I’m about to write my daughter’s entire life story in a single post. It seems too difficult, but writing this is an important part of my acceptance of her death. Until now I have managed to keep her alive through my stories and writing about my pregnancy. Once I finish this part of her story, that’s it. Her life will be over on this blog and the remainder of my posts, the remainder of my life, will be spent in the aftermath. It seems most fitting to finally write this, and post it, on what was my official due date. Today was the day she was supposed to be born but instead today is the day I am going to let her go.

Some days I still can’t believe that this happened. This all seems like a horrible nightmare and a desperate little voice inside of me keeps saying, this can’t be real. Ava was born and died just over three months ago and now that desperate voice in my head seems to be fading. With each day that passes, I feel myself accepting the reality that she really did die. This isn’t a nightmare that will come to an end, and this blog post makes it all the more real. I’ve sat down to write this so many times but all I’ve managed to do was sit and stare at a blank page. I’ve written, and deleted, and written again but I cannot seem to find the right words. Ava’s birth, her fight to live, and her death all occurred within a span of about 15 minutes but it changed my life forever. How do I sum that all up in one post? I guess I just need to start where we last left off…..

On the morning of Monday, May 16, 2016, after a night of non-reassuring fetal monitoring, preparing for delivery, and not a moment of sleep, it was time for our baby to be born. Just after 7:00 AM we met my nurse for the day. There was too much going on for me to even pay attention to her name, but she would prove to be the most incredible nurse whose name I will now never forget, Leah. I don’t know if she had any idea what she had walked into that day but less than an hour after meeting us, Leah packed up all my tubes and wires and we were on our way to meet our baby.

We made small talk as the nurses wheeled my bed down the hallway to the operating room. Though the decision had been made to have the baby immediately there was no rush, no panic, no chaos. We stopped outside the operating room and had a few minutes to wait until they wheeled me in. My dad had gotten trapped in Denver traffic and even though I called him before the doctors thought I needed to, it was now clear he wouldn’t make it in time. I felt bad that he was rushing to the hospital and I felt guilty that he was going to be missing the delivery. It felt like we were starting a party without him, but it was ok with me. Nothing about this pregnancy had gone as planned so why should the delivery be any different? I shrugged it off and tried to stay focused and in the moment. I told Travis I wanted to take a picture. I’m not really sure why I wanted to document this moment, but I think I figured that we were about to have a baby and we should probably document the day. Leah took my phone and snapped some pictures. We smiled awkwardly trying to pretend that neither of us was scared to death of what was about to happen. Seconds later Travis took my phone from me as I was being wheeled into the operating room alone. Travis had to stay back and wait until I was prepped before they would bring him in.

Once I was moved to the operating table, the first thing that needed to happen was anesthesia. The anesthesiologist explained what was going to happen and then someone helped me sit up. I was told to sit cross-legged and hunch over my legs as far as I could, curving my back and spine. It wasn’t hard to do, my belly was pretty small. I felt a sting in my back and someone helped me lie back down. My body was starting to feel heavier and I was feeling more and more nervous. A nasal cannula was delivering oxygen through my nose, monitors were attached to my chest and finger, and a blood pressure cuff was on my arm. My arms were placed on boards extended out to my sides and the Anesthesiologist told me he wouldn’t strap them down but I had to make sure I didn’t move.  I took that as my new mission. My job was to not move and try to relax. The room was calm and everyone was doing their best to keep me informed with what was going on. The anesthesiologist made small talk with me trying to make me feel better. He warned that my IV would sting for a moment and it did. Then he asked me what music I’d like playing in the operating room. I had spent a few minutes thinking about this already in the wee hours of the morning. “The Beatles,” I told him confidently, and with a smile, I added, “nothing can ruin The Beatles.”

Moments later Travis was at my side in full operating room garb and the blue drape obstructing my view of my belly went up. The anesthesiologist checked his work and asked me if I could feel pressure when he touched my bare skin. I could. Oh god! I thought. I can feel that! Then he rubbed an alcohol swab on my skin and fanned it. He asked if I could feel the cold. I couldn’t. He declared me anesthetized and explained that I would feel pressure but I would not feel pain or anything else. Of course, he told me to let him know if at any time I felt something more than pressure. I assured him that I would not be shy about letting him know if I felt even the slightest bit of pain. Just for good measure, the surgeons tested an area of skin on my breast but I felt nothing. The room was still pretty lighthearted and we even made some jokes about a breast augmentation. I laughed telling them to go ahead and give me a lift while they were there. They finished prepping me, my belly was scrubbed, which I did NOT feel, and they performed a time-out reviewing my name, date of birth, allergies and the surgery they were about to perform. Travis squeezed my hand.

I stared at the ceiling trying to concentrate on not moving while still continuing to breathe. I knew what was going on behind that curtain and I tried to push it out of my mind. Travis was standing next to me recording every second on video. I smelled burning and I knew there was no turning back, the first cut had been made. The Beatles were playing in the background and the lyrics at that moment were eerily appropriate, “yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away….” One of the surgeons told me to try not to think about what they were doing and then made small talk trying to keep my mind away from thoughts of what was going on below the drape. She asked about gender and we both said we thought it was a girl. Then came the pressure.

They warned me that a lot of pressure was coming. Again, I didn’t feel pain but I felt the pressure. It felt like someone was sitting and then bouncing up and down on my stomach and chest. It was hard to breathe and the pressure felt so high up I was certain they had made a vertical incision but I didn’t care. Suddenly, as quickly as it had come, less than three minutes after the first cut, the pressure was gone. Travis’ voice was full of excitement and hope, “There’s a baby,” he announced.  “And, its… a girl!” declared the surgeon. The silence that followed was deafening.

I’ve watched that part of the video hundreds of times. They pulled her out of me, like a rabbit out of a hat, and suddenly I had a daughter. She looked surprised, her arms and legs flexed then extended, and her mouth opened wide. I often pause the video at that moment, our last moment together. She was still connected to me by her umbilical cord. It was the last moment I could provide her with life. I cherish those few seconds of video, it was the only time I would ever see her alive.

As soon as she was born everyone went to work quickly. One surgeon rubbed her vigorously while the other clamped and cut her cord. Someone called out, “time?” and the answer came, “22 seconds.” One of the surgeons gave a nervous laugh, “it always feels like an eternity,” she said. I can hear myself on the video sniffling and gasping for breath between silent sobs, and then it ends.

She was immediately brought to the neonatology team waiting in the room and Travis followed right behind them. This was the plan we had agreed on. I don’t even remember if he asked me if it was ok or not, but it didn’t matter, we both had decided ahead of time that this is how it would be. I wanted him with the baby, I needed to have him there to tell me what was going on. Everyone was very quiet and calm as they attempted to resuscitate our daughter. There was no panic, no loud noises, no alarm bells, no audible weeping from me or Travis, but I was straining to hear what was happening through the tears that had filled my ears. I had no awareness of anything else going on in that room. I didn’t feel anything that was happening to me,  I was no longer aware of my body. I was just trying to concentrate on staying still and breathing and listening to what was happening to my daughter across the room. Leah came over to me and showed me the placenta and cord. It was so small. I knew she had to be as small as the ultrasound had predicted.

Travis told me that the team immediately attempted to get a tube into her lungs but it was a challenge with her tiny airway. Even when they did manage to get a tube in, when they tried to inflate her lungs they simply would not move. The team started to do some chest compressions but Travis quietly told them that we did not want heroic measures. I heard him say it from across the room and I tried to call out that I agreed with him but no one heard me. Travis said they tried a few more attempts to intubate her before the neonatologist came to his side and told him that her lungs were too small, too underdeveloped to even allow breathing assistance. There was no hope. Even if we would have allowed heroic measures there was nothing that could be done. He told him that she was going to die. Travis approached the warmer and asked for a stethoscope. He placed the tiny bell on her chest and listened to her heart slowly beating. He took a moment to cry before returning to the operating table to give me the news.

I couldn’t hear anything that was going on, but I knew. The silence in the room told me everything. Travis leaned in and whispered in my ear as he explained that she wasn’t going to make it. Moments later she was brought over to me, wrapped in a blanket. Travis placed her high on my chest and I almost panicked as I asked if I could move my arms to hold her. The surgeons were still working on closing me up but I was given the okay. I awkwardly reached my arms up and held her against my face. I kissed her tiny head, still warm. “What’s her name?” Travis asked me. Though neither of us had ever mentioned this name in all of our discussions, I looked at her, and without hesitation said, “Her name is Ava. Ava Scarlet.” Travis agreed it was perfect and for a moment we smiled staring at our beautiful little girl that just a few minutes ago had come out of my womb kicking.

The neonatologist came and whispered condolences in my other ear and gave a brief explanation of what had happened. I never looked at him but I knew exactly who was speaking to me, I recognized his aftershave and I felt a calming comfort in his presence. I will never forget that smell.

There was no declaration of the moment of death. There was no one listening to her heart, or a monitoring slowly beeping until it stopped, there was only silence. For a long time I thought maybe this was a mistake. I kept looking at her, waiting for her to take a breath or open her eyes, but she never did. I had no awareness of anything else going on in the operating room. At some point, they finished closing me up and the curtain was removed. I must have moved from the operating table back to my bed but I don’t remember any of it. For those few minutes, the only thing that existed for me was Ava.

I gently stroked her hair and whispered to her. I wanted desperately to sing to her. I wanted to pick the perfect song to sing to my baby in her last moments but I couldn’t think of anything. My mind couldn’t focus, and nothing felt right. Travis later told me that the song had already been selected for me. The music had continued playing in the operating room and he heard the crescendo building in the song as my bed was rolling towards the door. Travis recalled the look of horror on the anesthesiologist’s face when he too realized what was playing and quickly turned off the stereo just before the last words of the song….live and let die.