Mary had been on the list to receive the rainbow skirt for several months. Due to an error with Fedex, the skirt did not arrive on time. Mary still wanted to share her story and her beautiful photos.
Dean Michael Collins was born May 2nd 2019. He was so perfect in every way.
After a difficult pregnancy & 36 hour labor that ended up in a C-section he was here and so worth it all. We stayed in the hospital a few days so I could recover from surgery. The doctors told me Dean was healthy and ready to go home but they were worried about my blood pressure still being high. I begged & pleaded to go home, I wanted to start our life as a family of three and recover at home. They let us go.
12 hours later Dean is lifeless in my arms. It was and is still such a blur I remember screaming bloody murder when he wouldn’t move. My husband grabbed him and started performing cpr. I’ll never forget watching my husband give our baby cpr and watching blood/mucus pour out of his nose and mouth. The ambulance seemed to take hours but they were there in about 10 mins.
When we got to the hospital they told us they were able to get his heartbeat back but he was in critical condition. They let me go see him before they brought him to the PICU, my tiny baby was sprawled out on the gurney wires and tubes everywhere his tiny body covered in bruises from IVs and compressions, his little hands tied down because he was intubated.
They didn’t know how long he had been without oxygen but it didn’t look promising. Dean was diagnosed with severe hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. We were told he would never walk/respond to us/talk he would probably always need to be tube feed and have a trach. We decided to sign a DNR and take our baby home on hospice to love him until he told us it was time.
We got to love our baby for a few more days. He passed at home surrounded by our love. Both my husband Michael and I struggled so much after Deans death. He was so loved and so wanted.
We desperately wanted another child not to replace our son but to add to our family. We experienced 2 early miscarriages and a missed miscarriage before doctors realized I had developed Hashimotos. Finally after treating my Hashimotos, we got pregnant with our rainbow baby girl.
Dean’s life may have been short but he left such a lasting impact in all of our lives. We can’t wait to welcome our little rainbow in July 2021, she will know all about her big brother the little baby who left footprints on our hearts.
Photos taken by Adrienne Scott Photography.
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