How Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep gave us a way to remember our daughter

Our daughter, Mia Joy, passed away just two hours after she was born. A placental abruption led to cardiac arrest and shock, and I underwent an emergency C-section. Because of that, I never had the chance to meet her while she was alive.

My husband spent those two hours with her in the NICU. When I woke up from surgery, I knew the moment I saw his face. He told me she was beautiful, that she looked like a little doll. Half him, half me. Then he asked if I wanted to meet her.

I said no.

In that moment, I wanted to hold onto the image I had of her from my ultrasounds, healthy and moving and connected to me. I wasn’t ready to replace that with anything else.

Hours later, with the gentle encouragement of my husband and our nurses, I agreed.

Nothing could have prepared me for that moment.

I was still coming out of surgery, still in shock, still trying to understand what had happened.

And yet, as I looked at her, I had a very specific fear: that I wouldn’t remember her. I was afraid the trauma and anesthesia would blur the details. The way her hair curled around her ear. Her long eyelashes, like her dad’s. The little things that made her ours.