The year is 2012 and my wife and I are going through one of our hardest valleys to ever hit our relationship of nearly 10 years. Things are bad but we are working through the pitfalls and we see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is during this time that my wife lets me know that we are expecting. I'm taken aback, so nervous and elated all at the same time. For the next (nearly) nine months our relationship blossoms into it's most beautiful and fulfilling form. Each and every day that brought us closer to our new family member was filled with joy and excitement. The doctors visits, the planning, the buying of itty bitty clothes and toys. Everything was filled with purpose and wonder.
We are within three weeks of our sons due date and we have a scheduled doctors visit to attend. During this visit the doctor informs us that our son is breach, meaning he's upside down in the womb. No big deal in today's society but because we live two hours outside a major city the doctor figures that we should schedule a C-Section for the following week. Now the planning and the anticipation really ramp up to a whole new level. Purchase more clothes, assemble the crib, hang pictures over his crib... (my wife laughed at me because I took 3 hours to hang 4 pictures with a level, calculator and a measuring tape). I just wanted everything to be perfect! Our nervousness had given way to unrelenting anticipation and excitement.
The day of the C-Section was upon us and after the van was loaded and prepared I had a few moments to reflect on what had been our lives up to this moment in time. Everything was about to change and that was ok. We were as prepared as we could be. I sat in my son's soon to be room, put on my headphones and cranked the volume to max with blarring into my eardrums. Today was the day I would welcome my son to this crazy world! We left for the city.
Once we had arrived at the hospital we were ushered into the waiting room where, with nothing better to do, I did what we all do in this day and age and I posted the countdown on Facebook. My wife was finally admitted and given her hospital clothes to put on. Tick tick tick.. the time was getting close. Just before the surgery they wheeled her down to the ultrasound room to do one last exam. To everyone's astonishment our son had flipped himself into the proper position and the doctor informed us that we didn't need to have the C-Section after all. To everyone including myself, this was great news. The doctor talked with us and in his opinion, now that everything was back to good we could let the little guy stay in a bit longer and have his birth naturally. I was in favor of this and posted the delay to Facebook with a smile (although now the dreams still haunt me. More on that later.)
March 2013
A week passes after that hospital visit, we are only one week away from our sons arrival! I'm at work when I get the call. It is my wife. She tells me she hasn't felt our son move in a few hours which is odd because he's usually kicking up a storm ala Pele. I tell her not to worry, he's probably just sleeping but I will leave work early and we will go to the hospital just to be on the safe side. I'm not very worried, we are so close to his due date what could possibly go wrong?
We pull into the hospital and proceed to the examination room and I keep reassuring my wife that everything will be fine. My wife is hooked up to the heartbeat monitor as the doctor pokes and prods searching for my boys heartbeat. I swear that I hear it once or twice and a wave of relief washes over me inside. The doctor is uncertain and my wife is so very nervous but I swear that I hear it so I continue to tell her not to worry. They wheel her to the ultrasound room and tell me that I have to wait outside while my wife has an ultrasound. I do not take kindly to this or even understand it as I have been present at every other ultrasound during this pregnancy. I'm livid.
To this day I can still see the look in my wife's eyes as she emerges from the ultrasound room. It is seared into my memory like no other image will ever be. It is a look of utter horror and pain. I rush to hold her. There is no heartbeat. This can't be, I just felt him kick the ever living crap out of me last night I think to myself. They have to be wrong. They messed up, he's ok...... right?
The doctor comes into our room to inform us that our son is dead. All I can do is hold my wife. It is futile but it is all I have. The tears fall like a river as our hearts are broken in two. If only the nightmare ended there.
The realization sets in that my wife will have to deliver our son naturally, just the way we had planned it, only so very much differently. I will not go into much detail about the horrors of knowing the pain your wife is going through in labor or by the even greater emotional pain once completed. I will not go into too much detail about how in those wee hours of the morning, sitting beside your wife as the medication makes her doze off for mere minutes and you manage a slight moment of sleep from exhaustion that across the hall a baby cries for the first time and for a second you forget why your in this hospital room. I won't go into much detail about how while your wife is in labor and you are so mentally and emotionally exhausted they come into your room to shove forms in your face. Would you like your child buried or cremated? Like we could have a rational conversation about such a thing at the time. I won't go into too much detail about how while in that moment you still hold on to the glimmer of hope that it was all a mistake and your son is going to be fine.
13 hours. That is the time it took for my wife to go through labor. Our son was born on a Wednesday, the 6th of March. He was so beautiful so very beautiful. As much as I prayed and as much as I pleaded with God to let me change places my son never opened his eyes. As I held him in my arms, as tears rolled down my face, I sang this simple song to him.
"Sleep. Sleep tonight.
And may your dreams be realized.
If the thundercloud passes rain.
So let it rain, rain down on him.
So let it be."
I miss my son so much and the dreams that I had for him that will never be realized. These songs are forever etched in my memory and will mean something to me that no one else can understand.
I love you Santangylos. Thank you for letting me share him with you.
But thanks for sharing such a personal and painful tale with us.