Ashley's
anencephalic Story

            The next morning I awoke late. I remember the sun coming in the window.  I was deep in contemplation and my own thoughts and lay there just thinking about all the things that had happened over the last 9 months.  My mother-in-law was there and had been there for quite sometime before I awoke. We were going to be leaving the hospital today as long as everything was alright with Pam.  They were still quite concerned about her epidural and she had been having spinal headaches.  They were bothering her somewhat and she had been on a caffeine drip solution to take care of the problem.

Late in the morning, though they finally released her to go home.  We already had most of the stuff together and just had to take it out to the car. So we dragged the content of our personal possessions in that room out to the car

Finally, we had all of the stuff packed into the car and started off towards home.  It was a very lonely ride for us and I don’t believe that we talked a lot.  I think Pam even fell asleep.
When we got home, we didn’t know what to do.  I think we sat around for most of the day talking and taking a nap or two.  What do you do on the day that you come home from the hospital, where you left your first child dead?

We also started talking about having a funeral.  We had also given some consideration to just having a service next to the grave site.  Yet, we wanted to be able to have a service where everyone could express themselves and deal with some of the feelings they were having.
Because of our prior arrangements with the funeral home, I called to tell the funeral director that Ashley had pass away.  He wanted brief details about where she was and also when we would like to have the service.  I wanted to have the service as soon as possible because many relatives would be going back home after the weekend.  He suggested having the viewing on Sunday night and then the Funeral on Monday.  We said that this was fine with us and would work with our plans. And so this was how it was arranged.

I think that we slept pretty good that night because we were so tired.  The next morning we awoke and started planning for the viewing that night.

I don’t remember what else happened that Sunday until we went to the viewing.  I think we just kind of sat around and visited a little bit with relatives. We arrived at the viewing early, because we didn’t want to be late and entered the chapel.  There were lots of flowers all around our little girl and she was in the center of them.  I remember thinking that she didn’t look like herself at all.  She was very bruised during birth so most of her skin was a reddish hue with bruises over most of her face.  The funeral home had done a wonderful job with makeup to give her skin almost a suntanned look.  She reminded me of a brand new doll that didn’t have any scuff marks on her yet.  I know that may sound kind of crude, but that is what she looked like.  She was so beautiful.

For the rest of the night we visited with relatives and didn’t do a whole lot.