Approaching One Year Anniversary

[Lydia Garcia]

My first and at this point only child was born July 29, 2023 via emergency C-section after 36 hours of labor. Due to negligence that occurred my son was born not breathing. He wasn’t still born but he was unable to breathe on his own. The very first time I saw my boy, the Dr.’s and nurses were doing chest compressions. 
I after several tests, MRI’s etc. It was obvious that my boy had no brain activity, the utmost hardest decision of life was made and his care was terminated. My baby lived for 52 hours off all machines before taking his last breath in my arms on August 05, 2023 at one week old. 

Everything about this last year has been hard, when my husband had to go back to work that was horrendous! I was left in the house alone with the dogs, everything felt so empty, I had so much hope for everything that my baby and I were going to do. I have made it to now and now that we are in the summer and quickly approaching his Birthday each day is getting harder. I can feel myself slipping back into the depression and wanting to just sleep the days away. My boy should be crawling, heck maybe even almost walking, he should be outside enjoying these beautiful summer days with me but instead he is not here with me and it is taking everything in me to get out of bed let alone to go enjoy the weather.

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips or anything on how to handle this Birthday / Anniversary? How did you do it? What helped you? 

Thank you in advance! 

[Ricardoblaze]

As an expectant father who lost his unborn child in August 2022 I feel your pain and understand everything that you wrote. What helped me during the birthdays, the anniversays etc was writing. Everytime I felt the pain and heartache I wrote exactly what I felt and it helped me. Maybe it could help you. I wrote a book about my experience and maybe you could to, if its even just for yourself to read at the end.

[Eryn]

Lydia, I am so sorry that you lost your beautiful boy. I just joined this group so I’m replying quite a while after you posted, but I’ll share what’s been helping me as we approach the 2nd anniversary of my daughter’s stillbirth. 

We decided that every year, during the week of the anniversary, we’d go on a trip. We wanted to do something extra fun and joyful during that time instead of being at home in the everyday, normal routine. But the weeks leading up to that time are still hard. I feel dark and lonely. I feel anti-social. I really haven’t figured out that part yet.