In the spring of 2013, I moved back to Arizona from New Jersey to restart my life once again.
After a few months of job searching and getting everything somewhat situated, I met a woman named Laurie. She was a total hippie blonde with a lot of traits in a woman I desired. It seemed to be a God send. She was a little rough around the edges as far as her personality went but no one is perfect right? She had been through tons of terrible experiences along with her two little girls being taken by the state because a daycare worker saw a little bruise on one of her girl’s arms and called CPS. Needless to say this woman had been through the thick and thin, through hell and back which took a huge toll on her overall happiness and personality while just turning 30.
We went on seeing each other as much as we could considering we both lived on opposite sides of the valley. Turns out that her and I seemed to be soul mates under the sheets and with personal interests. The passion Laurie and I shared for each other emotionally and intimately was bliss, we never thought there would be an end.
However, dealing with her epilepsy, PTSD, fibromyalgia, bi polar, stress of her two girls being taken, court hearings, CPS visitations the pressure was building up inside her to the point I was her punching bag. At first I didn’t understand, but once she had laid out all the pieces for me, It made sense. So I took a breath, flexed my muscles and let the punching commence. I felt God had put me in this woman’s life to help her and comfort her through her worries and doubts considering no family or friends were doing that for her. I let it go on for months until it started to wear on me and my happiness. The text messages, the emails, the voice mails etc…being filled with so much hate and distrust that I never thought I deserved. I did as much as I possibly could for that woman yet her past and present issues entirely drowned out anything good we had. So we decided to go separate ways and move on.
About a month goes by before I received a very unexpected call from Laurie. It was already a surprise to see her name pop up on my phone but what she had to say, (like any guy getting a random phone call) freaked me out!
She told me that for the past few weeks she had been feeling pregnant and decided to get a test. Lo and behold, she was pregnant with my child. That conversation literally twisted my world in every way possible considering the circumstances. So we went to the doctors and verified everything was good and discussed everything that needed to be done. Laurie already having kids, knew exactly what to do. But with me being freaked out and totally unexperienced in this area, was like a baby learning to walk.
Laurie tried to comfort me and get me to accept everything was truly REAL and very serious but good.
I spent sleepless nights researching and writing my own hand selected information on paper, making my own little handbook for preparing to be a daddy. Some of it gave me comfort, but other information left me scared for dear life. Weeks had gone by and being a Daddy started to sink in and I started to become happy about the idea. Laurie was confident that it was a boy so I started to dig through all my little nephews infant clothes and toys to see if there was anything I might be able to use before actually going out and buying things. Overall, I was getting really excited about it. Laurie and I were doing our normal follow ups making sure everything was still good to go and found out it was a boy. We got to week 20 and went in for an ultra sound and the nurse was acting kind of weird during the whole procedure. Once her work was complete, our doctor had come in to tell us that we just experienced a SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) case and he was deeply sorry for our loss. He said everything was looking good, healthy and on schedule. At that moment, my pupils shrank down to the size of needle tips, my face went ghostly, I started sweating beyond belief, the hairs on my body stood straight up and my mind went blank. I was absolutely speechless. I had gone through that stress, anxiety and then happiness to only lose him? I couldn’t believe it.. At least till the following day when Laurie was then scheduled to give labor to our baby boy.
We slept closely and silently together that night with tears rolling down both our faces in complete shock.
We drove to the emergency room at dawn with absolutely no recollection of the sunrise considering our rain cloud was so big over our heads that morning.
We got Laurie all check in and ready for our soon to be most terrible experience. They had to force induce labor so the process took longer than the actual pregnancy did which was agony!
Once she was dilated enough, the nurses started to pour in and get everything set up for the doctor.
We could see that the nurses were getting a little tense because Laurie was going into labor and the doctor hadn’t arrived yet so Laurie was literally holding him in until she got there. Still no doctor in sight and Laurie said “I can’t hold him in anymore!” So the nurses said “okay, lets do this.” She had already pushed the head out by the time the doctor walked into the room. I had told the nurses and doctor I wasn’t sure I wanted to see my baby boy lifeless on the bed and I would let them know if or when I was ready to see him.
But of course, nothing ever goes as planned and the doctor needed more help holding Laurie’s legs up because the foot rests weren’t high enough and making it more difficult. One nurse was on tool detail, the other nurse was holding her right leg, and guess who was asked to hold the left leg? Me! Yeah, the guy who said he wasn’t sure he wanted to see him yet was given a front row seat to the entire show. If the baby was alive I would love that opportunity, but we were dealing with an automatic tragedy which is more traumatizing. I had tears rolling down my face while in complete shock. The doctor kept asking me if I was ok but I really didn’t have an answer because I wasn’t ok.
Once she saw I was still holding her leg firmly, she knew I was just in mental shock and currently being traumatized so she stopped asking. To see my baby boy who I thought I was going to raise and watch grow- be born and laid on the bed absolutely lifeless was something I will never ever forget. Unfortunately there is only imagery for memory because there were no smiles, no laughs, no hugs, no kisses and no cries to be heard. The room became dark, tears began to run and hours and hours of sleep took place in hopes that it wasn’t real and we would wake up at home like it never happened. Unfortunately, It all was very real, it actually happened, and our lives were forever changed by the experience.
I question why it happened all the time, but I’m a believer in God. And I believe everything has a purpose and a meaning. I’m still not quite sure what the lesson of this was but I have faith that it will be revealed in time.
We had Christopher Truman Hunsicker cremated and placed in a baby urn.
Laurie and I are separated, and she is keeping our baby boy with her.
Thank you for reading my short true story of pain,
Chris Hunsicker
paintopaper.wordpress.com 