Broken and alone... right? by Hayden Nekara

I just wasn’t ready.įirst they told me it was a birth defect, and I thought, it’s ok I can fix it. I wasn’t ready for my life to be different. I felt as if somehow by wanting a girl so badly I had jinxed myself, and I wasn’t ready to hear bad news.

As they were taking me to recovery, I asked if the baby was ok, and they responded, ‘We will talk about that in the room.’ I did not ask more I did not want to know more. Once again, I woke up and asked where he was, and I was told he was with the baby. I woke up and reached for my husband, and then I was out again. He was handed our Anna and was able to look deep into her eyes just moments before they swelled, and she could not open them again for many days. My husband was brought out and made to choose between larger hospitals and told she had a condition, but it was unknown what. They told me yes and asked if I wanted more medicine to calm me after that, I was out for the rest of what occurred. Behind the curtain I began to sense their frantic, panicked feeling, and I asked if things were ok. After hardening, it began to split, causing open wounds all over her body. As they tried frantically to help her, her skin hardened within seconds. Harlequin Ichthyosis is not something most people, even those in the medical profession, are familiar with. Behind that curtain though, things were becoming very terrifying. When they took her out, I heard her cry, and they said, ‘She is beautiful.’ Those are the words every mother wants to hear, so I smiled and relaxed. It was all very calm and wonderful–until it wasn’t. Still her stats were great, and we had a C-section because she was breach.

I had a normal pregnancy up until my water broke at 34 weeks. Broken and alone, all I could do was stare, and picture her body in my arms. But the moment that was supposed to complete my family, the last piece in the most beautiful puzzle, was suddenly gone–not just like the piece needed to be flipped over gone, but instead, like someone picked up the puzzle and smashed it, gone.

I just kept hearing, ‘What just happened?’ Visions of my daughter, the little girl I had thought about, prayed about, and planned for years for was here, finally. “As I sat alone in a hospital room in shock staring at the wall in front of me, my brain was on repeat.

Broken and alone... right? by Hayden Nekara