Honoring Paige’s Birthday: Gift a Cenotaph Cradle

This is the story of a girl.

A girl with bright blue eyes and blonde hair. A girl who would start Kindergarten in 2028 and graduate from high school in 2041. A strong girl, and a kind girl, one who would have grown up knowing and feeling the love of her family, as well as the kindness, stubbornness, and silliness of her siblings. She would have been brave, confident but humble, she would have been funny, witty, and smart.

This is the story of a girl who was lost, who was born silent and still. A girl who would be thought about in “what ifs” and spoken about in “would be’s.” Forever.

I typed the above into the notes on my phone on November 15th, 2022. Just 10 days after Paige’s birth. 10 days after we had said hello and goodbye to her all in the same breath.

I’ve read and re-read it countless times to myself in moments of silence and stillness. I’ve cried, I’ve cringed, I am brought right back to the turmoil, to those dark and grief-ridden days and minutes that only some will ever understand.

I read these words now, almost a year later, after weeks and weeks of intensive therapy, after some of the hardest, most painful, and deepest work I have ever had to do and I can finally see these words through a different lens.

While Paige will never grow up, she will never start Kindergarten, nor graduate high school, she did know and feel the love of her family, and only ever felt love, in its most purest form. She did, in fact, know the kindness, stubbornness, and silliness, of her siblings, when they sang to her, kissed her through my giant pregnant belly, or fed her waffles by sharing with me.

She was, and is, in fact, one of the bravest and strongest people I know. At the end, she knew Kurt and I couldn’t make the decision to force her to leave us on our own, so she made that decision herself. She held on so that we could see her and hold her and bring her into the world only to say hello and goodbye. She did, and does, have that beautiful blonde hair and those bright blue eyes and will have those, and her daddy’s toes, forever. She is not, in fact, lost. She is very much a part of me, a part of us, and will forever be.

We were only given a short time with our Paige and she was handed to Kurt and I on ice. Whidbey Health does not have a Cenotaph cooling cradle and I would love to gift one to them in honor of Paige’s first birthday.

Dr. Williams, the labor and delivery nurses, the nurses at Whidbey Women’s, as well as the kid’s previous pediatrician, Dr. Gladstone, have carried our family through some of our darkest days and I would love to give back to them and honor Paige while doing so.

Please consider donating so that another family can be given as much time as they would like, up to seven days, to say goodbye to their babies.

Please see the link below on more information about the cradle.

https://www.cenotaphproducts.com