A Picnic

Elyssa is all about cake at birthday parties, and last year she declared that Mia had to have cake at her birthday;thus the tradition of the cemetary birthday picnic began. Elyssa and I picked out flowers. It took a while but we finally decided on two pink ones (since Mia would be two) surrounded by a dozen white. The only hitch of the day came when I was at Kroger trying to pick up balloons. All I needed was one mylar and two basic pink balloons. Well...the poor kid trying to inflate them had absolutely NO idea what he was doing. He tried getting help and the helper was at a loss, too. Finally about 15 minutes later, he managed to get a balloon started. The girl was putting the strings on and commented that the pink ones weren't the same size. At this point, Tony has called and is home, I am standing with a cart of groceries, a six year old who struggles when staying in one place to long, holding a baby who is ready to go home. I assure her it is not a problem, hoping they can finish up asap. Finally the mylar balloon is done and the guy hands them to me and tells me there will be no charge for the two pink balloons. After 20 minutes of waiting, I would certainly hope not!

So I am already flustered by the day and the delay only adds to the stress. We make it out to the cemetary and ...(drum roll)... not even a full minute has passed before one of her two pink balloons pop. I could have been really upset at this point, but decided it was better to laugh it off and be content with letting one balloon go instead of two. Silly the things we let cause us stress!
I was excited that we actually managed to get the candle lit with a quite a bit of hard work on Tony's part. As soon as we pulled the lid I snapped a quick photo before the wind blew it out. I know it is completely irrational, but I have come to appreciate the wind on our picnics. It allows me to imagine Mia herself blowing out her birthday candle.

For those of you reading this blog and wondering what happened to Mia, I'll take a moment to fill you in. She was born on July 7th, 2006 right on time and without any complications. We were home less than 24 hours later. She was the sweetest and best behaved baby you can imagine. By 4 weeks, she was sleeping through the night upstairs in her crib. I would put her to bed at 9 and she would sleep until about 5:30. On Monday, September 11, we went for her two month check-up. She had a bit of a cold, but other than that she received an A+. The next morning she woke up as usual. I went up and fed her. Most days she went right back to sleep, but that morning she spit up and I had to change her clothes. I spent about an hour holding her and talking to her before putting her back down. I mentally noted how beautiful she was becoming now that her hair was finally starting to grow in. At 9:00, the two pre-schoolers I kept showed up. Mia had been awake for a few hours, had her breathing treatment, and was ready for her morning nap. I put her in bed and took the kids to the playroom to begin our lessons. Around 9:30 Mia cried out and my life changed forever. I picked her up and immediately knew that something was wrong. As I rushed down the stairs her body tightened up and began to turn a pale blue. I immediately dialed 911 and carried her to my neighbors house. She had the phone, I was doing CPR, and the three 4 year olds stood watching this take place. By the time the ambulence arrived I was a wreck. The EMT took her from my arms and carried her to the ambulence. I stood there on the street watching as he cut off her clothes and began working on her. They would not let me in, so I sat down on the curb and began making phone calls. Everyone tried to be encouraging, but in my heart I believe I already knew how the day was going to end. They hadn't seen what I had seen. The white fluid that came out of her while I was doing CPR could not have been a good sign. I believe she was already on her way to heaven, being held in Jesus' arms...taken so she would not have to go through the pain of the rest of that horrible day. She was careflighted from our local hospital to Children's Medical Center. Upon my arrival (Tony flew with her), I was taken to a private waiting room. The doctor did not pull any punches. He said that her heart was enlarged and the outlook was not good at all. I spent the rest of the day watching her as they worked. It was awful, but I couldn't bear to leave her side. Viral Myocharditis was the cause. It has something to do with the body turning on itself instead of attacking the virus. I still don't understand much about it, but from what I can tell, even the doctors don't know much and definitley don't know why. We were told that there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it. Mia continued to digress throughout the day and finally we made the life altering decision to let her go. There was nothing else to be done. All the wires were unhooked and I sat a chair, holding my baby girl as she died in my arms. I will never forget the doctor leaning over and whispering in my ear that she was gone. We were surrounded by a room full of our closest friends and family, but at that moment it was just her and me. Everything else from that point forward is still mostly a blur...