Devastatingly Blue

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Job 33:4


On a sunny Wednesday morning in January, a couple of my friends had come over to visit; there were a few close friends, more like sisters really, that I let into my painful stupor and they had always been so good about not leaving me alone for too long.  And although Christmas had passed, that morning, we had been making ornaments with Eadie's hand prints on them.  Another keepsake I'm so grateful we have, a connection to her. 


I wasn't completely sure that Eadie Joy had begun to slip away from this life, but I had my suspicions.  I guess a mother just knows, even in my numb existence.  But it had become completely evident that day, when while I was nursing my baby girl, she turned blue.  I obviously had not been expecting it, yet I immediately grabbed the bulb syringe and began suctioning the coagulated breast milk form her throat, stimulating her sternum; rescue techniques that had long since been seared into my mind from years of trainings, for various reasons, various professions.  I was crying, and begging...her?  God?  It was the very rawest moment of my life, to date.  My child was dying.  Now.  No warning.  Now.  I remember thinking about Brett and A and G, that they wouldn't get to say goodbye to his daughter, their sister.  We had had so much more time when Josie passed.  How could this be happening, right here, right now? I was completely distraught, to say the least.


After working on my child for a few moments, minutes maybe, I have no idea; Eadie gasped a breath and began to pink up.  Life. 


But, from that moment on, every time I tried to nurse my baby, we'd go through the whole ordeal again.  She was slipping away.  There was no rescuing her from that.  Her systems were shutting down, preparing for her last breath.


And even after resigning myself to the fact that her body was unable to take nourishment any longer, she continued to turn blue, to struggle, as she had that first horrifying moment, over and over and over.  Two days later, on January 15, 2010, Eadie Joy was gone.