One Year

One year:

May 20, 2023 marks one whole year since my perfect Makenna Gwen was born and May 24, 2023 marks one whole year since she died.

I honestly have no idea how I have made it here. I know for a fact that one year ago I was confident I wasn’t going to. I thought I would have died of a broken heart before the end of the first year.

But I didn’t.

I survived.

Even when I didn’t want to.

So much can happen in just one year. Especially after your only child dies.

In the last 365+ days we have experienced extreme heartache and hurt; we have experienced hope and joy; and we have experienced everything in between. There have been days I never thought would end, and days I wished wouldn’t. Holidays and birthdays took on different meanings and we had to find new ways to celebrate while honoring our baby girl in heaven. New traditions have been made while others were thrown away.

Some relationships have grown while others no longer exist. Different hobbies have been tried out while others have been forgotten.

It’s safe to say that almost nothing is the same.

Including my perspective on a lot of things.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

May 20, 2022, I gave birth to my first born, my daughter, Makenna. She was only 22w6d. We were “lucky” in the sense that our hospital starts life saving measures at 22 weeks. This was especially important because Trevor wasn’t there at the time of her birth. He was on the other side of the country at the time and didn’t make it back to me and to meet her until midnight.

We couldn’t believe our baby girl was here. It didn’t feel real. It still doesn’t most days. It’s like it was all a fever dream.

Over the next 4 days, nurses kept telling us basically how kickass our daughter was. She was so wiggly. You don’t expect a baby that is born so early to be moving around and ripping all their leads off. At least, we didn’t expect that. But there she was, shocking us and defying all the odds. But, with good news came bad news all at the same time. She was always just “doing the best she could be”. It was never that she was doing great. She was never healthy. It was always “we expect these sorts of things with micro-premies and we’re working on figuring out how to correct it.” Some of these things included not being able to get her pic line in, her bilirubin, not being able to get started on feeds, multiple blood transfusions. having too much acid in her urine, not urinating all together, and finally a stage 4 brain bleed.

It wasn’t even 12 hours after we got the news about the brain bleed that the NICU doctor was calling us at 3am to come over and that it wasn’t good.

At some point overnight, her blood pressure had dropped and they had done all they could to bring it back up. It took us less than fifteen minutes to get to her hospital room from our room at the Ronald McDonald House next door, but even still, they had been doing CPR on her for ten minutes by the time we got there.

We had to make a decision no parent should ever have to make.

We told them to stop CPR.

We knew her likelihood of surviving the stage 4 brain bleed without any serious complications was low. We also knew CPR for that long on someone to tiny was not good. We didn’t want her to live and suffer and spend the rest of our lives hating ourselves for being selfish with our daughter’s life.

Right after we told them to stop, they got her heart beating again. But just as quickly it stopped and we had to tell them to stop again.

I truly believe Makenna’s little soul knew we made it there and she either tried so hard to come back or she just wanted to give us another minute with her.

I held her as they took her off all her machines and I have spent the last year wishing I had even just one more second with her.

The truth is, no amount of time would have ever been enough. This is a common theme in the loss community. We all beg and plead for one more minute while knowing damn well we’d still ask for more. No one should have to go through what we went through. No one should have to go through what the literal thousands of other loss moms and dads I know have gone through. It isn’t fair and our babies should be with us.

But, Makenna still walks beside me.

Everything I do, I do for her. I am guided by her.

Every morning I wake up and my thoughts float to Makenna. I get dressed, eat, brush my teeth, and think of Makenna. Every decision that is made is made with her in mind. I constantly think about how my words and actions will affect her.

I am still very much her mother. I have all of the love and care that a “normal” mom would have.

I worry about her. I hope that she has friends and has fun. I wonder what she’s doing and who she is with. I hope everyday that she can feel my love and she knows how much I love being her mom. If I feel far away from her I ask her to come home.

The only difference between you and me is that your child is visible to the eye and mine is not.

This is one of the biggest lessons I have learned over the last year. I am never without her. She is here when I need her. Which is always, so I know she’s always around. I am physically living without her, but her soul is ever present in my everyday life. I am never truly without her.

I think this is why people that have not experienced losing a child can’t ever understand the magnitude this has on parents. They think your child dying is just like a grandparent or a parent. Death happens and life moves on. While that is technically true, It’s not the natural order of things. And life never completely moves on because our children don’t just go away. Their little souls stay with us. We continue to parent them in our own way. But it’s a struggle. The maternal extinct is there, but there is no baby. And they don’t ever come back.

A few months after Makenna died (I’m talking literally only 3-4 months) someone told me all I want to do is talk about is Makenna.

If you’re a parent, I want you to sit on that for a minute. Imagine your child is 3-4 months old. My guess is all you want to do is talk about them. Especially if it’s your first child.

Nothing about that changes when they’re dead. She is still my first child. I will always want to talk about her. To anyone that will listen.

What that moment taught me, was that not everyone will want to listen.

Which brings me to friendships and relationships after your baby dies.

Something I’ve worked really hard on the last year is managing relationships after Makenna died and then also managing my own emotions related to those relationships.

In the months after Makenna’s death, I only had one view: “how could anyone be apart of my life if they didn’t include my daughter in theirs?”

I was so mad at the people that didn’t show up for me the way I needed them to. Especially after I had so clearly communicated exactly what I needed from them. I had always been very vocal about how I was feeling and what I needed in that moment. It confused people because it would seem that sometimes my needs would change on a day to day basis. This was true. Sometimes my needs did change that regularly. But, that’s all part of grief. What works one day, might not work the next.

That’s okay.

I had people make me feel bad for that. Which was really confusing for me as the griever.

Being the person I am, I would have gone to the ends of the Earth for someone close to me who lost a child. I do it everyday for complete strangers. I expected the people that I love to do the same for me.

Hell, I didn’t even expect them to do anything. I just expected them to give me grace and understand that I was going through (and still am) the worst experience of my life and I was navigating how to literally stay alive. I didn’t want to be here. But, I didn’t have any other choice. So I had to figure out how to want to be alive while intensely grieving my child.

I had some people completely stop talking to me for reasons I’m still unsure of. Friends would text other friends encouraging them to talk to me and I never heard from them. Friends completely disappeared. Some friends said extremely hurtful things. Sometimes all of these things came even from family. The people that chose to not be there for us, hurt me. They hurt me in ways that words can’t articulate. I will never forget those moments of longing for certain people to reach out to me and never getting it.

Friends and family didn’t like the way I grieved. Some of them didn’t like the way that I was public about what I was going through. But that wasn’t for them to decide. It wasn’t for them to judge me for. But they did. Instead of people taking a second and thinking about how my life had completely crumbled around me without any warning and realizing the next several months were going to show for that, they took the way I grieved at face value and judged me for it. Some people took it personally.

Not everyone deserves Makenna. Not everyone deserves my heart. I’ve learned that as one of my biggest lessons Makenna has shown me. I have chosen forgiveness for these people and these relationships. I have chosen it for myself so that I am not continually weighed down by the thoughts and memories of the people that did me wrong. However, forgiveness does not mean friendship. Forgiveness does not equal an open invitation into the most precious part of my life, my daughter.

I have learned over the last year that I can still have civil relationships with people that were not there for me the way I needed them to be. Like I said, they just don’t deserve Makenna and they don’t deserve my heart.

And that’s another thing that is also okay.

But, there are plenty of people that have shown up and have shown up big. The days, weeks, and months following Makenna’s birth and death we were showered with love and support. So much support it was overwhelming at times. In the best ways, of course. There have been times where I have sat and cried because of how loved my baby is.

On her due date, hundreds of people including friends, family, loss moms, and strangers showed their support by ordering coffee with Makenna’s name on it. For Christmas, her stocking was overflowing with cards and letters. Friends and family came together to help me honor almost 200 other babies by writing holiday cards for their families. For Makenna’s birthday, our shelves were bursting at the seams with cards, flowers, and gifts.

The best part of other people loving my daughter are the days in between the milestones. The check in texts, the pictures of rainbows, the people that continue to order coffee in her name, people letting me know they saw something that made them think of her, people talking about her and telling her story of life.

I could go on forever about the ways people have loved us and loved Makenna and continue to do so.

But, I want to talk a little bit about the gifts she has given me.

It’s no secret that every loss mom on the planet hates the phrase “everything happens for a reason”. However, I do believe that good things do still come from tragedy. I don’t think Makenna died for any reason other than her soul was just too big for this Earth (and of course that medical negligence, but that’s not a story for today). Makenna has given me so many gifts. They have come from both her life and her death.

The obvious one being Rainbows for Makenna.

I have always wanted to give back in some capacity. I have always been the person seeing celebrities and rich people and wondering why the heck they can’t do more. I have always said if I had the money to spend, I would help in any capacity I could. Rainbows for Makenna has given me this ability. Makenna has given me this ability.

In our first year with Rainbows for Makenna, we raised over $10,000. This does not include Amazon wish list donations. Every penny of that money went to comfort boxes, birthday gifts, holiday cards, memorial items and projects, surprise pick-me-ups, spreading awareness, and more. But every penny went to helping the pregnancy and infant loss community in some way whether that was directly to the parents or spreading awareness.

This is something I never would have been able to do on my own. Ever since we lost out first baby in 2020, I knew this world didn’t know how prevalent baby loss was. I knew people said the wrong things. I knew people didn’t know how to act and wanted to just pretend it didn’t happen. That became more evident when we lost our second baby in 2021. But again, I had no idea where to go or how to help.

Rainbows for Makenna came to fruition just days after Makenna died. I had spent almost 2 years trying to figure how to help and couldn’t think of a single thing on my own. But as soon as her soul crossed over and knew how to connect with mine, the idea was born.

She also taught me to let go of the things that don’t matter. Prior to Makenna dying, my anxiety would present itself when things weren’t clean or if there was sudden change. I no longer care if my house is magazine worthy and I am much more go with the flow if plans change. The go with the flow definitely didn’t come about right away. That initial grief consumed my every second and I needed what I needed and there was no changing my mind. But now, a year later, I can handle when things don’t go the way I expected them to and I am much more calm about it. But, no longer having that need for my house to be spotless 24/7 has honestly changed my life. I am much more calm and relaxed in my own home. My home is my safe space and that doesn’t change now based on dirty dishes. Whereas I used to feel like I couldn’t even be in the house if there were dishes in the sink. (What was wrong with me?!)

Grief recovery work is another really important gift Makenna has given me. When I was pregnant with her all I wanted and looked forward to was being able to stay home with her. All I’ve ever wanted was to be able to stay home with my kids. But, we likely would not have been able to afford it for more than a year without me working. Between Makenna dying and knowing I needed and wanted to do more, and my therapist coming up with the recommendation, I got the advanced certification in the Grief Recovery Method. I’m still working on getting it to take off; your own business doesn’t grow overnight. But, we met with a medium the night before Makenna’s birthday, and he confirmed this is my soul’s work. He said it would be a spiritual crime to not offer my healing abilities.

In growing the Grief Recovery, Trevor’s dad has also given me a gift, sent by Makenna I am sure. This little girl LOVES ST Thomas. More so than I think Trevor ever did even growing up there. She knew I needed to be able to go as often as possible. I feel so close to her when I’m there. I’m sure it has something to do with the amount of time spent outside and in nature. But, still. My father in law graciously gave me the opportunity to work for his business virtually. In doing this, I don’t have to worry about taking time off work to go to St Thomas AND this affords us the ability for me to stay home with Makenna’s future siblings. Something I always wanted to do with her.

Connection to the spirit world is another precious gift my daughter has given me. I have always felt compelled to know more. I have always been intrigued with the idea of having a relationship to the other side, but never had what I felt like was a connection. That changed when Makenna’s soul crossed over. I feel so connected to the world Makenna lives in and the experiences I have had with not just her soul confirms that connection.

When we met with the medium, he told me I NEED to trust my intuition. He said I have a gift and that I know I have it. He told me to trust it.

But, through all of this, the most important gift Makenna has given me is not taking her dad for granted for one second.

I truly have the absolute best husband in Trevor. He is my best friend. 12 years later and we still have so much fun together. Even grocery shopping we are laughing through the aisles. Makenna has shown me that those dishes left next to the sink or the socks that didn’t quite make it into the basket are not worth a second of my time. In the last year I haven’t spent any time mad at Trevor. Have I gotten annoyed or frustrated about something? Sure. Of course. But instead of harboring any of that into anger, it has never lasted more than a few minutes and I talk it out and let it go.

I have learned firsthand how short and precious every second of life is. I love Trevor more than anything and if anything were to ever happen to him I would not want to spend any time after his death regretting the way I treated him or loved him. I spend every day with Trevor now knowing it could be one of our last. He wakes up every morning knowing how loved he is and goes to sleep at night knowing how much I appreciate him. And because of this, I am more comfortable in our relationship and life together.

We just talked about this on Makenna’s birthday. We are so sad for the parents of children that died that end their relationships. It is truly heartbreaking to hear of parents that can’t get through it together. Trevor and I only get through because of each other. We truly love each other more than we ever have and we don’t take our time together for granted. We know that this is a gift Makenna gave us. She knew how much we already loved each other and she wanted to make sure she could see it for herself.

I have spent every day of the last year navigating life after loss and I will continue to spend the rest of my life doing just that. The death of a child isn’t something that ever goes away. Makenna will be my child well past the rest of my life and I will continue to miss her everyday until I can be with her again. She is never coming back to Earth, but I will be where she is some day. I look forward to that day while trying to simultaneously enjoy the life I have left on Earth. It is a complicated life after your child dies.

If I can help non-loss parents see anything, it’s that I want you to know how truly lucky you are. Whether you have children or not, you are incredibly lucky to never know the pain of watching your child die. Please, don’t take that for granted. Please see how precious life is and be a kind, gentle person to everyone you meet. Be a good friend. Be there for the people that need you. If you have children, please see how privileged you are. Even on the hard days, please know it is a privilege to have a child that is annoying you. There are so many people that would give anything to have their name called all day long while never being able to pee alone.

To my daughter,

Makenna, thank you for choosing me to be your mom. The moment you were born, while traumatic and scary, will always be the best moment of my life because I got to meet you. You are everything I have ever wanted. I love you more than words will ever be able to express and I can’t wait to see you again.

I love you.

Love, Mommy