Happy 4th Birthday

Another year is here. You would be four years old. I can’t believe it’s been this long and yet it still only feels like yesterday. It has been building up for days now and my anxiety and sadness is at it’s peak. My journey in grief is still only in it’s early stages. But I know your day will be nice since we will be focusing on your day as a holiday from school to be filled with thoughts of you and celebration. We will be missing daddy though as he is off in Washington, DC, fighting for your cause. It will be the first that we are not together today and I hope it will be the only time. I was reluctant to let him go, but mostly due to selfish reasons. I did not want to have to wake up and face today with the other kids alone on my hardest day of the year. I know it will be hard on daddy too, since he is so far away and alone. We don’t have each other to lean on to make it through the day. Luckily daddy’s day will be filled with you and our battle to save lives. He is lucky. He gets to be on the frontline for you. I get jealous sometimes since I have to be in the background supporting him and taking care of our family. I wish I could be up there with him talking about wonderful you and helping to prevent more deaths. But I am slowly accepting the fact that my place is taking care of your siblings and encouraging daddy to fight the good fight. Without me backing him up, could he do this?

After four years, are we any further ahead? Some days I think not. Daniel wound up in the hospital again and the pediatrician offerred him medication to help stop his vomiting so he could rehydrate. She had no plans on giving him an IV. She decided on a drug. And even though we brought up drug risks, she went and got it anyway. She could have gone quickly to the computer and googled the drug to see that it is contraindicated in children under 3 and to not give it if the patient has electrolyte imbalance such as in dehydration. Or the other warnings Health Canada has put on it. Instead she came back and gave it to him. A few people have told us we had the right to refuse the drug. And yes we did. But how do you refuse a drug that she took out of it’s package as she came to our bed and then just shoved it in his mouth? Coming home and researching the drug, we would have definitely told her no. The study on it had shown that it is no better than placebo in children and in fact caused the vomiting children in the study to get diarreah. So I have to ask myself, how do these things get on the market? And then give it to my child under 2 with a heart defect? And the answer we get from the hospital? Those warnings have to be put there but don’t really need to be followed. All our work and this happens again? At least at the end, we were told that the hospital now monitors all newborn for their first 48 hours if they were exposed to antidepressants. That sounds like progress, only we didn’t see any proof. We’ve been jerked around so much, I am reluctant to believe them. And I question them if they even ask the women coming in if they are on them. I only pray that what they said is true and they are in fact doing this. Babies can be saved and maybe they’ll begin to notice how these exposed babies are reacting. That is a right step in the right direction. But I am still waiting for our case to be taken care of. I no longer want your death swept under the rug and pretend you never happened.

So again, I face your day with sadness. I will get through it. I will enjoy it. We have so much planned today that it should be quite happy. The kids have been so excited for today. They picked your cake and balloons and plan to spend the afternoon decorating the kitchen and your wish lanterns. It will be so nice to send those off this year and I’m optimistic since it’s much warmer compared to last year. Will you be watching? WIll you be waiting for your balloons and lanterns? I wish I could begin to imagine what you would look like now and sound like. I dream of that often. As you watch us celebrate from heaven, please say a little prayer for daddy so he doesn’t feel so alone and for your siblings so they always remember you. Happy BIrthday little man. Mommy loves you so much.

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