About Us
The story behind Leah's Angel Garden
On Sunday, March 13th, 2016, I was downstairs with a good friend of mine when my wife called out that her water broke and we needed to get to the hospital. So my good friend left, and I grabbed our bags, and we went to the hospital. Once we got to the hospital, we checked in, and they showed us to our room where we were going to have our sweet girl delivered. We got all settled in, and the doctors came in, put all the necessary monitors on my wife to monitor her and Leah.
Once we were all settled in, the nurses came in and did the routine checks and told us it would be a while since now Leah was being a little stubborn. We went for walks around the floor for something to do and maybe convince Leah it was time to show her precious face to the world. At around midnight, my wife started to complain about back pain, so the doctors gave her some exercises to help with the pain. They later brought in a fitness ball that she used to sit, bounce, and roll her back on.
At around 2 am, I dozed off on the couch since nothing was really changing. At around 3:30, I woke up, and the doctor came in and gave my wife an epidural. About 30 minutes later, the nurse came in and did another check and said that Leah was ready to show herself to the world. Now, at this point of the night, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary with the monitors. My wife had normal levels, and Leah had normal levels. I remember getting off the couch, stretching my back, and sitting down next to my wife since Leah was only about 5 minutes away.
I sat down by my wife, and about a minute later, I saw blood coming out of her. The monitors went off, the nurses ran into the room, and told my wife to sit up and get on her belly. Next thing I know, they are wheeling her down the hall into the C-section room. I told her I loved her, and my heart fell to my stomach when the doors closed behind her.
About 2 minutes later, I see about 10 nurses running down the hall towards the C-section room. Now, being in the field of emergency response with the fire department, I knew something was wrong. I tried stopping one of the nurses to see what was happening, but they had a job to do, and I respected that. Here I was, all alone in the hallway by myself, not knowing what the hell was going on. Scared, heartbroken, and nervous. Will someone please tell me what's going on!!??
Finally, after 15 minutes, one of the nurses came out, and I asked her what was going on. She said that Mom was doing fine but they were working on Leah. When the doors opened up, I could hear the monitors, and the buzzing and beeping wasn't good. I knew in my gut that we just lost our little Leah.
About 30 minutes after the nurse came out, our family doctor, whom my wife actually worked with, told me that Leah had passed away. We both hugged each other and cried for what had happened. I asked him if I could see them, and he said, "give me 5 minutes to make sure the room is cleaned up".
About 5 minutes went by, and I opened the door to the room; it looked like someone got murdered in that room. There was blood, towels, and medical equipment everywhere. I right away went to my wife, and we both cried and held each other. It was so quiet in that room that day, no baby cries.
After I hugged my wife, I went and saw our little Angel, Leah. You guys, she was so beautiful, nothing was wrong with her, she had all her toes, her fingers, and that pretty little face that I will never forget. We asked the doctor what had happened, and he told us that we had a very rare thing happen to us, placenta abruption, which means the placenta completely separated from my wife, and Leah basically bled out inside the womb.
Now, on a silver lining, the doctor told us that if this would have happened anywhere else but where it happened, my wife would have died and I would have lost both of them that day. So in her honor we started Leah's Angel Garden to cherish the short time on this earth we shared together and to keep her spirit and memory alive.
