"This was my first pregnancy and my husband and I were ecstatic. We found out the baby was to be a little boy, and we decided to name him Valen. . . . My labor lasted close to eighteen hours. It was horribly painful, but I knew it would be worth it. Throughout my labor my blood pressure was extremely high, so much so that they thought I would have a seizure. Then as it was time to push, Valen's heart rate began to drop. . . .
When they took him out, call it a mother's instinct, but I just knew and felt something was not right. They immediately tried to get him to breathe after having cut the cord. It was within a matter of minutes that they all seemed to be panicking. I could see my husband, mother, and mother-in-law all around me with their heads in their hands. As I lay on the bed being stitched up, I could see my son being worked on. Something inside of me said to call for him, so I yelled to Valen to wake up, over and over, but to no avail. . . .
When they were finally able to intubate him, it had been almost fifteen minutes and, although I did not know the specifics at the time, he was most likely brain dead. The next two days I had this hope that some miracle would be pulled off, and my son would be saved, so I really did not feel too much sadness. . . . When they told me that he was truly brain dead and that most of his organs were failing, I knew I had to accept it.
We went to the children's hospital with family to take him off the life support. There were so many tubes and wires all around his tiny body that all I wanted was for him to not be in any more pain. The nurses took all the tubes out and wrapped him in a blanket, so we could hold him. The nurses said he still had a heartbeat. He was so beautiful! I wanted to hold him forever. . . .
Losing a child forever changes who you are as a person. It is as if the hand of God reaches down and grabs your soul, shaking off your body and possessions. It will forever change the way in which you view the world. You see things through the eyes of someone that knows what true love is and what it really means. In rising through the ashes of life it leads you to the enlightenment of the soul."
