New Beginnings

Like a lot of fellow SIDS parents (or parents who lost their child in their home), my husband and I were no longer able to consider our home our “safe haven”. We felt trapped in a home where we had experienced the most life shattering event, discovering the body of our son, Mason.

In the days that followed Mason’s death, I was shocked to learn that I suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). What I didn’t know, was that this would follow me for months, and possibly forever. Everytime that I reached to open the doorknob to my bedroom, where I found Mason, I was jolted with the most vivid flashbacks of reaching down into his basinette to kiss him and finding him unresponsive.

Even the simple act of walking down the stairs sent me into a full fledged panic as I vividly recounted the seconds following our discovery as I chased my husband out our front door while he carried our sons lifeless body to the car to drive him to the hospital.

These flashbacks happened daily. Multiple times daily at best. Some days, the flashbacks occurred constantly, even without being on the staircase or walking into my bedroom.

After Mason died, everyone told us not to make decisions hastily: “Don’t throw away any of his things”, “Don’t move just because of what happened”, “Give it some time, you’ll get over it”, etc.

Well, I will tell you right now- The basinette/pack and play that we found him in? I took it out to the driveway almost immediately, slammed it onto the ground, and threw it in the trash. Never – EVER – would I be able to put another baby in it after what happened to Mason.

I stayed in that house for 7 months and didn’t sleep. When I say I didn’t sleep, I mean that. I averaged 2-3 hours of a sleep a night, and ATLEAST once a week, I didn’t sleep at all. My husband and I hallucinated frequently in our bedroom, and we lived a life where we were terrified to sleep in our bedroom, frequently sleeping on the couch.

The lack of sleep only made the PTSD and fear worse, and we began checking on our daughters (ages 2 and 6) multiple times a night to make sure they were still alive and breathing. There were many nights where my 2 year old appeared to have a “blue face”… just like Mason did. (I’ve referenced this before as “blue face syndrome”, and I think most parents who see their child dead experience this, atleast once, afterwards.)

My worst “blue face syndrome” incident occured a few months ago while my husband was out and my 2 year old was sleeping. She wasn’t moving. She had her blanket close to her face (only thing she sleeps with, her baby sized blanket and a tiny stuffed Pooh), so I was scared she would smother herself, and I wanted to check on her. The room was dark, and as I picked her up she was limp (because she was sleeping hard)… I lost control. I shook her and started screaming, which scared the living daylights out of her… She had just been in a (no pun intended) “dead sleep”. She spent the rest of her time sleeping in my arms.

It was then that I knew my husband and I had to move. We’d given it 7 months in our house, but it was time to move on.

It was difficult to leave our house. We built the house together as we were planning our wedding. It was the first house we ever owned. We brought home 2 of our 3 children to that house. But what was once our “Home Sweet Home” had turned into our real life “House of Horrors”.

We found our new home immediately. It was the first house we looked at, and I knew quickly it was “the one”. We closed 3 weeks after we saw it for the first time, and we moved in last weekend.

Even sleeping surrounded by boxes, and with our 2 year old’s first night in a “big girl bed”, we slept better than we had in 7 months in our old house. I can safely say we got 8 hours of sleep. No sleeping pills or Benadryl required.

Our 6 year old had been waking up every night following the death of her little brother to check on us. (After all, she went to bed kissing her brother goodnight one evening, and woke up to find that he was gone, and told he died in the middle of the night for no reason). I am proud to say she has only woken up once in the middle of the night in this new house, and only out of excitement for an upcoming sleepover at Grandma’s house.

So, if you are considering looking into moving after a loss.. And don’t know if it’s “the right thing to do”, I just wanted to say- It helped us.

Sure, we miss the house that we lived in with our son and family, but as many people reminded me when I was anxious about the upcoming moving day-

“Your child isn’t a part of the house… Your child is a part of YOU. And will follow you wherever you go. Always.”