Goodnight Nudge...

For the last several months on one of my loss groups, I've been watching Tamara.

She'd already been through losses before. She was pregnant with Nicholas, affectionately named "Nudge". Nudge had renal agenosis. This meant he had no kidneys, and therefore no amniotic fluid, which meant his lungs would never develop. Her doctors gave her the option to terminate several times, and kept telling her it would be easier, that she could just get it over with and start again...

But she wanted Nudge, not some new baby.

She held on despite her doctors telling her she should just terminate and move on. It's not an easy process to decide to terminate. It's even harder when you decide not to, because so many people second-guess you, tell you that you should just be done with it.

She stood up to them with a grace and courage I don't know I could have done.

She finally found another doctor who while agreeing Nudge wouldn't survive outside the womb, understood exactly why she was choosing not to terminate, and why she chose to hold on to him for as long as possible.

Yesterday she went into labor. At 5:17pm Nudge was born. And at 7:24pm, he departed this world. Tamara and her husband bathed him and wrapped him in a blanket, and he cooed and held their hands for two hours until he passed away in his mother's arms.

There is no harder decision to have to make. Either way, it wouldn't be easy. But she stood up to her doctors and said she would continue for as long as he had life.

Courage like that is hard to find.