Ivy Heart Memorial

One year. 365 days. An entire lifetime to go. 

Today marks one year since we said goodbye to our girl. I’ve sat down to write this a million times. Thought about what I could say to best honor this past year, honor our girl. The words come at me a million miles an hour, but yet when I try to put it together, it’s impossible. Today I will tell you the story of the moments leading up to Ivy’s death, and a few important things that happened following. 

Ivy was suppose to have a life saving heart surgery on December 5, 2022. We spent all day the fourth loving her up, but couldn’t seem to keep her stable that afternoon. She finally stabilized and we had an uneventful night. Austin and I both held her until about 11pm on the 4th just giving her all of our love before what we thought would be sending her away to open heart surgery at 7AM. 

We were awoken an hour later to nurses, doctors, everyone rushing into her room. Fully sedated her heart rate was somewhere in the 200’s. They tried everything to get her stable again. So many pricks  and pokes, tests ran, and a few times having to fully bag her to bring her back to us that night. This lasted somewhere between 4-5 hours. Around 5am we finally all drifted back to sleep in the hospital room. I asked the Dr. “would Ivy still be able to have open heart surgery today?” Before falling asleep. She told me the surgeon had been up all night watching everything and getting updates, and to get some shut eye. 

I already knew the answer was no. I knew my girl was ready to stop fighting, that putting her little 4.5lb body through a 12 hour surgery was no longer the best choice for her. She looked at me earlier that night, eyes wide open with a look only a mother would know. She was done fighting. 

We slept about an hour and woke up to hold that little hand of hers. The anesthesiologist came in to talk about the surgery. But Ivy’s Dr. came in and interrupted to speak to us alone. The surgeon, and entire medical team no longer felt Ivy would make it through surgery. Ivy had already told us this overnight. 

So, the morning of December 5th, instead of sending out updates of Ivy’s surgery, we called our families to come meet our girl and ultimately tell her goodbye the same day. I held her the entire day as everyone trickled in, said hi, gave kisses, hugs, and everything in between. We finally said goodbye to our family and took our time loving up our girl. 

Ivy’s cords were all pulled a little after 4pm. She gave us 11 beautiful hours of snuggles before taking her last breath the early morning of December 6. We had a bed in the hospital room that was just big enough to fit Austin, Ivy and me. Around 3am, I had jumped out of bed to pump some milk for relief. Ivy’s little body had grown stiff, breathing had slowed, and we knew her time was close. I crawled back next to her until she was laying in both me and her daddies arms, so snuggled in. We told her one last time how much we loved her, how proud of her we were, how everything was going to be okay, and that there were so many more family members waiting to meet her. Then we all three drifted off to sleep together, Ivy forever. The doctor woke us up shortly after falling asleep to call time of death. I really believe our girl waited to go peacefully until she was snuggled in the middle of us, safely in her mommy and daddies arms. 

I can’t tell you much about the days/weeks that followed. I’m not sure how the days kept coming, when time felt like it had come to a stop. There were two very important things said after her passing that have stuck with me since. 

The first was at her funeral when Pastor Linda said “there is no greater loss then the loss of a child” Those words stung, but I felt like for the first time in a week someone had understood what we were going through. Whenever times have been hard this last year, it’s allowed us to give ourselves grace. Know that losing Ivy will always be our biggest loss. 

The second was said a day or two after Ivy had passed away. I was in her nursery, not sure what I was doing, smelling her blankets, organizing her papers, just anything to feel close to her, when a friend came by. I fell into her arms when she walked into Ivy’s room and cried. She didn’t say “I’m sorry” “you’re so strong” she instead sat down on the floor with me and said “do you want to talk about her” 

Do I want to talk about her? That’s all I wanted to do. There were so many days this past year when I felt like bringing Ivy up would make people sad, but those words have sat in my head for almost an entire year “do you want to talk about her” 

So yes, we want to continue to talk about Ivy. We want to continue to bring awareness to infant loss, to CHD children. We want to help people. And when we help people we want them to know, this family helped us all because of a tiny peanut named Ivy. 

Ivy you will forever be talked about. We will never stop sharing your story, your photos, or everything about your life. This Non-profit is for you. And we love that because of you, we get to help so many people. 

Fly high my little girl. One entire year, but it feels like yesterday. We miss you so incredibly much 🤍