too alive, too wrong. Too unfair. But what is worse than the pain I feel, is the pain I feel for my daughter having to feel what I feel, or much worse. It was my grandson. But it was her child.
We were very excited about this child. My daughter was made to be a mother. Her career is daycare so she can be around children. She loves them. I don’t mean she thinks aww how cute, how sweet. I mean she loves spending her day with children, playing with them, washing their faces, talking to them, encouraging them and mostly just loving them. I love children also but she is down there on the floor with them while I’m observing. She’s in the midst of the action. She started babysitting when she was eleven years old. Someone saw and trusted my child with their child when she was eleven years old. She was made to be a mother. It took her husband and her a year to get pregnant, so when she did- it consumed us all. We made plans, listened for heartbeats, the doctor thought we were all nuts as her Dad, her brother , her husband and me crowded into a examining room just to hear that heartbeat for the first time.
I started talking to the baby as soon as she told me. She’d walk in my house, I’d be on my knees whispering to her belly, about what I had planned for this baby, how much I already loved him. We made a big deal over everything. We had a Gender Reveal party that was the most fun of any party we’d ever had. Had the bakery make a cake, put inside whether it was pink or blue, and no one knew until the next day when it was cut. It was a boy. I had wanted it to be a girl, until I heard it was a boy, and than I didn‘t care at all. A little boy. And he was named instantly, David Everett. David means beloved, was there ever a child more beloved in his life than our little David? And Everett after his great grandpa.
She was sick through the first trimester. But she was a trooper. She would get through anything just to hold this child of hers. She was good with her vitamins, she didn’t drink caffeine, she stayed away from red meat and chicken. She was a Dr pepper addict but she never touched one the whole time she was pregnant. She didn’t eat a lot of things that I ate all the time when I was pregnant. She read too many books and had to quit, because it was freaking her out. And we were anticipating every day when he would be born. What he would look like. How much we wanted to spoil him and love him.
She was 26 weeks and five days pregnant on December 9. It was a normal day. We were having our Church Ladies Christmas party that night at my house, always a fun time. We laughed, played games, exchanged gifts, prayed. The party was winding down and I looked around and saw Jenna missing. I asked someone, they thought she was in the bathroom, but she was downstairs with Justin and Ben, and when I saw her it didn’t look good. She was pale, holding herself really stiff. I asked her what was wrong, she wasn’t sure, her back hurt, her arms were numb. Ben took her to the ER while I told everyone what was going on and started winding the party down, to clean up. I still wasn’t overly concerned. Just thought she was feeling tired. Nothing major, surely not. This was out of the blue. It had crossed my mind a couple weeks earlier that she was pretty swollen, maybe toxemia. But she had just went to the Doctor and things were fine. Before my final guest left, Ben called me, shaken- they took her right up to maternity, her blood pressure was 197/130- something’s wrong. I left to meet them at the hospital immediately.
At the hospital it was controlled chaos. They were not messing around, immediate plans to send her straight to Good Sam in Cincy. They don’t have a NICU at our little hospital, so they knew, already knew my daughter was going to have to deliver soon. I picked up my husband and we followed the ambulance and by 2:30 am we were at Good Sam. After that there were two days of monitoring, controlling her blood pressure, listening to David’s heart rate, trying to determine the best course, and we were praying. Praying, praying. I was worried now. Jenna was calm. Ben was worried. Jenna was calm. She believed everything would be alright so we believed too. Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati is wonderful. They are informative, they are direct, they don’t mess around. We knew they both were in danger. She had toxemia, her blood cells were attacking the placenta because they believed it to be a foreign object, cutting off David’s supply of blood and nutrients, there was not any other choice but to deliver. And he was small.
So on Monday December 12th, 2011 at 10:50 am, David Everett Jury was born into this world. 1 lb 9 oz and 12 ½ inches long. So tiny, but so big to me. He filled up my heart the instant I laid eyes on him. I was in love. I love my children. I loved giving birth to them, holding them for the first time, what an amazing fantastic wonderful experience it was. But David - maybe because he was so little, looked so helpless, needed someone’s protection- all my mother instincts that fight to protect, turned into Maw Maw’s fierce determination to love this child so much that no one would be able to love him more. I was going to see him through this. He was going to win this fight, and so he was dubbed Warrior immediately. He was working hard, you could see it in his tiny movements, the turn of his little head, he wanted to win this fight too.
And he was beautiful. There was a light in his face. When he opened his dark blue eyes, there was intelligence there. He was red, and he was perfect. Ten little fingers. Ten little toes. A elegant Wooten nose- long dignified. He had black hair. The nurses had told us not to expect any hair, with him being three months early. But he surprised everyone with a whole head full, and it was black. My little black headed blue eyed baby- that I had wanted one of my children to be and didn’t get. Now we had him. A beauty. But we weren’t allowed to touch him. Mom and Dad could sparingly.
But on the third day the nurse said if Mom didn’t care, Earl and I could touch him. Jenna of course said YES yes touch him Momma. I laid my finger on his arm, and bawled like a baby. I could feel his heart beating. His soft skin, so delicate, I could feel the preciousness of this child. I never wanted to move my hand.
David was doing well. He was gaining weight. They had taken him off anti biotic. On Thursday night I spent an hour with him by myself. The nurse got me a stool and I talked to him and sang to him. He fell asleep. I sang to him “I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck, a barrel and a heap and I’m talking in my sleep about David. About David.” I’m not sure how many times I sang it, but I told him about his momma and daddy and his uncles, and his Pappy, and everything we had planned for him. How he was going to get better and we were going to have so much fun. Pappy had already bought him Bengal stuff.
I take care of my Mom so on Friday I didn’t go back to the hospital, I let Earl go. He had a really good night with David on that night. On Saturday the 17th was our Rowland Christmas party in Ohio- Jenna and Ben had family in, so they went straight to the hospital instead of the party, and Earl and I and Justin left early from the party so that we could stop by the hospital and see David before we went home. We stayed about hour and a half. He was peaceful, moving a little - they said he had a good day. So the next morning Jenna, Ben and I decided to go to church before going back to Cincinnati. There was no warning.
We got to the hospital a little before two. As we were getting out of the car, the hospital called Jenna, David was having some breathing problems. We were right there. There was a spot on his lung, they were going to need to give him some blood. Everything seemed ok for about an hour and then there was a rush of people, doctors, nurses surrounding our baby and they were trying to resuscitate him. We were all three standing there in shock. Our hands linked, tears flowing, I was praying, just pleading with God, please Lord, please Lord, please Lord, please Lord. That’s all I could say. This tiny baby - the nurse just using her thumb on his chest. That’s the image I see all the time. She only had to use her thumb to pump on his heart.
They brought him back. Took him out of the incubator. Attached a portable breathing tube and gave him to us. You can hold him. They said. They didn’t have any hope so they were allowing us to hold him for the last time.
I had called Earl when we knew he was having some trouble, so he was there. I went to call Justin. They gave us a private room and unhooked David from all his breathing apparatus. He was free to cuddle. We all held him, kissed him, talked to him, but mostly let Jenna hold her precious child, and watched. He lived for about a half an hour more. With his beautiful eyes focused on his Momma he left us.
Justin came in right after he passed away. My heart broke all over again just for him. His first nephew and he was in love with him. He is not a crier, but he stood there and cried holding that tiny baby. Our pastor and his wife arrived. More tears, talk, just holding him though he was gone. We stayed for about three and a half more hours. They came in, cut off some of his hair for Jenna, gathered up his things. We didn’t want to leave, we thought if we just stayed it wouldn’t end. We could wind back time and things would be ok. But it wasn’t and we had to leave.
I rode home with Earl, Jenna and Ben in our other car, and Justin behind us, a silent terrible caravan of hurt and pain. I couldn’t speak. The hour ride home was silent. Earl and I had just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary the day before, I looked over once at this man, this rock of mine, whose eyes wouldn’t leave the road, and saw tears running down his face. I touched his hand, but we still couldn’t speak.
I felt betrayed. By God. He knew my heart. He knew we wanted this child. Why hadn’t he healed him? Why not some divine intervention here, Lord? My thoughts were rambling. I wanted to be angry, I so wanted to be able to scream at God. I wanted to smash a million things into a million pieces with a big huge baseball bat. But I didn’t scream or yell, or smash anything. I just sat there in my hurt and couldn’t understand. Why had God taken our baby?
Why is a loaded question. It’s never going to be answered, never to our satisfaction. Until we see God and if by then we still have the question, I’m sure he’ll answer it. But that doesn’t help the here and now, while you are stuck in this world of hurt. While you wonder what in the tarnation had just happened? I think I was in shock. I think I was in shock for days. I don’t remember much. Our oldest son and his wife arrived home the next morning, too late to see their nephew and hurting because of it. Christmas was the next weekend. I had nothing done, and now a funeral.
We moved through that week as if we were slogging through a fierce snow storm. Being hit in the face with sharp needles of cold and blinded by white. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t see the future. I didn’t know how to bring my daughter up out of the cold, and I just wanted to slide into a bed, and cover my head and not wake up in the morning.
But we moved. It was my husband. He said we had to do it. So we did. The arrangements, the calls, and the stupid Christmas shopping which I was not in the mood to do. I would find myself standing in the middle of a store and just blanked out. I would spend an hour roaming the store and come out with nothing. I gave a lot of gift cards.
During this time, we were being blessed beyond measure. Everyone was helping. The flower shop wouldn’t charge us, Kroger’s and McDonalds donated all we needed for the dinner after the funeral. Someone anonymously paid the funeral bill so Jenna and Ben wouldn’t have to. (they wouldn’t let us do it). My girl at the beauty salon cut my hair for free. Cards of sympathy, messages, money, pictures, prayers arrived daily. My brother, my good friends, they all helped out with Mom and food. I still think there is a casserole roaming around in my frig that we didn’t get to eat. I was touched by all this. Our town is a wonderful small town. I am thankful we live here.
But I was not prepared for the funeral. My daughter and Ben wanted to have an open casket. They needed to see him one last time, and it did help. It gave us closure, our baby wasn’t here anymore and we knew it then. They did their best to make him look good, but he was so tiny they had a hard time, and he had so much make up on because of the discoloring of his skin. But to me he was still the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen. Will ever see.
David.
Warrior.
We released six blue balloons at the cemetery for the six glorious days we had David with us on the earth.
I know time will heal the pain, or lessen it. I believe God has my back and loves me so much that he will help me be able to talk about our grandchild without feeling that my throat is going to close, and be on the verge of tears.
I wish I had some words of wisdom, or something to say that would comfort someone, anyone who might have to go through a similar situation. But I don’t. I can give you a hug. That’s the best therapy I’ve received during this whole ordeal. I’ve received tight squeezes that I‘ve felt to my bones, gentle touches, and great big loving bear hugs. That touch, that squeeze can convey more to those hurting than words can.
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