Lachlan's Garden

Lachlan's Story
We  found out I  was pregnant on January 16, 2003.  It was a difficult pregnancy. At six weeks we believed we had miscarried and went in for a sonogram to confirm.  As I sat in the sonogram room I saw the blinking light. It was his heart beating.  I just started to cry...  I fell in love with him.  I felt so connected to him. The doctor diagnosed  a large blood clot and put  me on bedrest.  We  put our child in God's hands.  I stayed on bedrest for the next 8 weeks, and had sonograms every two weeks.  I fell more in love every time I saw him.  At fourteen weeks, I was taken off of bedrest.  On May 13th, at around 2:30 in the morning, I woke up and knew something was wrong. My water had broken. We went to the hospital and they confirmed our fear and I was admitted.  They told us that we had less than a 10% chance of making it to 24 weeks and that the baby would most likely be born within 24 hours.  We beat the odds.  I am so thankful for those days in the hospital.  I got to focus only on him.  Everyday was scary and I checked each day off in my calendar, as we got one day closer to 24 weeks.   When we hit 24 weeks, I went on 24 hour monitoring.  I loved to hear the sound of his heartbeat and  occasional hiccups. We were a team, and  he was such a strong little fighter. On June 16, the day after Father's Day, I  woke up to the alarm.  I looked over to see if the monitor had come off, and saw that the baby had experienced a deceleration for about a minute.  The nurse came in a moved the monitor around a little bit, and I closed my eyes.  The alarm went off again, and the nurses came in and started preparing me for surgery.  His heartbeat had decelerated into the 60s for three minutes. They decided to deliver.  I was nervous, but I believed we would be okay.   I was now 25 weeks 3 days.  The doctor said he was concerned that the heartbeat would drop again for a longer period of time, and he felt that the baby was safer on the outside.

Lachlan was  born at 3:26am.  My husband told me that he was a little boy as they prepared to take  him to the NICU. They wheeled him over so that I could see his beautiful face before they left. I wanted to see him so badly.  They brought me a picture.  He was  so small and hooked up to so many  tubes.   At 8:00 they finally took me to see him.  He was so beautiful.  So perfect.  He  weighed 1 lb. 10oz. and was  12 inches long.  He had blond hair and perfect features. I felt at peace when I saw him.    Soon after we returned to the room, they called us down, and said that he was struggling.  This was the hardest day of my life.  I was so in love with this little boy, and all I wanted in the world was  to keep him.  The doctors started saying that he was not going to make it.  I didn't want to hear those words.  I felt sick.  I kept holding his hand and telling him that I loved him, as  did his Dad.   The priest and the chaplain both came to pray with us.  I didn ' t want this to happen, I just wanted it to stop.  They told me that they could take him off the machines and hold him.  I wanted to hold him so badly, but I couldn't   give up on him.  I did not  want to say goodbye.  They told us that he would die on the machines, and we didn't want that. They put him in my arms and I looked at him and talked to him, and told him that I loved him.  They started unhooking him.  I wanted time to stop, so I could hold him forever.  They took us back to the room so our family could be alone together.  His dad and I took turns holding  and kissing him.  At 1:50pm he went to heaven while I held him in my arms.   He was only with us for 11 hours and 14 minutes, but I will never be the same. Father and son. A few  hours old. Holding Lachlan.

When I was in the hospital, I always wrote in my journal to thank God for letting me make it one more day.  Since this has happened, I have been asking God why he let me get so far? Why did he let me hope, and start to dream about the life my child would have and the things we would do?  I think I know the answer.  Was it worth it to be able to meet my child for, even for a day?  Yes, I would do it a million times just to hold him once, to kiss him, to tell him I love him, to get to say hello and tell him goodbye.  I want to thank God for letting me get so far, for letting me hope and dream for my child.  Regardless of how much this hurts, my life is richer and more complete because of the day I spent with Lachlan.  I only had him for a day, but the impact he made on me, and the love I feel for him will change me forever.  It is only now that I realize how important each day that God gave me truly was.  I know because it allowed me~ I will love you always, and I will never cherish anything more than the time I had with you.  I love you, Lachlan . to spend one day with my baby.

~I love you forever, Lachlan.