The Two Month Marker

Yesterday marked the 2 month birthday for Kaden. I tried to post last night, but couldn't. It was an emotional day for me and I received alot of phone calls and text messages, and even a "thinking of you" card from all the nurses and doctors that took care of Kaden at UCSF. So I was on the emoitional rollercoaster yesterday thinking alot about him and what it would have been like to have an 8 week old baby in the house. I talked to Ashley (Max's Mommy) yesterday, and it is nice to be able to vent and share feelings with someone who knows exactly how I am feeling. Max & Kaden share the same birthday, just one month apart, so we will forever be "connected" in that way. Like I said yesterday, I cannot think of Kaden without thinking about Max. That will never change and I pray that they are together playing in heaven. For those of you who have lost babies to CDH, you may understand the things I am about to say. We, as parents, go thru things in the moments that we make the decision to let our babies go peacefully. For Kaden, it may have been peacefully, but for me it was gut-wrenching. I think about those moments all the time and second guess our decision. After talking to Ashley, she made me realize that we sometimes have to make decisions on what is best for our children, not for us, and I do not know the quality of life that Kaden would have had had we made the decision to do everything until he gave up on his own. It is just so painful to think that I took his life away, and I cannot get the image of him opening his eye to look at us for the first time. Everyone tells me that he was looking at us to say good bye, but in my mind he is looking at me asking me not to let him go. I still to this day cannot look at that picture.

I am sure all these feelings are very normal, I just seem to keep them all at bay until I am alone, or it is a "marker" day. I am sure it is normal to hate this CDH with every fiber in my body, and feel so helpless and I feel like I made Kaden suffer for my own selfish "wants". I look at the pictures of him on ECMO, and there is no way that baby was "comfortable". Paralyzed, maybe, but not comfortable. I understand that ECMO saves MANY CDH babies, but in my case it did not, and all I am left with are gruesome pictures of what I did to my beautiful son. I know I would feel totally different if the outcome would have been different, but it wasn't. I hope Kaden knows that we made decisions for him based solely out of our deep love of him and if he suffered in any way, I am so sorry. We just wanted you so bad. I sincerely apologize if I offended anyone with this post. It seems to help me to start to "vocalize" some of the things that go thru my head that I feel I cannot speak to anyone. Not very many people in my life can truely relate to what I have going on.

Craig & I are taking Logan and Jessica back to Arkansas the 4th-13th of July for my class reunion. Christopher is there right now, for two weeks. He couldn't go with us because he starts football camp on the 22nd. I am excited to get to see all the people I went to school with, but have some anxiety about going to a reunion 3 months after giving birth with no baby. I am sure we will have to tell the story to many, but hopefully it will raise more awareness for CDH. I continue to follow everyone's blogs and know that I am praying for you all :)