I Said A Mother's Prayer For You

The morning before, I’d gotten a steroid shot to help them because my doctors were anticipating they’d be premature. We had been hoping to get to Halloween, but we made it only as far as mid-September.

As my doctors prepped for tiffany's mothers day charms delivery, a neonatalogist met with us. At this stage, we were warned, they’d have a 50/50 chance of survival. Each newborn would have a waiting doctor, nurse and respiratory therapist, ready to get to work.

We thought we were prepared. I remember that I wasn’t terrified. I was hopeful, eager to meet my children.

To become a mom.

Jaina.jpgView full sizePickel family photoJaina Pickel

Jaina Dianne was tiffany's mothers day bracelet first baby out. She was wiggly but weighed only 15 ounces. That’s less than your typical bottle of water. Cade Robert, likewise feisty, weighed 1 pound, 5 ounces. That’s about two cans of soda.

“She’s smaller than we’d expect to see at this age,” a doctor said. “But he’s about mother's day pandora charms 2013 size we’d expect.”

No one in mother's day pandora bracelet delivery room panicked. My husband and I, and even my waiting parents, were able to get a glimpse of mother's day pandora beads babies before they were moved to mother's day pandora charms NICU, Pandora mother's day outlet neonatal intensive care unit. I took that as a good sign.

Woozy, I was moved into a hospital room where “Congratulations!” was written on mother's day pandora charms 2013 medical-goals board. I slept fitfully for a few hours. My husband and family visited mother's day pandora bracelet NICU and brought me cellphone pictures of mother's day pandora beads wee ones inside incubators and attached to wires and tubes. We cooed and hugged and worried.

The NICU can have 30-some babies at a time, but ours were among mother's day pandora charms smallest they get. We spent hours there, uncomfortably at first, stressed to Mother's Day Handbag & Purses Gifts point of breaking. The staff, especially Michael Kors mother's day outlet nurses, were kind and instructional. It calmed us.

Cade, they said, was stable. Jaina, however, was slipping away. Her doctor told us not to anticipate her surviving Cheap Mothers Day Gift Ideas from Chic to Unique first night.

I knew, looking at her and touching her, like a mom knows things. But I wanted to be wrong. I so much wanted her to grow up.

It’s hard to write that.

Jaina lived for 49 hours. Her tiny body wasn’t able to fend off infection, and she was pronounced dead as I held her and told her I loved her, that I was happy to be her mom.

I used to be one of those people who didn’t think losing a child you barely knew mattered much. I’m sorry that I thought that. Those two days with Jaina were precious, infinitely better than zero days, but it hurt so much to lose our baby girl, our son’s sister, all that potential.

Grieving, we focused on Cade, hoping so hard that he’d be OK. Two weeks after Jaina died, as Cade battled a staph infection, his blood pressure dipping oh-so-low, a doctor asked us if it was time to take him off High heels mother's day outlet ventilator.

We talked to our baby boy, told him he was strong. He squeezed his daddy’s finger, and we knew High heels mother's day outlet answer to High heels mother's day outlet ventilator question was no. Cade had successful bowel surgery that day and spent mother's day 2013 next 100 days getting better in mother's day movie NICU.