*there's loss

I was recently writing about how I wasn't sure I wanted to hang out in the online blogging CHD world. At the time I wasn't even thinking about this -  the reality of CHDs is that they cause death. A baby with TOF died this week. He was less than one month old.

Blog after blog I checked had posts of sadness about the loss of Baby Ewan. The online CHD community is grieving today and it's hard to ignore.

To help you understand why some babies with TOF make it and some don't, Ewan's mother gives an excellent description of the range of severity the TOF diagnosis can have. See her October 5th post.

And then I saw this on a blog I've mentioned before. I don't know how to link to the October 3rd post individually so I included my favorite part here:

thump thump

This time, she wanted to sleep in my arms
on my chest
squishing on her binky in my ear
breathing on my neck
relaxing into my arms
It was quiet.
Just us.

And then I felt it.

Her heart beat.
My heart beat.
One on top of the other.
Beating at the same time.

Soon I didn’t know which thump was mine
and which one was hers.
and which one was Jaydens.

And I thought of his mom.
And heart moms.
And moms that lose their children.
And moms that watch their children lose.
And moms that watch their children win.

And soon I didn’t know which heart beat was mine
and which one was theirs.

Baby Ewan and poetry like what you see above are my new reasons to keep blogging about Will.