The worst girl gang...
Since I became a member of the worst girl gang ever, I have written the worst book ever. Well, not exactly. It's actually my proudest achievement (after creating you), and the most beautiful book. I'm confident to say that, because it's a book that's a tribute to you, my daughter. To my little miss. But a book I wish I had never had to write. A book so painful to write, and painful to read. It's our story.
I gave birth to you, Olivia-Grace on a cold and wintery morning, 26th February 2019, and when everything went wrong in labour, it cost me your life, and mine. You lived for 5 short, but incredibly strong and inspiring weeks, and gained your wings in the arms of your mummy and daddy. A goodbye so brutal, I never want to utter those tainted words again, for the smeared syllables stab my wounded heart. Every. Single. Time.
When I came from the NICU, I cried myself through grief, lost myself in grief, drank my way through grief, and wrote down my messy grief emotions. I poured it all down onto a blank page, in the hope that it would free up a small piece of my broken and bleeding heart, in attempt to feebly beat and simply keep me alive. Around two weeks after losing my little miss from this Earth, I started my writing journey, unoriginally titled "A Loss Mum's Journal". Our story begins like this....
"Olivia-Grace.... It should have been me...
There was a day, not too long ago, when I thought I was going to die. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the overwhelming tones, beeps and alarms of the daytime
madness was simply a memory of yesterday’s shift. At 3 a.m. when the quiet and darkness of the NICU lit up my life like an explosion of fireworks, and I looked at your tiny body, foreign with wires and pads, I fell to the floor, sure I was about to die.
But I didn’t die.
You did.
My first baby...
Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy. HIE. No, I had never heard of it before either. For you, a death sentence caused by a starvation of oxygen during labour, damaging your brain beyond repair. A tongue-twister of an injury that I would compulsively research and google when my tired eyes allowed it. Five weeks of intense reading and trying to understand what the hell had happened to my perfect baby girl and her already incredible brain. An injury as complex in nature and consequences as it is difficult to say. I will never forget the look on the doctor’s face, soon after you were born: Brain damage, brain damage... That was all I could hear, through her worried, strained expression. Do you understand me, Dani? … Brain damage, brain damage… Every other word slurred together as though she were talking to me in a foreign language. Brain damage, brain damage…
Well, that’s what happened to you, my little miss. And we still don’t know why. They don’t know why. Maybe you do? Maybe I will never know and maybe that’s okay? I
suppose to know why you were taken from me would only magnify the pain you left behind. Because at least this way, I can only try to keep the faith that in some bizarre and unfair twist of fate, this was all meant to happen. That from the minute you were made, your life purpose was to be my angel, forever watching over me. In desperate moments, I find just a little bit of peace believing that..."
I hope other loss mums find comfort in reading our journey, knowing these torturous and relentless feelings are shared. And I hope by reading it they will know, that somehow, they will survive. Even on the days they don’t want to. We live, because by living, we honour our baby’s memory. We raise awareness. We strive for change, and kindness, and remembrance. My heart cries for every single one of us, and those precious tiny feet that patter among the stars. Truly, the worst girl gang to be a part of, but bonded together with a love like no other.
The love of a mother who had to say goodbye.