“Crying as I Write This”
My wife and I found out that she was pregnant on Mother’s day of 2010. We were both very excited and very scared at the same time. The thought of a second child did what I am sure it does to lots of people…makes you wonder about everything…how will my daughter react to a new baby…am I ready for this all over again…well, there goes my sleep…and the list goes on and on. None the less, we were still excited. Fast forward about 4 or 5 months during one of the many, and I mean many, check-ups and sonograms…we find out that our baby may not have a kidney. So we go for more regular check-ups and sonograms and eventually find out that even if our child has only one kidney, he will be fine. Whew! (We later found out he had two healthy kidneys)
Fast forward again to the day of his birth. It was January 2, 2011 at just past 7 p.m. My wife went into labor just 2 hours before, and hard labor lasted only about 45 minutes. It was a whirlwind. Colin Emanuel Stuart was born that day, a beautiful little boy. Now we had one of each and were very happy to see all the new things a boy would bring. It made a new baby even more fun since we had no idea how to raise a son. We were starting to get the hang of raising a daughter, but a boy would bring new challenges. Now…STOP…WAIT…they rushed Colin to NICU because, as we found out later, the placenta tore, the cord was around his neck, and his birth weight was very low…a mere 4 lbs, 13 oz. NICU was a tough experience to live with, but after only four days, little Colin came home.
At home, Colin was a great baby, and all the fears and trepidation left when the most important thing (at least to me) happened…his big sister loved him immediately. She was so gentle and sweet and always made sure to kiss his little head before naps and bed time. Other than the normal sleep deprivation and occasionally getting peed on by the little guy, life was great. My wife nursed him and pumped when she had to so I could feed him now and again. After a few weeks, the little guy was over 5 pounds. A few more weeks and he was close to 7, a month later, he was a healthy and chunky 8 pounds and some change. He started to get those chubby baby cheeks. We were in the clear and Colin was going to be a normal, healthy boy.
This abbreviated version of the story then changes tone….quickly! My wife took Colin to the doctor the morning of March 2, 2011. He was just going for his check-up and vaccinations. It was routine at this point. They came home, my wife called; he was grumpy and fussy from the shots. Finally he settled down and went to sleep. Not long after, I picked my daughter up from day care and we went home to be a family…just like every other family…just like every other day. Normal things happened, dinner, tubby time for the kids, reading stories to my daughter before bed, etc. Life was blissfully boring. When Colin wouldn’t settle down for sleep, I took him downstairs so my wife could get some rest. It was my night for the early shift, and she would take over for the middle of the night feeding. The next night we would switch. Again, all normally routine stuff. Colin laid down on my chest that night and we dozed off together for about 30-45 mins. I woke up; he was in the same position as when he fell asleep. I sat up, cuddled him in my arms and immediately know something was wrong…he was no longer breathing. I screamed in a panic for my wife. She called 911, did the CPR, rode in the ambulance to the hospital as I talked to the police and held my daughter tightly. Then I got the call…it was 12:11 in the morning of March 2, 2011…Colin is dead.
In the hours, days, weeks, and now a few months that have followed, I (and my family) have been on an emotional roller coaster. It took 8 weeks for the medical examiner’s office to give us an official cause of death. It was ruled SIDS. The news was bittersweet since we now knew that there was nothing we could have done or not have done to save his little life. We were not horrible parents. The fact that he died on my chest that horrible night made me feel like I contributed somehow to his death. Now I could breathe again knowing I did not. Life, at least for me took a turn toward “better” a little after that. There was some peace in knowing that it just happened, he did not suffer, and for all eternity, our Colin would be perfect. Today is May 10, 2011 and I am crying as I write this, but the world should know the all too short life of a truly perfect soul…Colin Emanuel Stuart.
I will end this story with a message of hope. Colin was physically alive for only two months, but if the number of people who attended his funeral mass is any indication, he will live forever in the hearts, minds, and souls of a great many people forever, especially his Daddy, Mommy, and Big Sister!
I love you and miss you, son.
Daddy
Thank you to Steven for opening his heart, telling his story and allowing me to post it here on this blog to share it with all of you. I can feel the pain in his words. His story gives me flashbacks to those “moments in time” that all of us expereinced regardless of the circumstances. Moments forever burned into our memory. Peace. Kelly
RESERVE YOUR COPY OF THE GRIEVING DADS BOOK
As I read this I cry, and cry and cry. We lost our perfectly healthy son 11 weeks ago yesterday he would have been 4 months old. There is no answer for it. Easy pregnancty 1 hour and 20 minutes labor and delivery 9 pound baby Jayden was just perfect. At 6 weeks old he was rolling. It was a saturday afternoon I nursed him and put him down in his back. Went to have dinner with his two older sisters Jayda and Kylie. 2 hours later my husband went to check on him and he was gone. There is no explanation. Its like every wound u get eventually it heals but the wound that u are left with dead it doesn’t. It hurts so very much and sometimes I feel so alone. Thank you for sharing your syory.
As I read this I cry, and cry and cry. We lost our perfectly healthy son 11 weeks ago yesterday he would have been 4 months old. There is no answer for it. Easy pregnancty 1 hour and 20 minutes labor and delivery 9 pound baby Jayden was just perfect. At 6 weeks old he was rolling. It was a saturday afternoon I nursed him and put him down in his back. Went to have dinner with his two older sisters Jayda and Kylie. 2 hours later my husband went to check on him and he was gone. There is no explanation. Its like every wound u get eventually it heals but the wound that u are left with dead it doesn’t. It hurts so very much and sometimes I feel so alone. Thank you for sharing your syory.
I wrote and re-wrote that comment a hundred times last night Steven. I’m so glad it didn’t hurt your feelings in any way. I am still wondering how the medical examiner COULD determine that the death was unrelated to the vaccines given that vaccines have been shown to have death as a side effect in some children and that the cumulative safety effect of so many vaccines given together has never been studied. (Most people, myself included, don’t realize that there has never been a vaccine safety study done with a control group of entirely unvaccinated infants. When I found this out, I almost had a heart attack. I am vaccinated more extensively than most Americans because I’ve lived and worked overseas. My children are vaccinated against diseases most of us have never heard of. But though I’m pro-vaccine, I’m very worried about what is happening in American medicine today.) Medical examiners are often in an uncomfortable and difficult (and even political) position, and they sometimes get it wrong. I’m not saying that the vaccines were to blame for your son’s death but I do think it’s worth considering further, unless that’s a door you just don’t want to open (which is totally understandable.) You may want to talk to Michael Belkin whose infant daughter Lyla died after getting the hepatitis B vaccine.
I’m writing a book right now that takes a journalistic look at American babies in the first year of life, and looks at why our outcomes are so much worse than so many other industrialized countries (I think about 33 countries have fewer infant mortalities than we do. Shocking when you consider how much money is spent per American child on healthcare.) I really hope we can figure out how to prevent some of these deaths. It’s just so tragic.
Jennifer,
Please take this the way it is intended. Your first response was appropriate and thoughtful. This response, however, is not. I appreciate your thoughts and ideas, but my son’s death was ruled SIDS, vaccines were not the issue, and the case is officially closed. Please do not question this anymore since the story I shared was a very “abbreviated version” of Colin’s life, death, and subsequent aftermath. Trust me when I tell you this. My wife and I have exhausted every resource to find out if the vaccines had any possible link to Colin’s death, and quite simply, the answer is NO!
Respectfully,
Steven
Dear Steven,
I am so so sorry for your loss. It’s so devastating. Thank you for sharing it here.
I am wondering if Colin’s SIDS could have been connected to having just received that round of vaccines? There was a study published this month in the Journal of Human and Experimental Toxicology that showed that in the countries that have the most infant immunizations also have the highest infant mortality rates: http://het.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/05/04/0960327111407644
I also read several tragic stories that sound so much like yours in the new book, The Vaccine Epidemic (http://www.vaccineepidemic.com/).
I hope it was just coincidence and I hope asking this question isn’t painful to you in any way. There is growing scientific (and anecdotal) evidence that some babies are adversely affected by the aggressive American vaccine schedule.
A dear friend lost his 18-year-old son to a car accident on the same day his second son was turning two. When dads like you share your stories, it helps us all heal a little bit. Thank you.
Your asking in not painful, so no worries. I do appreciate your trying to help answer the one of a million questions I have. The medical examiner ruled out any possible link to the vaccinations though.
Thanks for reading and caring enough to want to help.
Steven
Kelly,
Thank you for sharing your blog with me and countless others. Having an outlet to share my son with the world is a true blessing. The world should know about the little boy who touched so many people in such a short amount of time, and by allowing me to post some of my thoughts and stories, it allows more people to know Colin, thus keeping his spirit more alive each day.
Thank you
Steven
Steven,
Thank you for writing it, I know it wasn’t easy, but I also know it was a release of sorts, at least it was for me. The passing of your son and my daughter were eerily the same with respect to the suddenness. Within approximately 30-40 minutes of texting her mother-in-law, Allison was found lying on the couch “asleep”, and never regained consciousness. The preliminary ME’s report about 6 weeks later said that she died of SAD, Sudden Adult Death, which I had heard very little about but does happen. The final report took another two weeks and declared it SAD due to Hashimoto’s Disease. I tried and tried to get a layman’s explanation of what that meant until I ultimately accepted Allison’s death. I realized that no matter whether I understood the reason or not, it wasn’t going to bring my baby girl back to me.
The bottom line is that although our children were 22 years apart in age, it does not lessen the impact of the loss. But thanks to this site and the many people like yourself who share your stories, I feel I have been able to “heal” just a little bit faster than if I had just kept this to myself.
Thank you,
John
John,
Loss of a child whether 2 months or 22 years is still loss. It falls out of the natural order of life and completely decimates those of us who have been there for some time. Fortunately the heart and soul are not totally decimated, for if they were, we would never love, feel, care, or live ever again. My heart and soul are ripped to shreds right now, but there is still enough left to put them back together enough to keep me going. Not a moment passes that Colin is not in my thoughts, as I am sure it is with Allison. I am sorry that she died far too early and that the hope and promise she represented in no longer physically on this Earth. However, as long as we keep our children’s memories alive by sharing stories, snipits, and feelings about them, they will live on long after it is our time to join them again.
Thanks for your kind words and sharing about Allison.
Warmest regards,
Steven