I lost my Baby Girl

Rachael Ann - posted on 08/06/2012 ( 3 moms have responded )

Hello..
My name is Rachael.
I just joined this site today, but I have read many articles on all sorts of things on it in the past.
Tonight I have been grieving hard. To people who understand grieving, you know what I mean. Which is to say, we are always hurting, missing our loved ones, and are always remembering.
But there are times when it just gets pent up, and needs to come pouring out, in many many tears.
So I have been doing that, which I do fairly regularly. It's been about once every couple of weeks lately. I think so very often because I often have to speak about my baby girl and her death in conversation, but I rarely am able to vent about the horrible pain that I am in. Let me explain..

I gave birth to a beautiful little girl on February 11, 2010. Alahna Ann. I could have never been prepared for how beautiful she was, and the amount of unconditional love that would flood every inch of me the moment when I first held her in my arms. She wasn't even crying. The doctors set her upon my breast, and she, with a full head of my hair, with my big brown eyes, looked up at me in wonderment, so calmly, so angelically.
She was completely healthy, and a dream of a newborn. In that I mean, she rarely fussed, only cried when she was hungry, slept through the night (for the most part), and was the most beautiful creature my husband and I had ever laid eyes upon. She was perfect.

I was 16 when I gave birth to Alahna. But unlike most young moms, I was and am extremely responsible and always had been.
I am in the .6 % of women ever impregnated with an IUD. Alahna was a miracle baby, and that, obviously, is something that cannot be planned.
I had already been on my own, supporting myself since I was 14, (I know hard to believe, I have a very long triumphant and sad story, but that is not what I am posting about right now.)
So I was very well with means, as was my husband, (whom I became married to at 16, and had been in a relationship with since I was 13.) We both worked full time, but bounced off of eachother's schedules, and for the times that both of us had to be at work, I took Alahna to a daycare, at a woman's home whom I trusted very much.
I never had the support of any family, we were completely on our own, but we were not struggling.
We were a very happy family, and these would be the best times of our lives, watching our little girl grow.

Alahna was always just so...other worldy.
I know that every mom feels that about their child, and that is to be expected!
But she was just special and I knew it. My perfect little angel.
Her favorite food was bananas, and she loved puppies and kitties.
Everywhere she went, she made friends, even before she could speak her adorable gibberish, she was the most outgoing baby I ever saw.

She was just so very happy...
literally, she was this little girl, running around the house saying 'happy! happy! happy!'
That and 'puupy!' were among her favorite things to say.

On August tenth, 2011, almost exactly one year ago, I kissed my angel for the last time.
I took her to daycare just like any other day that Nathan and I were both working.
I got the call around 3 in the afternoon that Alahna had stopped breathing, and that she was gone.
The call was from a police officer, who would come pick me up, not allowing me to drive to the hospital myself, knowing the hysterics I would be in.
I couldn't understand..
I kept repeating, over and over, ''Can you revive her? Is there anyway to revive her?"
It made absolutely no sense and it couldn't be true..
never.. These things don't really happen, this wouldn't happen to me, not my angel.. I would do anything it takes to bring her back, there has to be a way, this just can't be true..



But it was.
Alahna suffocated at daycare.
The story provided in the case does not make sense, about how she passed, but all I can do is pursue a wrongful death suit, because criminally nothing can be proved other than the fact that she suffocated.
I never really know what to say when people ask me how she passed, because I do not believe the story.
If you understood the details, you would not believe it either, but there is nothing I can prove and no way to find truth in the matter.
Either way my girl is gone, before she even got to see her second birthday. I had planned to buy her a puppy :)

I am currently 19, and nine months pregnant with my second daughter.
My life is dramatically different.
I never lost control or hit rock bottom or anything, but a lot of things have changed since I lost her. Especially me.

I very often have to talk about it to strangers.. being pregnant, people and doctors and nurses are always asking if it is my first, whether they are required to or not.
This is the most that I ever really get to talk about Alahna out loud, and I just blankly state the details.. I have to detatch myself emotionally to what I am saying or else ill just lose it right there. It has happened before.
People look into my eyes looking so sorry and I just stare back.. I know they can see my pain, I do not know how to hide it and I just do not know what to say.

I left my ex husband, and am now engaged to a man that did not know Alahna.
I fell in love with him while he was there for me unlike anyone else was in the very beginning of my grief.
But now I feel like a broken record when I need to say something about her...
and he tells me I shouldn't think about it so much when it makes me so sad.
Clearly he does not understand that I do not have control over that, and the guilt that is involved with even the slightest notion of pushing away thoughts of her.
He is the person that I always went to. And I stopped being able to go to him and I am now at a loss. Always keeping everything inside and crying to myself almost every time I am alone.
This is the first time I have ever reached out over the internet.

A lot of people seem to have the idea that having this new baby girl, is somehow going to make it all better, or replace Alahna.
It is really the opposite.
I am very, very excited for my new little girl. So happy.
But those feelings are completely seperate from those of Alahna.
I feel very very guilty in so many ways
especially for how much more I have to offer this baby than I did for Alahna, I cry in guilt often, it hurts incredibly.
Nothing and noone is ever, ever going to replace Alahna, and I feel like I am grieving in secret every single day..
Everyone expects me to be happy and 'all better' because I am having this baby

But the truth is, I still think of Alahna constantly, and when I see her face in my mind, I still can hardly believe that she is gone.

I don't really know exactly what I am looking for by posting this, but it would be nice to hear that im not crazy for feeling this way, and that maybe even the grief will get better in time, I dont know.

I just need help.

-Sorry for any typo's, I have been crying hard throughout writing this.-

Thank you for reading,
Rachael.

And if anyone would like to reach out or is going through something similar and wants advice, I would be happy to receive either.
My email address is shineonediamondeyes@gmail.com

Thank you again for reading.
And if you are going through something like I am, please stay strong.