Kyle, Our Guardian Angel

This is the story which my Mommy wrote of how I came into my parents lives and how quickly I had to leave .
****get your tissues out before reading****

It Seems Like a Lifetime
by Joni Anderson (Kyle's Mommy)

This story was written on February 11, 1998
Okay, here goes.  Today, February 11, is the 8th anniversary of my son, Kyle Matthew's death.  Why do I think about it as an anniversary?  Why don't I think about the day he was born instead of the day he died?  Probably because that day was the last day I was ever able to actually hold him without him being stiff as a board, having respiratory seizures, flopping everywhere, and hearing his plea to die (a very small almost cat-like meow cry). I remember the night before he died as if it were yesterday, I was sooo exhausted and he was crying almost constantly, so I would hold him and rock him until he would go back to sleep.  When I would get up, he would start to cry again, so I would sit back down and rock some more.  Finally, I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.  When I got up to go take him to his crib again, I smelled formula, but I know I didn't just get through feeding him.  When I looked to see where the smell was coming from, I noticed dark stains down around his diaper area.  It was diarrhea, but with the smell of formula, not a fecal smell at all.  I rushed to where my husband was sleeping and woke him up and showed him what was wrong.  My husband got up and helped me strip and sponge bathe him as by now he couldn't even stand the touch of water in the bathtub because this too would send him into a seizure.  We got him washed and reclothed and by this time I was fully awake again.  I sat back down into the rocking chair and rocked him back to sleep and again started to feel very exhaustedly tired, so again, I went to put him down in his crib and again, he would start to cry, but  I always feared that if I fell asleep with him in my arms, he would fall out.  I put him down in his crib (face down this time for some reason; usually he couldn't breathe when I did this) and rubbed his back til he was completely asleep. (hold on, I got to grab a tissue).  K.  I tried writing this once before and couldn't finish it for a CF (Compassionate Friends) Newsletter, because of all the emotion.  I've always been one to block it, until here recently I haven't been able to although I have cried so many times before, but not while writing a letter.  Anyway, at that time, I always slept in the family room because that was the warmest part of the house and I was always sooo cold in our bedroom...and I turned on the baby monitor to listen to Kyle's breathing (he didn't breathe like a healthy infant..it was always loud and raspy).

This was around 2:00 a.m. on February 11th, 1990.  I fell into a deep sleep, but around 4:30 a.m. I was awakened with a slight cool air brushing against my neck.  I woke up, went to the baby monitor and didn't hear a thing.  I thought, oh, maybe he just turned and I can't hear him (later I would think of this as his way of saying goodbye)...Daddy will get up for his six o'clock feeding and he will be ok.  I turned off the monitor and went back to the couch and fell back to sleep.  Around 6:00 a.m., Matt got up and went to get Kyle from his crib.  He ran to the family room carrying Kyle with the palest face I ever saw and said, "Joni, I think he's dead."  I calmly said, "Yes, honey I know."  Matt was terrified.  He said, "And you didn't tell me?" I said, "No, because you needed to find him."  I still remember this like it was yesterday.  It was as if I was walking and talking in slow motion...and the words I said were not actually my words at all.  I would never intentionally hurt my husband.  These words were from a whole different source...a source that seemed to feel as if it were outside my body, but yet it was coming from within (GOD was speaking for me, because I could not speak much during the whole time Kyle was alive..just care for him in the best way I knew how for a child in his condition).

Kyle was born on October 12, 1989 after 2 1/2 weeks of labor.  We had already made two trips to the hospital because the doctor would never return our calls when I felt like I could no longer walk...but the doctor said I had not dialated nor effaced and sent me home each time to wait and wait until I would have to be admitted.  I was due to have him September 24, 1989.  I had had sooo many problems during this pregnancy, sinus infections, kidney infections, bladder infections and so forth.  I had had a daughter, Leslie before Kyle in Virginia and didn't have these kinds of problems at all, other than being overdue with her.  I was sooo exhausted that I could hardly move and I had to find some strength to prepare for the labor of Kyle.  The doctor seemed to be treating this pregnancy and delivery as if it were my first child instead of second.  I had asked several times over if Kyle would have to be taken c-section because the sonograms showed I was to deliver a very large headed and large baby.  Leslie was a fairly large baby for me 3 years before this and I had gone through back labor for 14 hours with her before they decided that she would have to be delivered c-section.  This doctor (I had Kyle in Indianapolis, IN) said at the very first visit that my c-section was unneccesary.  How would he know? He wasn't there when all the bells and whistles went off when Leslie's heart-rate would drop every time I pushed and she was also in posterior position.  They didn't have any sonograms at this small hospital I was in in VA..so how would this doctor even know whether or not I needed a

Next

Graphic set on this page was made by Kyle's Mommy and should not be taken without permission as it was made just for the Memory of Kyle!