The silence is deafening. The silence after the doctor told us our baby wouldn’t survive birth, the silence after delivery with no cry from our daughter, and the silence in the house with an empty car seat and empty crib. Life continues and the world keeps turning but for us our had stopped and there was just silence.
We knew that there were issues with the placenta and that had resulted in growth restriction for our daughter, but we never could have imagined how things would’ve turned out.
On the morning of December 10, 2019, I was awoken by sharp pain under my ribs, so my husband rushed me to the hospital. I was admitted and my labs revealed I was In HELLP syndrome and our only option was to deliver the baby. The doctor explained that because the baby was below 400 grams that they would be not be able to perform any life saving measures. Our worst nightmare was happening; not only was my health in jeopardy but in order to save my life our baby would have to be delivered and she would not survive. Alex and I sat there in silence looking for any other option then what we were given.
20 hours after being induced Charlotte Dawn McCash was born on December 11, 2019 at 3:31pm. A small part of me held on to hope that the doctor was wrong, and she would make it but I waited for a cry that never came. She was placed on my chest and all I could do was stare at her and cry. For the next 24 hours we held her, taking in every line and detail of her beautiful face.
Our photographer from NILMDTS, Lacey, came the next morning. I looked and felt like hell from everything that happened over the last 2 days. But Lacey was gentle and tender with us and made the moment exactly what we needed it to be.
I was discharged from the hospital a couple days later and the 10-minute drive home was long and silent. When we got into the house Alex and I went to the living room and we sat there in silence. I remember thinking “now what? This wasn’t how our story was supposed to go”. It felt like we were just going through the motions of daily life. A week later our photos arrived in my inbox and we were in complete awe of how beautiful they were. It was the start of our healing process.
Fast forward a year later and we were blessed with another child. We had the privilege to work with Lacey again and she incorporated one of our NILMDTS photos of Charlotte into our pictures with our rainbow baby.
Photograph courtesy of the McCash family
Callum has a guardian angel for a sister and one day when he’s older we’ll be able to show him his big sister.
Photograph courtesy of the McCash family
