Amour [h.s]

☼ forty nine ☼

"Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture, and save it from the funny tricks of time"

☼ ☼ ☼

Amelie

We said our official goodbyes to Amora yesterday. Harry and I had decided a funeral seemed too formal, so we just had a small get together with our closest family members. Harry and I spoke a few words, though it was incredibly difficult to get any words out with the emotional toll it took on our bodies, and we put together a memory box full of little things that reminded us of Amora.

Everyone wrote letters to her, Madeline painted a picture for her and made her a card, we had Milo stamp his hand print on a bit of paper, I put in a pair of pink baby booties along with the most beautiful lilac bow I wished to see on her. Harry gently placed a tiny pink onesie inside and a pink bunny, identical to Bodhi's.

It had been a hard day for us all. But being together as a family made it so special, and it was another reminder of just how loved we all are.

And of course, we finished the day by going to visit our little Bodhi boy. He had been in the NICU for three weeks now. I had hoped we could bring him home by now, but we had a set back last week. He had been doing so well, gaining weight, his oxygen had been reduced, he still had his feeding tube in but was due to be taken out soon.

He was in my arms one day, having a cuddle after being changed into the snuggliest outfit, and he just fell limp in my touch. His breathing became shallow and he was immediately put back on a ventilator.

He got placed back into his incubator, the doctors ran about a million different tests before they had told us he had sepsis. It came as a huge shock to the both of us, we had assumed that because he was doing better, that we were out of the woods and we were making good progress.

We weren't allowed to hold him for three days after, we just had to look at him struggling for three days straight. We stayed in the Ronald McDonald house whilst he was so unwell, just incase. Because I had this horrible fear that something was going to make a wrong turn and we'd be grieving over the loss of our son too. I didn't want to be too far from him.

But this was a reminder that Bodhi was still incredibly unwell and anything could go wrong at any moment. His body isn't as developed as a newborn baby, he's at risk for more infections and illnesses. Though we had been told that Bodhi was more susceptible for illnesses, it seemed to slip our minds and we had assumed he would be fine.

We thought it would be an easy ride.

But NICU life was far from easy.

It chipped away at us every day. We had to leave Milo with Anne for most of the days, and he often cried for us, screaming as we left. And that was breaking me.