Elle . Baby Girl

 

This is a long post and also is graphic about what happened the day Elle passed. It's raw emotion but remember, it's important for me to remember. I never want to forget.

Just thinking about writing about what happened...the grief..the terrible things we've had to do since Elle's been gone makes me so "heavy." I feel a physical weakness, a cool numbing feeling, a heaviness that consumes my mind, body, and heart. I miss my girl when I walked into Elle's room. I got heavy. So many memories, emotions and wishes come flooding in. I still can see her sleeping in her bed-I can even feel her in there. Every night, Jason and I check on Lila & Cole before we go to bed and then go to tell Elle goodnight. I leave Elle's lamp on all day so I feel like she's still here. The last night in the house when we turned her light off, I stayed in her room for a minute. Her night light was on and I felt her there-she should be in her bed sound asleep. I should be next to her in the guest bed, waiting for her nightly feeding.

I cannot believe she is not here. I cannot believe we have to live without her-we have to live this life of pain and anguish. It all still seems so unreal. I can't believe she's now been gone longer than she was alive. We've spent more time without her than with her. How could this be? The pain is so strong-like it's just beginning. I feel so sorry for Lila & Cole. They should be able to be playing with their little playmate. They were going to be the best of friends. they know she's not here and I can tell they miss her too. I feel like I didn't do my job as a mother to protect her. I could've been a better mother and advocate for my daughter and I wasn't.

The day everything happened was by far the worst day of my life. I've had 2 other calls to date that people I love had died-but that was NOTHING compared to this call...the call that would forever change me...the call telling me my DAUGHTER was lifeless.

July 8th, 2012 was awful. The morning started out as a very normal joyful morning. I woke the kids up at 7:15 to get them dressed. I changed them and had Elle & lila ready for our daycare lady's. Jason fed him a bottle at 7:30-I was mostly breastfeeding but we had to supplement formula too. Elle was happy that morning and ate just fine. The last image of her I have is her sitting in her car seat on the dining room table while I tucked her blanket around her so the kids could leave with Jay. I gave my kids a kiss, told them I loved them, and was off to work. I would never, in a million years, would have thought I'd get the most horrific call just 2 hours later.

Jay dropped Lila, Elle and Cole off at 8:00 a.m. The daycare lady said Elle was happy and smiling all morning and even flashed her a huge "Elle" smile before she laid her down. She said she laid her down for her nap at 9:15. She didn't take her paci when she laid down like she normally did. Elle always took her paci.

I was at work and was enjoying my morning when I saw my phone ringing. It was our daycare lady. I had no idea that what she was about to tell me would forever change our family. When I answered the phone I remember her saying, "Grraceee...I went to get our girl up from her nap and she's not breathing."

WHAT!?!?!?!

Make her breath! Dangit why couldn't she make her breath! She said she did CPR without any response from her. When I found out 911 hadn't yet been called, I literally hit the floor at work screaming No. This just couldn't be happening. She called 911 and so did my co-worker. I was now faced with a terrible thing-I had to call Jay. After telling him, I ran out of the office with 2 of my co-workers. We drove like maniacs to get to her. I kept trying to call my mom on the drive, called my sister in law, Jay, firefighters...I had to figure out where we were supposed to go. Once I found out I told Travis-we met at the hospital. I remember seeing the ambulance that brought my daughter there. I frantically was searching for her and was then shown where my baby was. I had Jason check on Cole & then Have the daycare lady stay with him for awhile until my sister came.

She looked so little-so helpless.

We got to be in the ER with her while they kept working on her. They worked on her for an hour and the entire time we held her hand, rubbed her foot and pleaded with her to come back to us. I could tell she was gone. Her feet were losing color, her cheeks looked chapped and dry, her tongue has the post mortem look. I will never forget that. It's awful.

The doctor came to me and said they did all they could do and she wasn't coming back. Our little girl was forever gone. Time of death: 11:17. I will always hear that in my head. We stayed with her until probably 2 that day. My father in law picked up Cole, lila, & Taylee for me-I wanted them safe.

We held our sweet baby, kissed her, pleaded with her to still come back.

This is the day the heaviness began...

xoxo Grace.