A while back I was reading a poem by Mary Oliver that said the best instructions for living a beautiful life is to: 

 

I loved this poem and thought a lot about it. But before I apply or share any tools/ideas with my clients and the lifework community, I always try to not only run the concept through light and happy situations, but also challenging ones. On the morning of April 11th, while my husband (Mac) and I were making breakfast, I shared the poem with him wondering if it would still apply if someone was going through something unimaginable. We both felt like it did still apply.

 

Little did I know that that evening we’d be going through the unimaginable.

I was 37 weeks, it was Tuesday, April 11th and I had noticed less fetal movement than normal. I was nervous but also kept telling myself what I had been told: the baby moves less near the end because there is less space in my belly. We also had a doctor's appointment that day and had heard a strong heartbeat which should have eased all of my concerns. 

 

But I just couldn’t help but think something was wrong.

 

I paid attention to my intuition, my baby, and my bump and decided to do a fetal count with Mac.

 

For those of you who don’t know - a fetal count is when you turn off all distractions and sit with your hands on your belly and count how many movements you feel from your baby. 

 

We turned everything off, including the lights, and put both of our hands on my belly. We only counted four in 2 hours. The minute the 2-hour timer rang, I called the emergency line and was at the hospital within 15 mins. 15 mins later, I was rushed to the O.R. for an emergency C-section.

 

My intuition was right. Despite all the signs of normalcy, paying attention… is what saved my daughter’s life (at least for 6 days).

Camille Stevi-Lu Kotack

Born on April 11th,

6.1 pounds,

16 inches,

6 days.

 

The moment Camille entered the world, I was astonished.

Astonished by how much I loved her.

Astonished by how perfect and beautiful she was.

And astonished by our reality.

 

While I was still on the operating table, the doctors told me that my daughter was very unwell, and likely incurred a severe brain injury. 

 

Astonished.

 

The doctors told my husband and I that we wouldn’t know the state of our daughter’s injury until Saturday (72 hours). They told us that although they do not know what the outcome would be, they do know that being with her parents as much as possible was proven to help.

 

After our fit of despair, Mac and I picked ourselves up and saw the opportunity we had right in front of us. We had the present moment. And in that present moment, our daughter was right in front of us. Yes, she was being supported by a ton of machines but she wasn’t in pain, she was breathing, her heart was beating, she was clenching our fingers and moving her toes.

 

We made a promise to each other that we would simply just take it moment by moment, and that we would do our very best not to think beyond the moment (especially 72 hours from then).

 

It’s truly astonishing to live moment by moment.

Thanks to living moment by moment, we were able to shift from fear to love, from anger to gratitude, from weak to brave and strong. It’s why I experienced the best, most painful 6 days of my entire life. Living moment by moment is why I am able to now close my eyes and see my daughter so vividly. It’s why we know every inch of her so well.

 

We had 6 days with my daughter but we had 518,400+ moments. Each moment was more astonishing than the other. Filled with love, pain, sorrow, laughter, love, devastation and so so so so much beauty. And over the course of the 6 days, my astonishment would only grow.

 

I’d be astonished by our health care - how deeply compassionate and incredible our nurses are and how scary and straight up our doctors had to be.

 

Astonished by Mac’s instantaneous love and protection for Camille and how incredibly nurturing, loving and strong he was with both his girls. How he managed to hold me up while also holding my daughter’s hands and little feet at the same time. Astonished by how Camille, was so clearly our love in tangible form.

 

Astonished by our friends and family - how much they immediately loved Camille and how much our pain was their pain. With every phone call and Facetime, we could feel and see their hearts filling and breaking at the same time. 

 

Astonished by our community (lifework included), and how helpful and generous everyone was in trying to alleviate any bit of pain from us.

 

Astonished by the results that came 72 hours later.

Astonished by how quickly Camille’s vitals dropped and how few options and choices we had.

Astonished that the future we had excitedly been preparing for, suddenly vanished.

The life with our daughter we were meant to live, gone.

The stroller, the car seat, the nursery - no purpose, no need, just, gone.

Astonished that on April 17th our little girl left us, and “flew”.

And so now, here I am, only 6 days past Camille’s original due date with no baby to labour, to hold or raise. Just me, my husband and our heavy broken hearts.

 

It’s been 28 days since she was born and 21 days since she “flew”.

 

There’s so much of our story, I feel inclined to “tell about”.

 

I want to tell about how although my daughter isn’t physically here, how much I know her soul is still here. How my husband and I have seen her every day through the sun, the flowers and the trees.

 

I want to tell about my new found view around pregnancy and how it's not jaded, fear based or angry (at all). The only thing I'd do differently in my next pregnancy is take it moment by moment. I will (I’d) get to know the little soul. No matter what happens, I know how special the little souls are, and that no matter how much time they have on earth or in utero, they are here for you to love and get to know and bring into your life. I will not be afraid - nor should anyone be. Trust, love and surrender - that’s all you can really do. Pregnant or not, that’s all we can really do. I will be brave and strong like my little girl taught me, and I will most definitely trust my intuition every step of the way.

 

I want to tell about life after Babyloss. I didn’t think we could survive it. Seriously, both my husband and I thought there was no way we can do this. We can’t go home, we can’t see our friends - who all have newborns at home, we can’t even leave this hospital. But we did go home and we did see our friends, we even held and kissed their babies whom we love deeply. We left the hospital. We have carried on our practice of living moment by moment - and as a result, we are surviving, learning, grieving, and processing. I am only 21 days in so I know I’ve got a long journey ahead of me…but so far, life after Babyloss has been excruciating, enlightening, peaceful, beautiful and filled with sorrow.

 

I want to tell about what’s helped and what hasn’t helped. Both in our own approach but also in our friends and families' approach. Grief is the hardest state to navigate, and the coach in me can’t help but want to do my part in making us a little more emotionally literate when it comes to grief.

 

I want to tell about the trip Mac and I went on to try and start our healing, and the incredible strangers we met who hugged us and held space for our grief and let us tell them all about our daughter. 

 

I want to tell about how despite having faced a cruel circumstance, the universe refuses to let me be mad at it because it keeps meeting me with the kindest, softest people.

 

I want to tell about the hundreds of lessons (and yes, I mean hundreds) of lessons I’ve learned over the last month and how I plan to apply them.

 

I want to tell about the lifework tools I've used to get us through this all, and the few that I’ve realized don’t hold up in painful situations (I am most grappling with manifestation).

 

I want to tell about how although the doctors told us that Camille’s brain injury and birth can be best boiled down to extremely bad luck, we still feel like the luckiest people in the world because we got to know and love our daughter.

 

I want to tell about my daughter Camille.

And in time, I will tell about all of it.

 

But for now, I’ll just end with this:

 

I think Marie Oliver was right. The instructions for a beautiful life really do seem to come down to:

There is no promise that these three simple instructions won’t come with pain, bad luck or grief - in fact, no life really gets a hall pass on any of those things, but I truly do believe that if you pay attention, you will be astonished by how deeply beautiful life really is.

 

So, after a few missed Monday prompts, I’ll leave you with this:

 

PS. Thank you for reading and allowing me to be so vulnerable. If you think this Monday's prompt or Camille’s story would resonate with anyone you know, please feel free to share.