(This is a guest blog from Jessica about her daughter Kenzi. Thanks for sharing this with us, Jessica!)
Kenzi was stillborn January 23, 2007 when I was six months pregnant. During my pregnancy I envisioned how wonderful it would be to have Bailey, our oldest daughter, and Kenzi playing together. They would have so much fun and Bailey was very excited to have a baby sister on the way. Christmastime is a favorite holiday of mine and during 2006 my husband and I discussed how in 2007 we would have double the number of baby dolls and toys under the Christmas tree.
Our dreams and hopes were shattered when I realized Kenzi was not moving and my worst fear was realized, Kenzi had died.
After giving birth to Kenzi and seeing how beautiful she was, I knew that she had changed me forever.
Kenzi looked just like her big sister Bailey even though she was so tiny.
As the holiday season approached, I was often reminded of my hopes and dreams for the year before and Kenzi would have been getting her first baby doll at Christmas. Rather than drowning in my grief, I decided to honor her and her memory in the best way that I could. I created Dolls for Daughters.
I knew I was fortunate enough to be able to buy new dolls for my daughters but as the holiday season approached, I realized other parents may not be able to.
Thus the beginning of my most rewarding holiday season ever.
Here is the blog that I wrote on my website for her 3rd birthday. It tells “our” story..
Happy 3rd Birthday my sweet little girl! Today is the day you were born sleeping. There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of you and my heart does not ache for you. Today I as I do many days, I am wondering what would Kenzi be doing? Would she love dolls as much her big sister or would she love to rock out with music as much as her little brother. I wonder who she would look like and how she would amaze me as her siblings do. What would she want for her third birthday and what kind of party would she want to have?
I know my life would be totally different if Kenzi were here but that does not change the fact that the day she died three years ago a part of me died too. I will never forget the day that I knew I had lost Kenzi. I will never forget the image on the ultrasound machine that confirmed that Kenzi was in fact gone. My screams and cries were from the depth of my soul. A cry that I never knew was possible that became pain I never knew was possible. I cried for my baby girl, for myself, for what was lost. I learned that day what true, immeasurable pain was.
When I found out I was pregnant I was so excited! I could not wait to bring another child into this world and have Bailey become a big sister. From the moment I found out I was pregnant I was convinced that I was having a boy. I had my girl and I told everyone that Kenzi was a boy. I was wrong. At my 20 week ultrasound when the technician told me that I was in fact having a girl I was in total shock! During the rest of my ultrasound no mention was made of any problems with my pregnancy. It was only after when my belly no longer had gel on it, when my husband had gone back to work and I was alone with the doctor in the exam room did my life slowly begin to change. My doctor told me they could not find Kenzi’s lower right arm and he thought I had ABS (amniotic band syndrome). I had no idea what he was telling me and how this news at 20 weeks during my pregnancy would forever alter who I was as a person, who I was as a mother and what I thought of life, God and my relationships. Armed with little information, a huge amount of fear, tears in my eyes and the weight of the world on my shoulders I left his office to return to a high risk OBGYN the next day.
When my husband and I walked in the high risk OBGYN’s office we both hoped and prayed that they were wrong about my pregnancy - that things were okay and we were going to be okay. Our baby, the baby I had been taking care of, the baby I wanted would be okay. Our hopes and prayers were not granted that day or any day in the future when it came to Kenzi. While I was on the ultrasound table with my tummy exposed, warm gel spread around we were told I did suffer from ABS and that Kenzi was missing her lower left arm not her lower right arm. I was also given the news that my sac was compromised and that was a problem as well. However the high risk OBGYN believed that everything would be fine and Kenzi would be born with a missing hand.
Armed with this news, my husband and I both went to our computers to see how we could fix my pregnancy. Not fix Kenzi but make her stay in as long as possible. We had another fear to deal with. My oldest daughter was born premature and I was at risk for that happening again. I contacted a pediatric surgeon who dealt with limb difference and set a time to meet with her. I needed to know how I could make life as normal as possible for Kenzi. I read books on limb differences and I looked I read on the Internet about ABS. What I found scared me. What my husband found was a doctor who saw this more than my doctors did and lived in Philly and worked at CHOPS – Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
From week 20 to week 24 is a huge blur. The days run together. In those four weeks we spent an entire day at CHOPS and were given grave news. The doctor there did not believe for one minute I would carry Kenzi to full term. He did not think I would carry Kenzi past 30 weeks if she made it at all. I had a lot of bands in my sac with her, she was growing and moving but my sac was compromised and not the way it should be. This doctor was honest, brutally honest. We wanted that, we needed that but it was hard to hear.
He told both my husband and I that if Kenzi did not make it that we should hope for the best but prepare for the worst. We needed to think about what we would do if she was born too soon and did not make it or if she were stillborn. He encouraged us to hold her, to take pictures of her and to have an autopsy. I left Philly with a heavy heart and sadness in my life. It hung around like a robe that I could not take off.
When we returned to Denver I was at the doctor more often then I wanted to. Any time I didn’t think Kenzi was moving I was there. I thought I was leaking fluid, I was there. I saw my high risk OBGYN and she said that she believed 100% that Kenzi would make it. She didn’t believe for a minute I would not bring her home.
Then January 22, 2007 arrives and I wake up about 5 am with a hard stomach. I try to tell myself it is nothing. I don’t tell my husband something is wrong as he heads to court for a trial. I don’t tell my Mom who is staying with us. As the morning progresses I decided to “test” Kenzi and I shake my stomach as I have done in the past when I don’t think she is moving as much. I shake and she doesn’t move. I shake some more and I get scared, I start to cry and I pray. I know that one of my prayers has been answered.
Since we found out about Kenzi and my complications, I have been praying to God. I have asked God to take her if he really feels he needs her and not to have me make the choice between keeping her on life support or tubes and letting her go. (This is the God that I believe in and that has helped me through all the times in my life. Despite your religious views, this is how it was for me). I told my Mom we needed to go to the doctor and I called the doctor. The 20 minute drive to the doctor’s office was the longest of my life. I knew, I knew what they would say but I didn’t want to face it.
The moment of truth - I was in the room and the screen didn’t move. Kenzi was gone. My high risk OBGYN could not believe it. I knew she didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. I will never forget having to call my husband’s office and through tears tell his partner to get him out of court that Kenzi had died. She was gone is all I could get out.
The next 24 hours seemed to be in slow motion. I was wheeled over to Littleton Hospital with the hood of my sweater covering my tear stained face. My heart felt as if it had been pulled out of my chest and stomped on. Why me? Why my little girl? At this point I could not change what had happened. I wanted to have Kenzi and I wanted to have her now.
My labor was induced late in the morning/early afternoon. The nurses were very caring and supportive. The minister from the hospital came to visit and could not have been nicer. I was told that I needed to make a choice on what we’d like to do with her body once she was born. Who makes these choices for their infant? I should be picking out clothes and getting her room ready, not deciding what to do with her little body.
Kenzi would be cremated after an autopsy to see if they could tell me what happened to her and why she was taken from me. Could I have done something to save her? Could I have tried harder to keep her “safe”? Those are thoughts that consumed me as I filled out the paperwork with her name, the name of us – her parents. While I waited for my labor to begin that afternoon and evening I would experience waves of tremendous pain, grief, tears. Emotions and feelings that no other person in the room with me could understand. None of them had lost a child; none of them were still carrying their child who would be born sleeping.
As the contractions become stronger the nurses tell me that I can get an epidural. At first I say no because in my mind the labor could not be as painful as labor with a full term baby, Kenzi would not be more than two pounds. And the physical pain could not be worse than the emotional pain I was experiencing. However, I was wrong. The labor was just similar to my first and I decided that the epidural would help ease the physical pain but I knew would not even touch the emotional pain. As the night ended, I tried to sleep and couldn’t. I looked around the room and there was my husband, my mother and my aunt. Three amazing people by my side, seeing me in my worst hour, weak, sad, in pain and there was nothing they could do to help. I watched them sleep and wondered what they were thinking and feeling.
My husband was there to see the birth of his second child, his second daughter. A child we wanted, we loved and had to say goodbye to. My mother was there to support me, to meet her fifth grandchild and say goodbye. My aunt was there to see the birth of one of her many nieces, she was also there as a nurse. She would be the one who would take care of Kenzi after she was born. She would give her a bath, create Kenzi’s feet prints, dress her and bring her to me so I could say goodbye.
It was a little after 4 in the morning on January 23, 2007 that I woke everyone in the room and told them it was time. I got the nurse as well. I told her to get the doctor that Kenzi was coming and soon. The nurse told me not to push, I wasn’t pushing and she was coming. My regular OBGYN was barely in the room and ready before Kenzi arrived at 4:26 am. He announced, “It’s a Girl!” To this day I am not sure how I feel about that. I knew it was a girl however I would have to say goodbye and not take her home.
After I was taken care of and Kenzi was out of the room my husband and I waited, we waited to meet our daughter for the first time and to say our goodbyes. What do you say to someone you have loved from day one that will never come home with you? How do you decide how much time is enough when in reality there will never be enough time?
When my aunt brought Kenzi to me I could not believe how little she was. She was a little over 1 pound. A beautiful little angel who was 1 pound 2 ounces. This little one changed my life forever, more than anything ever could. I held her, I cried, I had pictures taken with her. I watched her father hold her and tell her goodbye. I watched her grandmother hold her and tell her goodbye. I held her again, I kissed her, I told her goodbye and I gave my baby, my precious Kenzi back to them to never see again. To never hold again, to never see grow up, to never hear laugh, to never hear cry, to never see go to school, never fall in love, never get married, never have babies, never, never, never.
I could not leave that day. I could not go home because I had an infection that we would later learn caused Kenzi’s to move too much and have a band wrap around her cord, causing her death. She did not suffer. That is the first question I was able to ask four months after I lost her when I spoke to the doctor her did her autopsy. “Did she suffer?” I had to ask, I had to know and he said no. “Could I have done something different to save her?” No was his answer again. The weight of the world fell off my shoulders and the blame left for the most part. I had been blaming myself for Kenzi’s death and now I knew I didn’t cause her to die. I wish I would have known both of us were infected so I could have gotten medication but I didn’t and couldn’t know.
In the three years since Kenzi has passed my life has never been the same. I am not the same person I was on January 21, 2007 and there is no way I could be. I lost a child. It does not matter that she did not take a breath on earth, it does not matter that she did not live a second. She is my child and she is gone. I am the mother of 4 not 3. I have 2 daughters not 1. I want people to understand that it does not matter that she was not born alive, I knew her, I loved her from the moment I knew I was pregnant, I wanted her, I still want her and I love her.
Dolls for Daughters was created in Kenzi’s memory to help me and my grief and to give back. Kenzi taught me a lesson I try to live by everyday – You never know someone’s struggles until you walk step for step, mile for mile in their shoes. Until then do not judge.
Strangers did not know that I had lost a child so they asked me when I was due only to learn I had lost my child. They did not know that when I had my oldest daughter with me that I was a mother of 2 at the time not 1. However they did not know the road I had taken.
The road I have been on since I lost Kenzi has been a challenging yet rewarding one. There are times when I think of Kenzi and I don’t cry and then there are times – like today – when the tears don’t seem to end and that my heart feels like it is being ripped out of me. I am so happy that because of Kenzi over 1800 children have had a toy at the holidays. I am so happy that Kenzi and her memory helped me create Dolls for Daughters and this year will launch Kenzi’s Kidz.
I did not do this alone; I did this with the amazing support of my husband, my children, my family, my friends and total strangers. It is my hope that through Dolls for Daughters others who have lost a child will be moved to give back either through Dolls for Daughters and Kenzi’s Kidz or in some other way. It is also my hope that we help raise awareness for infant loss and that people become aware of how painful it is even if the baby was born sleeping like Kenzi.
I love you Kenzi Bachus!
Love Mommy!
I look forward to seeing the movie. Thank you for sharing and starting the conversation.
Sincerely,
Jessica Bachus
Dolls for Daughters® & Kenzi’s Kidz Founder and Executive Director
www.DollsforDaughters.com
