Matias’ Story
Matias was born February 11th 2020 at 3:59 pm. The happiest and scariest moment of my life.
He had been diagnosed when I was 5 months pregnant with a congenital heart defect and we knew he had to have open heart surgey within the first few weeks of his birth, so although I was full of joy to meet my first son, I was filled with fear of what was coming in the next few weeks. I was able to have skin to skin before they rushed him to NICU as we were told would happen.
I didn’t get to see him until the next day. He was perfect, everything about him was beautiful and I couldn’t believe that there was something wrong with him when I only saw perfection. We were with him everyday until the day of the surgery in which we were told would be a very risky one.
We cried and pleaded to the doctors to please do everything they could to save my our son. It’s too painful to get into details of what happened but to sum it up he didn’t make it and my worst fear came true.
Looking back now I honestly don’t know how I got through the next months, it was all so painful, having to see his room, having to hear people ask me about him, having to fold his little clothes, having to go home empty handed and with a broken heart and on top of that, weeks later the world was hit with a pandemic and we were quarantined. The pandemic allowed my husband and I to deal with our grief together and at home, it helped me not to have to deal with people at work asking me about him, and it distracted us with what was happening around the world. It was a very difficult time but at least I wasn’t alone, my husband and I have not gone back to work ever since and our jobs have become 100% remote.
Many women or families decide not to have more children after they lose one because it’s too painful and they fear something could go wrong. Not us, we knew we wanted more children, not to take Matias place but to give us a sense of joy and happiness, to have something to look forward to, to be able to share all the love we had in our hearts for Matias.
We waited exactly nine months, and I asked Matías to send me a brother or sister, whatever he thought I needed. I wanted so bad to be pregnant again with Matias´ brother or sister. Nine days after we tried for our rainbow baby I took a pregnancy test because something told me it would be positive and it was. I knew then that Matias had heard me and sent me a baby, our rainbow baby.
She was born on August of 2022, she’s six months old and has changed my world, given me something I thought I would never get back, a little joy in my heart. I still cry over Matias and think about him often, no one will ever take his place but I am 100% sure he wanted this for us. I will never get over this, but I am learning to live with it so I can give the best of me to my rainbow, Julieta.
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