We believe that part of Camden’s grace and love for his brother allowed Finn to be born at a time and with enough fight to come home 4 months later. We carry him in our hearts every single day.
Finn and Camden were a long time in the making. After years of trying, work with fertility docs, and a failed IVF implantation, I got pregnant with F&C after a double IVF transfer. It was not an easy pregnancy from the beginning and at 20 weeks we found out that Camden no longer had a heartbeat. It turns out Camden had a genetic condition undetectable via blood test or ultrasound.
After Camden’s death, we were transferred to the high-risk team who monitored me weekly. Immediately after we lost Camden, it was helpful for us to meet with the high risk neonatal team lead by Dr. Harper. We wanted all the answers and information about why/how this happened as well as the reassurance that Finn was going to be okay. The idea of losing another baby was not an option! While there were never any guarantees, the weekly ultrasounds helped give us peace of mind that Finn was still healthy and happy. Michael stayed home from work for a while and we spent a lot of time crying and holding each other in bed. We also worked with a therapist who specialized in loss. She helped us work through how to be both sad for the child we’d never meet while still remaining happy and excited to meet the other. Everything was seemed good, until it wasn’t.
At 24 weeks, I went in to labor due to complications from the loss and was airlifted from Boulder to University of Colorado Health in Aurora. At this point, we made the decision to deliver Camden and hope that Finn could stay nestled inside for as long as possible. To our family, Camden, though we never met him in person, is and was the most selfless being we will ever know. He calmly came in to this world and gave Finn the space to spend a few more days growing inside. We believe that part of Camden’s grace and love for his brother allowed Finn to be born at a time and with enough fight to come home 4 months later. We carry him in our hearts every single day. My family lives close and so they would cook us meals, let us come over and cry, or just hang out. My sister was our filter for the rest of our family and our friends. She relayed the information to friends and relatives about Camden’s passing so that we didn’t have to answer calls or emails. It was easier for us to remove ourselves from day to day life for a while so that we could process our grief. As a baby moon, we had spent a week on Cape Cod riding bikes, eating lobster rolls, dreaming about raising our boys, what their names would be, and how our lives were about to change. That is that last happy memory we have of both boys before life got hard.
And now…
On the anniversary of Camden’s death, we dropped Finn off with my parents and drove up into the mountains to ride bikes. Camden’s ashes were spread in the mountains and we still feel close with him whenever we look west or take a drive up into the mountains. We felt like the best way to commemorate him was to re-create the baby moon where we dreamt of life with two boys. Instead, on the anniversary, we talked about what we thought Camden might have been like. We wondered if he would have looked like Finn and what would his little personality have been. We cried and we thanked him again for giving Finn the chance at life. After the ride, we ordered lobster rolls for us and for my parents and we had a toast for Camden.
