A Lifetime in Two Days

Little David Edward was born just before 10 PM on March 6, and passed away two days later on the evening of March 8 due to complications from pulmonary hemorrhage.  The doctors at UCSF called me during his last minutes and assured me than he was receiving the best attention possible.  It was hard being bedridden and several cities away while it was happening, but at least I knew someone was holding him.

The silver lining in all this is that we were able to have him baptized during his brief life in the big world.  It may not sound like much, but at this point it really makes all the difference to us.

David and I are making the trip up to San Francisco tomorrow to see and sign for his body.  I expect that to be the hardest part of this whole ordeal.  I barely knew what to expect even under the best circumstances.  I was never able to hold him or even have a good look at him.  I heard him try to cry once in the operating room as they took him to the nursery while I was being stapled back together.  All I saw of him while he was alive was a picture on a nurse's iPhone, and his little nose poking out of the blankets of a portable incubator as they were rushing him away to an ambulance.  The poor little guy was better than three months premature and weighed barely more than a pound.  I don't expect to get a lot of closure out of getting to hold him now that he's dead, and it will probably break my heart all over again to see just how frail he was, but there really is no avoiding it.

I was released from my own hospital room today once my staples were removed.  I'm still not very mobile, and at the moment not very coherent thanks to all the oxycodone in my system.  Mentally, intellectually and spiritually, we've already accepted what has happened and found our peace with it.  Emotionally, it will probably be a very long road.