Stories of Lost Children
My Sweet Angel Patrick
by Andi Cupit, Oak Harbor, WA, U.S.A.
i was expecting a beautiful, much wanted and loved son in October. On June 14th, my water broke. I was 23 weeks and his only hope was to make it another week. Well, being the strong little man he was, he made it to 24 weeks and 2 days. I got the steroid shots and thought maybe we would be lucky; maybe things would be ok. Well, at 24 weeks, 2 days, many things went wrong. He was a breech, so we discussed a C-Section, if needed. I started having contractions. I went from 1-3 cm in one hour. At this time, my cord prolapsed, and my placenta abrupted 50%. I was hemorrhaging, and an emergency C-Section was needed. At 2:46 a.m. on 6/20 (Fathers Day) Patrick Mclean entered the world. He was strong for a 24 weeker. He was a tiny little thing at 1lb 5.5 oz, and 11 inches long. On the 23rd, I was discharged from the hospital and went home to see my girls, and to get more clothes, etc. At 4 a.m., on the 24th, we got the call no parent wants to hear. They needed permission to transfer him to Seattle Children's Hospital because he had NEC and it was BAD. We arrived at Children’s by 8 and nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my beautiful baby; swollen and discolored from internal bleeding with drainage tubes in his abdomen and on an HFOV. They said it didn’t look good for him. Even with the drain tubes, he only had a 5% chance. He was too small and too sick to operate on and the bowel damage was extensive. We had Patrick baptized by our pastor and an hour later, he started coding. He coded 3 times in 5 minutes. From the NEC, he had peritonitis and extensive internal bleeding and we had to make a choice; a choice no parent should ever have to make. Keep doing things TO him instead of FOR him or let him go. He fought so hard to stay but in the end it was too much for him. We had to let him go. Every time they revived him, he bled from his tubes. I held him while he passed. It was the most heart-wrenching time of my life. My sweet baby died in my arms on the afternoon of June 24 after a too short life of 4 days. We had him cremated, and had his funeral at church so he could go to church one time. Such a big funeral for such a tiny sweet boy. We love him so. Today, his ashes sit on a shelf in my living room. Instead of a healthy baby growing in my belly where he belongs, all I have are the blankets in which he was wrapped when I transported him to the funeral home. A box with pictures and a certificate, hospital /bracelets, and a tiny urn containing a small amount of ashes. The pain and guilt is unbearable at times. I see him all the time and at night, I hear a baby crying. I can’t help but wander the house and yard searching for the baby so I can love and comfort him. I dream of my boy every night; some good, some bad. I need the pain to end. I can't bear it. I want to scream from the pain that is so intense that I hurt physically.
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