Longest day ever ..........

Today was a very tiring day. I have worried all day about Rabecca. I just can't get the look on the doctors face out of my head. She walked me to my car, and carried the case of formula for me. I put Becca in the car and I turned to say goodbye and she was almost ringing her hands with anxiety. I knew that she knew it was going to be a long few days. That picture is burned in my memory.

I have watched Becca all day long and to tell you the truth I can see her declining. This is the most painful thing that I have ever had the displeasure of watching. Family are coming by to visit the baby and cover her with kisses and shower her with as much love as possible. I am telling them that this is going to be a tough week and we don't know what to expect. Her feedings are getting smaller each time she feeds. I can tell that she is not able to eat quite as much as a couple of days ago. She squirms and does this swallow that lets me know that she has had enough. She is barely eating 3/4 oz right now. I can't help but feel helpless. She began to turn blue again so I upped her oxygen and by 3:30 I began to worry so I called her father to come home and I called her Hospice nurse. The nurse came to watch her for a while and said that I was doing the right thing, but that there was nothing else she could do to help her. We signed a DNR (do not resuscitate). I questioned that decision from the very first day that signed that paper. "What if we can save her?" I asked that question a million times and I still couldn't help but think, "would I want to be kept alive on a ventilator and who knows what kind of other machines for the selfish reason of just a few more minutes with my family?" My answer was always the same.....NO. How can I put her on machines to try and squeeze a few more minutes in with her, just to have her feel pain and not the loving touch of her family? Not to mention I would have to make the decision to pull her off. I just felt that I made the right decision.

Her daddy came home and took her from me and looked at her then told me that he wasn't going back to work the rest of the week. We agreed that he should be home just in case. We watched her all evening and talked to her and just made sure that she knew that we loved her very much. For some reason I feel like I was in denial about it. Like I was waiting for her to some how get better. I was sure that she was going to pull through the week and show us all once again that we were wrong and that she was just having a bad few days and that she would be fine. I felt like that until night fell. We went to bed and her daddy kissed and loved on her then he fell asleep. Becca and I were awake and in a sense alone.............

I have never wanted to stay awake so much in my life. I stayed awake and fed her every 3 hours, changed her diaper, and talked to her. I propped her up on her Boppy pillow and just watched her. I told her how much I loved her and I told her about Jesus. I told her that" it's ok now" . I just felt like it was time to tell her that she didn't have to fight any more. There was this wonderful place waiting on her and that her mema Diane (Rabecca's name sake) was waiting to meet her and rock her on her lap. I never cried the entire time that I talked to her. I wanted her to know that her mommie was going to be just fine. At 3:30 am I Got a txt message from my sister in law that said "God sees you struggling, your wait is over" or something like that and when I read it it took my breath away. I just shut my phone and looked at Becca and talked to her some more. I began thinking about things hat I wanted to have of hers, and Tammy had told me a few tricks to preserve memories of her and I started running around doing things. I put some soft pink lipstick on her lips and pressed them to a white piece of paper so I would always have the imprints. I sang to her and just held her, still thinking in my mind that she was going to be fine. The night quietly passed, we went to look at the Christmas tree the she helped me put up just a week or two earlier. Mostly we just sat in the quiet of the room and I kept telling her that everything was ok now. As the morning drew near I woke Emily up to come in and see her and hold her before she went to school. Emmy finished getting dressed and came in for another turn to hold her and kiss her . We took a photo of the two of them just before my mom took her to school. Joey got up and was going to be up for a while so at 9:15am I laid down to get some sleep............then I heard the worst sound ever........Becca couldn't breathe. She was truly fighting for her life. I jumped up and grabbed her from her daddy and I yelled at him to call her nurse. Nurse Julie came in and began to look at Becca and told me that "it's time" and she began to tear up. I said "NO not yet!" There was nothing that could be done so we called the family, picked Emmy up from the school and by 10am everyone was there to see Becca and say goodbye. One by one the kids took turns holding her and saying goodbye and we took a photo of them loving on her. Her extended family began to take turns coming into the bed room so that they too could hold her one more time. As they finished they each one went into the kitchen so that her family could spend some time with her. At 12:00pm she was still fighting, she began to slip away and I just clenched her body in my arms and I screamed and I looked at her and she was watching me. I couldn't let that be the last vision of her mom, so I quietened down and I just kept saying "it's ok baby, it's ok do you see Jesus baby". and at 12:05pm she slipped quietly form the arms of her mother into the arms of Jesus. I loved on her and her daddy loved on her and we just couldn't put her down. We did her feet prints, her little hands. I bathed her, put lotion on her and I put the outfit on her that she came home in. We held her as long as possible.
I have never felt so helpless in my life. It is through the strength of the Lord that you survive something like that. Over the next few days we made arrangements and I put myself into that completely. I needed to do one last thing for her.
Fast forward 3 years: I still feel like that, like I need to do things for her. It has taken me a long time to get things out of my mind and on paper and I believe that to be true because I am just now beginning to heal. I had to force myself to write things down because I just wanted it to all just be a bad dream that I would somehow wake up from. It wasn't a dream it was a hard reality that I am just now trying to face. My faith was shaken so much and I just didn't believe that God had a good enough reason to take my daughter. I still don't know why but at least I know it was for the good of his glory.