My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song...

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.


The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.




Excerpted from "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden

No Light, No End, Just Tunnel

I’ve been struggling for weeks to find that ‘will to live’ that I hear people talk about. It’s been an exercise in futility. If it weren’t for the people who love me, who I know would be hurt by my loss, I think I would have given up already. I’ve been telling myself that it’s not that I ‘want to die’, but that I just ‘can’t want to live any longer.’ Semantics, really. And it all ends up the same, doesn’t it?


I love my family. I love my friends. I would never intentionally hurt any single one of them. But I am hurting so bad. People don’t understand my not wanting to stick around. They say things will get better. But they are not getting better. Every day is just another day without her. And it’s not like I’m depressed over a break-up, reeling from the rejection and all that. That kind of loss is remediable. New loves come along. But my baby can never come back. She can never be replaced. There is no light to be found at the end of this tunnel. She’s gone. And I wish I’d gone with her.

I’m sorry that my feeling this way hurts the people who care about me. It makes

Failing

I'm hearing a lot lately about what I NEED to do, what I'm SUPPOSED to be feeling.  I know that all of these statements come from well-meaning people who care about me, and that they are not all without their merit.  But I'm not there yet.  And I don't know how to get there. 

I'm told that I need to get back out there, be around people, do things.  And I've tried, to some extent, to do that.  But it's hard.  I tried going out to dinner a couple of weeks ago.  I knew it was going to be hard to see people, but I decided it was time to try.  I made it to the restaurant, even into the lobby where the large group I was meeting waited for a table.  And it seemed like every where I turned, there was some happy person holding a beautiful, healthy baby.  And it just brought my own loss rushing to the forefront of my mind, and my eyes filled with tears.  I knew I was going to lose it, and I just had to get out of there.  So I left. 

One day this week,

Miles to Go Before I Sleep...

Things haven't been easy lately, to say the least.  I've had some very, very dark days.  Yesterday was one of them.  I've managed to make it through another night, sleepless though it was, and I now sit on the back porch listening to the world wake up as I try to remember the seemingly endless list of things I need to accomplish.
There is a poem I've always liked by Robert Frost.  Lately it has taken on new meaning for me.  Before I set out to tackle my list, I thought I'd share it with you.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.


My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.


He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.


The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.


The last verse is very much my favorite, and I find myself lately repeating it often.

About the last minute name change...

So, shortly after I found out that Finlay was going to be a she, I finally decided on a name. And I wrote a blog (The Kid Has a Name!) about how I came to that decision. Some of you may have noticed that once she was here, I changed my mind on her middle name. I thought I'd explain why.

It was around 8 or 9 pm on that Sunday that they confirmed that her heart was no longer beating, and around 2 am on Monday that they induced labor. Needless to say, I got zero sleep that night. My emotional state bounced back and forth from complete hysterical crying to a kind of shock and numbness. At some point early Monday morning,

Remembering Finlay

This is a slideshow of the album I made on Picasaweb.

This is a link to the album online, where you can see the pictures in full size along with captions.

Was Lost but Now am Found?

I remember sitting in the chair in my parents’ living room, a couple of days out of the hospital, and listening as my Pastor told me that I had a purpose. That there was a reason I was still here, and that I could choose to find it, or to give in to the sadness, to the depression and give up on life. I remember thinking how ridiculous that sounded. A purpose? I had finally found my purpose. And I was planning her funeral that very moment. I doubted very seriously that I would ever find any good in this, the most horrible thing I had ever experienced. And then the other night, I was sitting on the porch, just enjoying the breeze and the quiet, and it came to me. Something I could do to help other people who were where I was a couple of weeks ago. A way I could remember my daughter and use my experience to bring even some small measure of comfort to others. And for the first time in weeks, I got excited. I had found my passion again. And maybe even a new purpose.




While still in the hospital recovering from surgery and still barely comprehending the totality of my loss, a family member gave me a copy of the book Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo. This is a non-fiction book which recounts a very sick little boy's descriptions of his visit to heaven. Amongst other very compelling arguments for the existence of Heaven, the 4 year old describes meeting and playing with the sister he never knew he had, a baby that his mother had miscarried long before his birth. At a time when my faith was faltering, to say the very least, I cried tears of joy as I began to accept the fact that my little girl, too, was now in Heaven. And the idea that I would one day get to see her again, to hold her, and to finally have answers to all the "what might have been's" that so haunted my every thought brought me more comfort than I could possibly convey in words. I would like very much to make this incredible book available to other families who are faced with the loss of their precious infant. A memorial fund has been established, and the money collected will be used to purchase and donate, in Finlay's memory, copies of the book to area hospitals. It is my goal, through the help of friends and working with hospital grief counselors, to be able to offer every woman who faces this tragic loss a copy of this book. In this way I hope to help other families who are in crisis, to find some good in my own devastation, and to keep the memory of my beloved daughter alive. I would very much appreciate your help in making this happen. Donations can be made through PayPal by clicking the “Donate Now” button below, or directly to me or my parents. Feel free to email with any questions, or for a mailing address.  Please help, if you can.  I believe this can really make a difference.  No donation is too small. 

Obituary

Finlay Irene Ramsey was born an angel on March 8, 2011, in Tallahassee, FL. Though she never got the chance to know them, she left her tiny footprints on the hearts of the large and loving family who anxiously anticipated her arrival. She will be forever missed.

Please let this be rock bottom

Today marks two weeks since my life may as well have ended. That’s when I found out she was gone. And still not a minute goes by that I don’t think of her. Not a minute goes by that it doesn’t hurt. Some minutes the pain is more intense than others. Some minutes, it is so bad that it literally takes my breath away. I can hardly even breathe, much less cry. In the darkest times, the very darkest, I wonder why on Earth God would take her from me, and leave me here without her. I wonder why he couldn’t have just taken me too. And the only reason I can come up with is that I am being punished. That it was, in whatever way, my fault that she died. Somehow, I killed my precious little Finlay, and my punishment is having to endure what is left of my life here without her.


I try to remember what I once loved about living. And when I can come up

The Nightmare Begins

Friday, March 4th started out just fine. I woke up early, too excited about my scheduled ultrasound to sleep any longer. I got dressed and headed to the doctor’s office. Dr. Hume was the specialist I was seeing because of Finlay’s slightly elevated risk for a heart defect. They were planning to look at her heart that day, and I was expecting good news and hoping to catch a glimpse of her little face that day, since she hadn’t felt like showing it at the last exam. I was on the table in no time, and a technician started without the doctor. Almost immediately, I could tell something wasn’t quite right. She kept asking how far along I was, which was 22 weeks. I saw her taking measurements and noticed that when she calculated the baby’s size, it was coming up to only around 19 weeks. She had always been right on track growth-wise, so I was a little concerned. Then the technician asked if I’d had low amniotic fluid at my last ultrasound, and if they’d said anything about the size of the placenta. No, they hadn’t. And my anxiety only increased. Dr. Hume joined us and didn’t like what he saw when he looked at her heart. It was structurally sound, he said, but was tilted in a way that it shouldn’t be. Tears were streaming down my face at this point, and I was so scared that much of the rest of what he said was a blur. I remember him talking about how this could indicate some problem that they would be better able to diagnose at Shands. He said he would be referring me there, and that I should get a call in a couple of days to schedule the appointment. I left the office confused and terrified. I fell completely apart about halfway home.
I talked to my parents, and realized just how little I really understood about what was going on. We decided that I should call my regular OB’s office, and try to get some more information before the weekend. I spoke with a nurse who was very empathetic and offered me an appointment with one of the other practice physicians for that afternoon, as my doctor was in surgery and not expected back in the office. I declined, saying I’d really rather talk to Dr. Friall. I was hoping that someone could talk to Dr. Hume and find out what exactly he thought was happening, and perhaps alleviate some of my tremendous fear. The nurse told me she’d already gotten a call from his office and that they were sending a report for my doctor to review. The nurse, whose name I failed to get, offered to personally walk over to Dr. Hume’s office and retrieve the report, and said she would make sure Dr. Friall got it that day, and that someone would call me back with some answers. She told me to go to bed and try to relax until I heard back from someone. In just a couple of hours, I got a call from my amazing doctor, Dr. Andrea Friall. She tried to calm me, explained what they knew, and really did help me to calm down some. The best thing we could do was to get more information, and the best way to do that was to go to Shands, where a pediatric cardiologist could make a diagnosis. It meant waiting, and the uncertainty was unbearable, but for the moment it was all I could do.
The weekend was pretty low-key. I rested and tried not to worry. I also didn’t feel very well. This was pretty much par for the course, since I’d had ‘morning sickness’ for the entire pregnancy. On Sunday, however, I felt a little worse. And I had this terrible feeling that something wasn’t right. I couldn’t shake it, so I went to triage at the Women’s Pavilion at TMH. I had been there before, with the ongoing risk of dehydration due to the constant vomiting. I was taken back pretty quickly, and after asking some questions, the nurse got the Doppler to look for the baby’s heartbeat. They did this every time. And every time, hearing that little heartbeat racing along was such a comforting sound. This time it didn’t happen. She tried for a while, and told me that it could just be that the baby was still small and she could be in an awkward position. She called the doctor on call, and he said he’d be right over to do an ultrasound. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Somehow I just knew something was wrong. I called my family and asked someone to come up and be with me. I began texting everyone I could think of who might have some pull with the man upstairs and begged for prayers. And then I began praying, too. I begged God to please let her be okay. I promised that I would sleep more and eat better and do anything in the world if only she could just be okay. My sister arrived, and then my parents. The doctor came in with the bedside ultrasound, and he couldn’t see her heartbeat either. She was eerily still. My heart began to break,