Roxanne (Roxy) was my answer to every prayer I ever whispered. Everything and the ONLY thing I ever wanted in this life. As long as I could remember, all I ever wanted was to be a mother.

My husband and I tried to conceive naturally for over a year and was unsuccesful. I changed my eating habits, exercised more, upped my vitamin intake, started pre-natal vitamins. I was not ready to start seeing a fertility specialist, so I even tried every "wives tale" you could think of, including position changes (**wink, wink**) and laying in bed with my feet up in hopes that maybe even gravity would give me a helping hand. Just as we were gearing up to put our pride aside and see a specialist, my dream came true.

The morning after my husbands 27th birthday party, he was sleeping away his hangover while I was in our bathroom taking a HPT. I had seen so many negative HPT, that i was emotionally prepared to see yet another negative one. Two pink lines appeared and, although it was what I had hoped and prayed for, I immediately thought it was a mistake. I took another test. And another. And another. All positive! My heart raced with excitement as I called my husband into the bathroom to show him his new birthday present: Fatherhood! We were over the moon.

The flicker of her little heart on our first ultrasound two weeks later cemented our dreams into a reality. We ate right, except for when she had a midnight craving for Fruit Loops later in the 3rd trimester. We exercised, walked, read all the baby books, goggled everything. We spent hours on the couch watching YouTube videos of every birth scenario you could imagine.  Natural, water birth, cesarean, with epidural or without. I had done so much research that I felt prepared for anything that could have been thrown my way during labor.

I was completely wrong. Never in my life would I imagine that I would need to be prepared to leave the hospital without my child. She would stay back in the morgue of the hospital while we drove home in silence, clutching hands, with an empty car seat behind me. Lydie's mom Heather had written some very accurate words that I will never forget, and had absolutely taken the words out of my mouth. "Where's the dead baby card?" I will never forget that. We naively prepare so much for the happy ending of birth, that we do not prepare ourselves for any ominous curveballs that may come our way.

I was due 03/02/2015. My due date came and went with no signs of Roxanne ready to enter the world. The day after her due date, my membranes were stripped, but still no sign of labor. A week after her due date we were admitted for induction. After hours of cervical ripening, a foley, and pitocin, Roxanne began to show signs of distress. I was tired and had also developed a fever. I was given intravenous antibiotics to help with any infection that might be developing, but was also told to continue to labor in hopes I would progress for a vaginal delivery. After a day and a half of laboring, Roxanne's little heart could take no more and began to decel. We were rushed into the operating room for an emergent cesarean but, unbeknownst to me at that time, Roxy was born silent, limp, and lifeless. I was in an enormous amount of pain and in the rush down the hall, I had lost my husband. I was alone on a cold table surrounded by nurses and Drs I did not know. In the hustle of the surgery room and me trying to internally breathe and contain my pain, I did not realize that I had not heard Roxy make her first cry. At some point a nurse grabbed my hand and she was looking at me and gazing over the blue curtain every so often. Tears began to run down her face and it wasn't until that moment that my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach with the realization that something absolutely awful had happened. A NICU nurse came over and placed a band on my wrist and said that was my golden ticket to enter the NICU after recovery and meet Roxanne. "She was ok!" I was stitched up and rolled to recovery and finally re-united with my husband. His face said so many unspoken words. All I could do was say that I was sorry. I was sorry he missed her birth. I was sorry that he didn't cut her cord. I was sorry that I had not seen her. I was sorry that my body failed us and she was in the NICU somewhere alone surrounded by unrecognizable voices. I told him to not worry about me and to go find her. What seemed like an eternity, minutes later he returned with an entourage of doctors to explain that Roxy had indeed died, but was resuscitated after 10 minutes by the NICU team. I had never cried so hard up until that moment. She was here, but she had also died.

I wasnt able to see her for several hours. When we finally met, I was in awe. I created this tiny human beneath my ribs and just below my heart. I placed my hand over her heart and felt it beating so strongly. There were so many tubes and wires, beeps and pings. I was lost in understanding all that was going on.

Roxanne had suffered a hypoxic ischemic injury, and would be placed on a cooling protocol for 72 hours. Hoping and praying for a miracle that her brain would heal and her organs would properly function. Over the next several days she deteriorated instead.  The NICU discussed her quality of life with us on several occasions, but we could not find it in our hearts to remove her from the full life support.  Exactly 7 days later, almost down to the hour, Roxanne made the decision on her own. At 5:22pm that St. Patricks day,as her heart rate was decending once again, she was removed from the tubes and placed in my arms. This would be the only time I held her, hugged her and kissed her as I whispered to her that she was all I ever dreamed of.