Day 3

Hi everyone.  Thanks again for all the comments - they really help to remind us just how many people were touched by Leah's smile and how many prayers are coming in to help us through this. 

I don't know what will happen in the months to come but for now we're hanging in there.  I have a feeling right now it's just a numb "She's at peace" feeling and in a few weeks I'll fall apart because "My daughter is gone". I think when a parent loses their child who had been in pain - it's a lot different from a parent losing a perfectly healthy baby.  There's a peace knowing that they are finally without pain.  Leah's skin is now perfect - her eyes will never get abrasions again - her beautiful little finger and toe nails have grown back - she has no trach and is making beautiful sounds that I never got to hear her make; but she's making the angels smile with those sounds.

When you spend 10+ months caring for a sick baby you become so selfless that you don't care about anything other than their comfort.  So right now I don't care that my heart is broken into a billion pieces.  And not one of those billion pieces could possibly muster up enough emotion to make me feel anything. 

With all her wound care supplies - the huge thing that reminds me of what took her from me.  The selfish angry part of me wants to take every piece of gauze and every box of supplies and build a huge bonfire on the front lawn and scream 'F(#$ you EB!' at the top of my lungs.  But the selfless Leah's Mommy part of me calmly boxed up 20+ packages of supplies and went through them without a single tear labeling different ones saying: "This is for Jonah ...... this is for Tripp ..... this is for dEBra".

We boxed up some of her toys, clothes and books yesterday - and I amazingly didn't fall apart - though I wanted to.  I'm almost too drained to fall apart.   I put things to the side that she really loved - and we're going to make the mantle for Leah - with toys, pictures, and eventually, her urn. 

My sister drove down yesterday to deliver my Hannah back to me.  Hannah is my cat.  I've had her since May of 2005.  Back in June when we didn't know what was causing Leah's congestion and mucous - my sister took her to stay at her house with her other cats.  So it's nice to have her back in the house - though it is strange to have someone to talk to again that you know won't answer you.  Hannah's a cuddle bug too.  She's right back to doing what she used to do here.  She lounges on the couch, cuddles, eats, and then crawls under the covers at night and sleeps right in between Jeff and I. 

A wonderful woman named Samantha sent this to me:

Thank you Samantha - it's a beautiful photo.

I have some Christmas pictures of Leah to post but I don't think I can put them up yet.  I literally just had one up, staring at it and then deleted it.  Christmas was the day everything fell apart - she stopped eating and we knew a trip to the hospital was in our future.