"Gabby's not breathing!" - Those were the three words that changed my life forever... on the morning of November 2, 2003, we woke up without any idea of how the day's events were going to have such a huge impact on our once perfect little family. Little did we know that as we lay asleep in bed earlier that morning, our precious Gabryelle Jennise was already dead, peacefully asleep next to my mother...

At around 9:30 pm the night before, Glenn and I were at my mom's house in Vallejo, dropping off Gabby. Gennesys was already at my Grandma's apartment, and my mom's house was our last stop before heading to Fairfield for our friend's going away party. My mom was so excited to see Gabby. She had gained so much weight since the last time my mom saw her, and her behavior was more playful. Gabby was much more responsive to our smiles and baby-talk, and the delight of playing with her was an epidemic. My mom took her out of her carseat... "Oh my gosh you're so fat! Look at my pretty-pretty baby!" I remember my mom smothering Gabby with smelly-kisses and playfully biting her cheeks. Gabby smiled and cooed back, obviously enjoying the attention. Glenn and I took turns giving Gabby kisses and hugs goodbye. Little did we know that the goodbye hugs and kisses we gave her that night were for good. I had no idea that this was the last time I would ever see my baby alive again, the last time I would ever look at her with her eyes open, staring intently back at me. If only I had known, I would have taken her in my arms right then and there, I would have held her from that moment on until the very next day when people at the hospital had to pry my arms open to remove her lifeless blue body out of my tight embrace... I kept telling myself that over and over again... "If only..." The words I manifested in my brain to follow that phrase came in all different types, from sane to crazy... "If only I called my mom early that morning... If only we picked up Gabby that night... If only I were a better mother... If only God took me instead..." This was just the beginning of my downward spiral into the blackened world that is grief...

We received a frantic phone call from my mother the next morning around 9 o'clock. She had woken up to find Gabby next to her, pale and breathless. She called 911 and then us. Glenn and I couldn't believe it... our daughter wasn't breathing? Were we dreaming? The lightning-speed drive to the hospital was a complete blur to me... as tears streamed down my face I just kept praying to God not to take my baby. I was telling Glenn how to get to the hospital but it may as well have been somebody else talking because all I remember was praying, clutching the rosary around my neck so hard that my knuckles turned white. I still had hope, I kept telling myself that everything was going to be alright... my hope burned as bright as the flame of those big Easter candles in church, and I just kept remembering my faith. We burst through the doors of the ER of Sutter Solano medical center at exactly 9:12am. "We're the parents of a baby girl that was brought here, she wasn't breathing! Where is she?!" The lady at the window called a nurse, who then came out and took my hand. "Oh no, she's holding my hand" I thought as she led us to the chapel. "Oh shit she's taking us to the chapel..." the flame that represented my hope from before, once so bright, had then reduced to that of a baptism candle, and as the nurse spoke to me I felt the flame grow weaker and weaker, the light that was my hope grew dimmer and dimmer. "Your daughter's heart stopped beating, but they're working on her sweetie, they're working on her." Working on her? I couldn't put the two together... the image of Gabby's sweet little face with that horrid phrase.. I couldn't believe what was happening. Then, in the hallway, I saw a man in a white coat making his way towards the chapel, towards us. I knew it was the doctor. My heart sank to my feet, and my little flame of hope became a mere flicker of a lone birthday candle. I felt the nurse's grip on my hand tighten, and my grip on Glenn's hand tightened in sequence. The doctor sat down and turned to face me..."We did everything we could..." Was it this doctor's birthday? Because with those simple words, he blew my candle out.

The moments that followed smacked us in the face so hard and so fast that we didn't know what hit us. A part of me died that instant. I screamed. I cried. I screamed again. I collapsed into Glenn's lap. I remember punching the couch in the chapel. For a brief two seconds I was a raving lunatic. I was a psychotic bitch. I wanted to kill the doctor. I wanted to strangle the nurse for her false comfort. I wanted to gun down each and every hospital personnel in the ER who didn't succeed in saving my daughter's life. I wanted to poison the paramedics for not driving faster. I even wanted to hate God. After those temporary seconds of insanity, I managed to muster up one little sentence..."Can we see her?" The nurse prepared us for what we were about to see, but it wasn't enough. She told us Gabby would be very pale. She would be in nothing but her diaper. She would have a tube sticking out of her mouth and blood trickling out of her heel from the IV. I didn't care about what she was saying, because to me everything basically translated into "she looks dead." As we were led to Gabby's room, I just kept picturing Gabby as I had left her the night before, eyes wide open, cheeks rosy and skin pink... ALIVE. But what I saw when we entered the room was so beyond my breach of reality that I had reverted back into the psycho I was in the chapel. Gabby laid there on the hospital gurney with a white sheet wrapped around her. I couldn't believe that this was my baby, DEAD. I could see the same disbelief in Glenn's teary eyes, and to see him cry only made me cry more. I picked her up in my arms and held her close to my face... she wasn't cold at all. Her body wasn't stiff, and she wasn't blue. As I stared at her longer, I brought myself to believe for a few moments that she wasn't dead, she was just sleeping. Besides her skin being a little pale, she looked like she was just asleep. My little glimmer of false hope would only be reinforced by the sounds that came out of the tube in her mouth. Only later did I realize that the sounds were made from air forced out of her lungs each time Glenn or I squeezed her in our tight embrace. Those few moments of me in my fantasy world quickly vanished as our family and friends joined us in the ER, crying at the sight of Gabby. I just kept thinking to myself "WAKE UP!" I wanted somebody to pinch me. I wanted somebody to smack me. That's all I thought about for the whole 4 or 5 hours that we were there at the hospital, even throughout her "baptism", if that's what you want to call having tap water from a styrofoam cup marked on your forehead in the sign of the cross by some chaplain wearing a sweater and jeans. The police questioning is a blur to me. My answers came out of my numb body like a robot. I answered those questions with Gabby still in my arms. The only time she wasn't in my arms was when she was in Glenn's or our family's arms, or when the coroner had to take pictures of her. The fact that I was still able to hold her in my arms was postponing my realization that she was really gone. But that realization slowly came onto me as the hours passed, because Gabby began to change... her skin was turning blue... her face was beginning to look splotchy... her fingers, only a few hours ago still able to be opened so that I could put my finger in her hand, were now so stiff that they remained clutched in a tight fist despite my desperate efforts to pry them open again. When I put Gabby down on the bed, her arms stayed up in the air... reality struck me like a gunshot and I broke down. I didn't want to let her go. I realized that she was really gone. I wanted someone to kill me so I could be with her forever. I became oblivious to the chaos that was going on around me, my family begging me to let her go, the hospital staff hurrying to shuffle everyone out of the room, the police anxiously waiting to take Gabby's body... my baby was gone, and there was nothing that we could do about it.

The days that followed had my emotions going like a rollercoaster; I was up, I was down... we laid Gabby to rest on November 7, 2003. The days of her viewing and her funeral were filled with mixed feelings. I thank God for blessing us with our family, because without them we would have never been able to plan her services. Glenn and I were still so shocked by the whole thing. On top of dealing with the sudden death of our little baby, now we had to plan her funeral? Everything was happening so fast. The few days directly following Gabby's death were torture for me and Glenn because we didn't know where she was. I mean, we knew she was at the coroner's office getting her autopsy done, but it didn't matter because wherever she was, she wasn't with US. Our anxiety was calmed a little when we received the call from the mortuary saying that Gabby was there, being prepared for her viewing. The little ease that we felt from that phone call quickly turned into grief once again when we saw Gabby for the first time since the hospital. She looked nothing like she did when she was alive. I wanted her picture next to her casket instead of outside at the door of the chapel because I wanted people to remember her by how she looked in her picture, not by the way she looked in her casket. I just kept reminding myself that it was only her body that we were looking at, only the vessel that carried who she truly was. We became temporarily comforted that day and the next, knowing that we could still see her. Being around her body during the viewing days had again put me in a fantasy world where Gabby was just "sleeping". But on the day of her funeral, when we were granted our last goodbyes before they closed the casket, I realized again that she was really gone. Even though it was the second time that reality had struck me like that, it still stung me with the same painful intensity as it had at the hospital. But a few things happened that day that reassured me... I was left somewhat uplifted and calmed by her death... because that day God showed me signs that Gabby was alright. It had been raining, and it was supposed to for the rest of the week, but as we carried Gabby's casket to the limo to be brought to the church, the rain stopped, and it stopped for the whole duration of Gabby's service. While sitting in the limo, with Gabby in Glenn's and my lap, I looked up at the sky. The sun was shining brightly between two gray clouds, its rays finding solace directly on our limo. The sun had never looked so bright to me before. During the mass, as the priest was giving his sermon, a bright ray of sunlight shined through the stained glass and cast it's great illumination right onto Gabby's casket. I thought for a second that my eyes were deceiving me, but later on I learned that a lot of people at the mass saw the same thing. Out of nowhere, a ray of sunshine came into the church, and of all places it could have shined, it chose to shine on our baby. I knew it was a sign from God, that Gabby was safe in His arms. Even though I completely broke down when they put her in her tomb, those signs remained in my head, and they still reassure me whenever I doubt my faith. Gabby was smiling from heaven... I know it in my heart that it was her, because her smile was definitely radiant enough to brighten even the grayest of skies.

Gabby died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS. She was 1 month and 29 days old. Her autopsy revealed that she was well cared for. She was a perfectly healthy baby and there was no explanation for her death. She had the sniffles a little, but that was ruled out as a possible cause. Around 2:30 that morning, my mom had fed her and tried to put her to sleep, but she was really cranky. My mom said that Gabby was really fussy, but at about 4:30 she finally fell asleep. Sometime between then and 8:45 am when my mom woke up, Gabby stopped breathing in her sleep. She died peacefully and didn't suffer one bit. Reflecting now on Gabby's death, I realize that she was, or IS, an angel. She will always live through our memories of her, and her spirit will remain with us forever. Although a piece of me died with her, I live now for my older daughter Gennesys and for my fiance' Glenn. They, along with enormous support from family and friends, are what keep me going. Her presence is still felt by us all, and it is reassuring to know that she is watching us from above. I don't blame God at all... actually I thank Him for giving us the privilege of having Gabby in our lives, even if for only a short time. I believe that God brings people into your life to teach you something valuable. If someone steals from you, it teaches you not to take anything for granted, because it can be taken away at any given moment. If someone says something bad about you, it teaches you to keep your head up because only you know who you truly are, other people's opinions are just that - opinions. Not facts. I believe Gabby was brought into my life to teach me about being strong, but most importantly about realizing how strong I already was. After grieving, I gathered my thoughts together and re-evaluated what I had just gone through and realized that I was still standing. Even though it had felt like the world ended when I lost her, I realized that it had not. I still had my other daughter to live for, I still had a wonderful man who loved me, I still had the enormous love and support from my family and friends. But most of all, I still had my faith. All this made me look at things more positively, and I use this positive attitude in every aspect of my life, especially my job. People ask me all the time how I can be around moms and their newborn babies, why I chose to work in that department, and my answer for them is this - because I love it. I love to help people. I love being a mother. I love babies. So what job could be better for me than helping moms and babies? Knowing that I can be around them reinforces my strength. Though it can be tough at times, I wouldn't change it for the world. Being a mother is the BEST experience, and sharing the joy of it with other moms is a pleasure in itself. Of course I don't tell my patients about what happened to Gabby, I don't want to scare them. I'd feel horrible knowing that I sent them home all paranoid and anxious. But when they ask me if I have any children, I always say that I have 2. Because I DO. Gabby will forever be a part of me, she will always be my second child no matter how many I have after her. Even though she isn't with me physically, she is still here... in my heart, in my mind, and definitely in my soul. I can still feel her presence. I can still smell her scent on the clothes that she last wore. I still cry uncontrollably at times, but that's only because I miss the physical part of her being. My arms still ache to hold her. My eyes long to see her smiling face in front of me. My ears miss hearing the sound of her cooing, even the sound of her silent laughter if that makes any sense. I miss smelling that sweet baby scent that lingers long after a bath, that scent that all babies have but are told apart only by their mothers. But the tears slowly stop streaming down my face when I realize that I can still have these things, all I have to do is close my eyes and remember. Even though it's not the same as the real thing, it's only temporary, because I'll get the chance to have it for real someday. Until then I'm content with remembering her how she was and envisioning her how she is now - an angel in Heaven. Her clothes are still in her drawers, even the dirty ones with poop and spit-up. Her crib is still set up in our room. I still haven't washed the last bottle she drank out of while she was home... only time can determine when I'll be ready.. But I think that in the short time that has passed since her death, I have come a long way. Gabby made me a stronger person. She made me and Glenn a stronger couple and made us realize that there is truly nobody else in this world we should be with other than each other. She taught Gennesys how to love a sibling. Instead of remembering November 2nd as the day Gabby died, I choose to remember it as the day Gabby flew... I will always hurt knowing that Gabby will never be with us again physically, but at the same time I relish in the joy of knowing that when I die I will be able to hold my baby in my arms once again, and when that moment comes, I am NEVER letting her go...



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