Our Baby Thomas: May 2009

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Yesterday

I was looking at Thomas' pictures on this blog and thinking that I remembered the day when this photo was taken. I remember the conversation around this photo. It was very late at night and my husband couldn't work out why I would want a picture of his toes and feet.

I also remember thinking that I would get an opportunity (one day) to take pictures without ventilation or lines in his arms or feet and sensors attached. I never did get that opportunity to photograph him completely free, but in this picture he didn't have the suction tube down his throat or all the tape that it required. I could see his whole face.

I do remember our days with baby Thomas, these pictures are reminders of those memories .......... and it feels like it was just yesterday.

I am going to be singing the song "Yesterday" with the choir. I love this song and I think it fits very well, we are going to be singing it at the St Michael's Cathedral in Melbourne. It will be Remembering Day, a service for the families of babies and young children that have suddenly died. It is hosted by Sids and Kids who are an Australian organisation who help families with grief, and who research the cause of Sudden infant death syndrome (hence the Sids). All the choir members are parents or grandparents of a little one who has gone

The lyrics have been altered a little bit and we will be doing a harmony, it sounds lovely when we do it.

Yesterday.....

All my troubles seemed so far away

Now it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh, I believe

In yesterday

Suddenly......

I'm not half the man I used to be

There's a shadow hanging over me

Oh yesterday

Came suddenly

Why she had to go

I don't know

She couldn't say

I say something's wrong

How I long......

Yesterday....

Love was such an easy game to play

Now I need a place to hide away

Oh, I believe

In yesterday

Why he had to go

I don't know

He couldn't say

I say something's wrong

How I long......

Yesterday....

Love was such an easy game to play

Now I need a place to hide away

Oh, I believe

In yesterday

Hum (I believe in yesterday)

About this blog

Thanks for visiting my blog. These are my memory pages. Dedicated to the life of our baby Thomas who spent 4 1/2 months in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne, this collection of writing and pictures documents his life from his birth in October 2007 until he passed away in February 2008.
I have posted the emails that I wrote to family and friends and some of the photos that I took. Some of the poetry was written by me and some of it I have found in my bereavement travels.
Grief is not logical, I do not know where it will take me day by day, but I have found that it is better if I don't resist, it is better if I let it take me where it will.

Our Beautiful Baby Thomas

Thomas was born on 17th October 2007 and he died 135 days later on the 28th February 2008.
Thomas was born with Down Syndrome, Tracheal Osophageal Fistula and Osophageal Atresia, Tracheal Broncheo Malasia and Pulmonary Hypertension, he had a lot to fight.
On the night he was born Thomas was transferred to the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne for surgery to repair his Osophageus, that is when the Pulmonary Hypertension was discovered and surgery had to be stopped. We waited 15 weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit until he was well enough to have the surgery again. But in the weeks following surgery the Pulmonary Hypertension became more and more severe, to the point that the doctors told us that there was nothing left to do.
Thomas died with me and his daddy and his brother and his nurse. We held him and talked to him, we watched him go, quietly he slipped away.
I will never be the same again.