To All of You….

I want to say thank you in advance for all of you who have reached out to us over the past months.  Your love and support has been overwhelming, and we have loved being a part of your lives in this small way.  I know that we have been absent for a while, but I can promise you that there has been good reason.  We are at the stage now where we can share with you what has been going on.  This is the hardest news I have had to share, but the hope will be that by sharing it, I reach other parents that have been, or are currently, in the same situation.  Hold onto yourselves, because this is not easy… 

As most of you know, my beautiful wife got pregnant in August of 2011.  After 7 months of trying, we were blessed with an angel.  We received all of your congratulations and support along the way, and we knew that the child that grew inside of her was a shared joy for all of us. 

In early December, we were finally able to determine exactly who was inside Cori’s womb.  We were blessed with a lovely baby girl, and we named her Charlie Monroe Boccumini.  Our life was all planned out:  We were going to be Parents to this perfect little girl, and life was going to unfold naturally along this path. 

Christmas was coming soon, and Cori’s belly was growing fast.  It was going to be our last holiday with only two names on presents under the tree, and we were so excited and thankful for all that this year had brought us.  Unfortunately, life doesn’t always turn out the way one hopes. 

On Thursday, December 22^nd, in her fifth month of pregnancy, Cori began bleeding heavily.  We immediately rushed her to an emergency room.  The nurses looked at Charlie by using an ultrasound machine, and confirmed that she was doing just fine.  Her heartbeat was strong and she was sleeping peacefully in her Mother’s womb.  The bleeding has slowed, and everything seemed normal so they sent us home that night.  Relieved, we went home with the intention of seeing our Dr. in the morning.  We laid our heads down that night, grateful that we still had our baby, and held each other thinking that we were in the clear.  We would give anything to go back to that night, but unfortunately, life doesn’t give you those opportunities.  

On the morning of Friday, December 23^rd, we went to see our Dr.  We explained the incident, and this time, the Dr looked at Cori’s cervix.  She discovered that everything was not all right:  Cori’s cervix has started to open prematurely, and Charlie was at the beginning stages of delivering.  Cori has a condition called “Incompetent (weakened) Cervix”.  The Cervix isn’t strong enough to sustain the weight of pregnancy, and more often, most women have no idea that they have this condition until something like this happens.  What we knew at that moment was that our baby was in danger, and the odds of her surviving were less than 50%. 

We were immediately rushed to the Labor and Delivery unit at UCLA medical center, where they put Cori on inverted bed rest.  The amniotic sac that held Charlie had begun to descend into Cori’s Cervix, and they were hoping that gravity would help it rescind back into the uterus.  Once the sac had rescinded, a specialist was going to perform an emergency cerclage, which means that they were going to sew Cori’s Cervix shut.  After that, Cori would be on bed rest for the rest of her term until Charlie could be taken out safely, a few months down the road.  That was our best shot at saving her, but we needed Cori’s water not to break before the procedure could be performed. 

On Saturday, December 24^th, despite all attempts, Cori’s water broke.  We knew that there was nothing else we could do to save our baby girl.  She was delivering early, and she was too little to survive outside of the womb.  

Cori and I held each other as our world fell apart in that tiny hospital room.  I will never recover from the weight of that moment.  It is burned into me forever:  the pain, the look in Cori’s eyes, the thoughts running through my head, “This can’t be.  I cannot accept this.  But we love her.  We love her so much already.  We can’t say goodbye.” 

The nurses induced labor on my beautiful wife at about 6pm.  Even though we knew what the outcome was going to be, my darling girl had to suffer one more injustice by going through a full delivery to get Charlie out.  I held her hand, not able to take away any of the pain, not able to give her any answers, or explain why we had this thrown upon us.  The bravery it took – the strength – in my wife.  I will never know the extent of what Cori went through that night, but I will always be forever grateful to her for doing it.  

Charlie Monroe Boccumini was born at 9:12pm on Christmas Eve. Our little angel was 13.2 ounces of perfect:  from the tip of her button nose to her perfectly formed toes, she was the spitting image of Cori. I saw my little girl take one small breath of life before she was lifted up to Heaven.  We had been crying for the last 3 days non-stop until she arrived.  Suddenly, a calm came over the room.  The nurse wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to Cori, and we finally came face to face with our sweet girl.  We held her, kissed her incredible little cheeks and hands, and told her how much we loved her and how special she will always be to us.  

On Sunday, December 25^th, at the stroke of midnight, Cori and I held our little girl in our arms, said “Merry Christmas”, and then sadly, but with a promise to see her again sometime in the future, somewhere, we said goodbye.  We didn’t cry the entire time she was with us – just cherished the very miracle she was, and the time we had with her.  She made us mothers, made us a family, and although the ending in this lifetime is a sad one, we carry her with us always until we are reunited. 

Our hearts are shattered, and we are left collecting the tiny pieces of our lives to try and put them back together.  She will always be our missing piece, because she was here and very very real.  While others were celebrating the New Year, we were choosing an urn for our daughter.  The world is dark and unfair, and we are holding each other, trying to get from day to day.  

Although we feel alone in this, Cori and I both know that there are other couples that have experienced this kind of loss.  As painful as it is, we wanted to share this with all of you who have been so invested in our family.  Life is what it is.  Charlie is gone, and Cori and I are left here to try and find a way back to normal.  The journey is a long one… a hard dark road.  We have each other, and it is that fact that makes another day possible. And so we take one more breath, in and out…