David's Story

I don't know where to begin such a sweet yet painful story. I suppose I should start with what a blessing he was to me. I was so excited about having another little guy that I had planned and planned for almost year and when we decided to try again, I had everything basically down to an art. We conceived in the first month. It was right about then that my marriage seemed to unravel before my eyes. It was okay though, I had my Big boy and another would be along soon. Who could be ungrateful right? Within 3 months, time proved that I was to be divorced with 2 little boys to raise on my own. I thanked God everyday for my pregnancy because it truly kept me grounded, my little Angel carried me through.

He was born, beautiful, on April 24th, 2005. He was 8 pounds and 10 ounces, quiet and calm just like his brother's birth. He was born just after midnight at 12:27am. I named him David Ford, after my Uncle David that had passed years earlier. He was handsome and tiny, and a miracle. I couldn't imagine how I had lived a day of my life without him. We went home after 2 days from the hospital to the 3 bedroom apartment I was renting with my sister. He and I shared a room of course, he was only about a foot from my bed though he rarely slept in his crib after midnight.

I was on maternity leave for 6 weeks, which I now recognize as the only time in his short life that I got to spend with him without any pressure to be constantly moving through the day. It went by fast, he nursed what seemed like a hundred times a night, he was a quiet boy but was a lot of work when the sun went down. I guess it was God's way of giving me little extra bits of time with him. It was brief, our time together at home. It feels unfair.

I returned to work the day after my 24th birthday. June 8th. Barely 6 weeks. I had found a sitter through my mom, a nice older lady and her daughter-in-law. They watched another little girl and they were able to watch the boys for very little. I didn't have any money to my name from not having worked for 6 weeks, I borrowed it from my mom. The next 4 and half months of my life are a blur, I worked and commuted, that was my life. My ex-husband picked the boys up each day and brought them over to my house, sometimes I would get home after David had gone to bed but most days I got home just early enough for him to start fussing and be put down for the night. The guilt consumes me, it's the one part of grief that never stops suffocating you. I'd give my life for my kids but I didn't even have 10 minutes to spend with them after work. Dinner, baths, pajamas...

Time passed, I got used to the horrible routine. Up every morning, get C ready, get David ready, get ready, drive to the sitter- 2 hours of traffic, work, 2 hours home, boys to bed, sleep...

October 26th, 2005... wake up, feed David, put him back down, get dressed, get C up and ready, get David ready... Their Dad came to pick them up that day for some reason, I think it was the first time in David's entire life, God letting his Dad see him once more I think, off to work I went. It was an awful day, I was sad all day, people told me later that I must have known it was going to happen because I was depressed all day long. I was leaving work an hour early to meet my Father and go to some seminar about 'getting more out of life'... amazing... but my phone rang at dinner and my son had stopped breathing.

I stopped breathing too. He was at the sitter sleeping, napping with his brother in the room. The sitter went in to check on him and she said he looked pale, so she picked him up and he was 'limber' so she called 911. Ambulances came, they were 'trying', I was frozen with fear and paralyzed by hope, hope that it would be not be what it was. I prayed and I prayed and I begged and reasoned, pleaded, I even bargained but on the other end of that call the response to "what's happening" from my Son's Father was, "Janice, he's gone, he's gone" I just screamed as loud as I could, "No, No, No". The screams were so piercing that I felt like they weren't coming from my own mouth. It couldn't be, this isn't the way things happen... I'm only a child myself, I can't possibly be losing, have lost, my son.

It took and hour and half to get through traffic to C and my family. My Dad drove what felt like 3 miles per hour the whole way there. They stuck us in this tiny box of a room to wait for the medical examiner to let me see him again. It was so unreal. He was gone, and when I held him for the last time in that hospital bed I knew I was saying goodbye for a lifetime.

This is the day the color drained from my life, the day time started over from 24 years into life to 'X' number of years until I see him again. Most people in my life know the story form being there or hearing it, but I have never told this story because of how much it hurts to know it is real and that it is not a story at all, it is my life. This is how I lost my son. I was not there with him, I did not get to whisper in his ear while they tried to bring him back, I didn't even get to hold my son's body while he was still warm. I said goodbye to my son at 7am that day, I would never see him in my time on earth again.