Oliver had been growing and thriving in my womb for 9 months when he made his beautifully peaceful entrance into this world on Tuesday, October 12th, 2021, at 9:43 p.m via vaginal delivery, weighing 5 Lbs and measuring 17 inches long at Shore Medical Center in Somers Point, New Jersey, United States. I was 2 cm dilated at the time I had to deliver Oliver and though I tried to go into labor naturally, it seemed my body wanted to keep Oliver close to me for just a little longer and I had to be induced after 5 hours of trying. Oliver is the baby brother in our family, his big sister was 13 years old at the time he was born and his big brother was 9 years old. Oliver was a perfectly healthy baby boy from the start of my pregnancy,  he was born with his daddy’s cheeks, shoulders and nose and mommy’s eyes and hair. We assigned Oliver the color soft minty green and olive green, and his nursery theme animal is a brown bear. During my pregnancy with Oliver, he loved vegetables, skillet chocolate chip cookies with ice cream, molten chocolate cake, Peruvian rotisserie chicken, going to the lake and river with his siblings, the smell of flowers, listening to music and kissing and cuddling from his four-legged sibling, Carlos. He enjoyed it when we went on adventures with his big brother, Lukas. Oliver was the most well-behaved of all his siblings. At the ultrasound appointments, Oliver was shy when the technician tried taking pictures of his face by kicking her and turning his body to block his little face from the ultrasound machine, but he proudly revealed his gender! He would suck his thumb and was such a sleepy head! Just nine months with Oliver of pure joy and love, feeling him grow and seeing him through the ultrasounds, sharing that experience with his siblings Victoria and Lukas. I felt like the luckiest mom in the world.
Until one day, unbeknownst to me, his umbilical cord tightly wrapped around his neck twice which caused cord compressions and the blockage of oxygen from his placenta through his umbilical cord into his brain, causing hypoxia that ultimately ended in a fetal-maternal hemorrhage. During a routine prenatal ultrasound, I  heard those four words uttered by the ultrasound technician that forever changed my  life and the lives of those around me, “there is no heartbeat.” After hearing those words, my  entire world crumbled to pieces, and since then, it has never been the same on so many levels. Later I understood that the least thing our Oliver deserves is that I ignore my grief by pushing it aside, so it is okay that my world is not the same, it will never be the same. It should never be and that is okay. I need to look and hold on to the pain in order to heal and move forward with him by my side and in his name. I need to do the work to heal. And that is how and why I am writing this now. 
The ultrasound facility was just across Shore Medical Center where I had planned to deliver Oliver. The doctor ordered for me to be wheeled to labor and delivery in an attempt to get me mentally stable. Weeks after the event, I read in my discharge notes he had written “patient is dysphoric.” To be honest, all that happened that day is still a blur in my memories. I was not only upset that Oliver was no longer alive. I was upset about how I would have to break the news to his siblings. When I was given this horrible news, I felt I did not only lose Oliver but my other children as well, hence the doctor agreeing for me to go home that night to simply hug Oliver’s siblings. Something I had needed to do since I was given this news. Hold, kiss and smell my Victoria and Lukas. I felt I had failed all of my children. I felt I had failed as a mother. A job that I take high pride in. A job I would never trade for the world. When we arrived back home that night to an empty bassinet and freshly washed newborn clothes and so many other baby gear, all ready for his arrival from the hospital was tremendously painful. Facing Oliver’s siblings that night was one of the hardest things I had to do in my life. 
The doctor recommended against me driving in my state of mind. I had originally arrived there in my own car for my routine ultrasound, but I had to wait at the hospital to be picked up by my husband to go home. While waiting on a sofa in a maternity room where I would be delivering Oliver the next day, I had an out of body experience where I saw myself sitting on that sofa. I remembered turning to see myself and feeling so sad for that person (me) I saw who was clearly suffering and will suffer a lot more in the days to come. I walked towards the door and simply waved to my body. I immediately called my husband who was driving from work which was a 2 hour long drive, telling him I had died and could not understand why aren’t the doctors rushing to my room. I thought it may have been a cardiac arrest  because I had read in NDE (near death experience)  stories that when these people die they saw themselves leaving their bodies and that was exactly what I had seen. Everything looked so real, I knew I was not dreaming or hallucinating. My husband insisted I was fine or I would not be talking to him on the phone. To this day I don’t quite understand what happened to me that night other than part of me left that hospital room. After this out of body experience I had forgotten many events of my past, my memory has never been the same, I had always prided myself for having such a sharp memory. Chunks of my memories about my life are missing. I may never understand where that part of me went or what exactly happened that night at the maternity room. Part of me feels that a piece of my soul left with Oliver that night and is there across the veil with him. I don’t miss that part of me. I prefer it that way. I want more of me to be with Oliver. As months went by I found that the medical community refers to these experiences as dissociation or dissociative amnesia, something that typically occurs during a traumatic experience, our brain does this to process a trauma or protect our brains from fully retaining all the details from a traumatic experience. Some people may refer to this experience as  part of my heart went with Oliver or died that night. Whatever way it is looked at, only my very essence and Oliver knows what happened to that piece of my soul or consciousness on that night and where it is now. 
Oliver closed his eyes for the last time in my womb on a Saturday night and was born on a Tuesday night. When Oliver was born, his body had been floating in his amniotic fluid for three days. His skin was only slightly altered by the lenghth of time he had been floating in his own fluid. Those bittersweet moments we spent at the hospital with Oliver will be forever imprinted in our hearts, holding him in our arms skin to skin, stroking his silky black hair, kissing his lovely face, pretty teeny tiny lips and cute chubby cheeks over and over, caressing his soft skin and smelling the last of his scent before his body turned stiff and cold. Oliver’s smell is something I can still remember vividly, to me he smelled like mandarins. Oliver’s sister thinks he smelled like lavender and his daddy thinks he smelled like kumquat (a citrus fruit originated from China), I will  never wash his receiving blanket instead I keep it in a ziplock bag, I smell it every so often to simply cry and bring those feeling up to the surface as I discovered that by crying it brings me more healing. 
To realize that I will never get to see his eyes was such a difficult thing to accept to this day as I am writing this I still have a hard time with it. During the unforgettable time with Oliver at the hospital, we tried to absorb all his tiny delicate features, every small detail of his body and face, we were mesmerized by his perfection! Contemplating this life we created and so eagerly expected was both peaceful and heartbreaking at the same time. Memorizing how he looked and imagining how he’d grow to be. On the same night as Oliver’s silent arrival, we captured pictures with his siblings and his grandma. The time they had with him at the hospital was brief but unforgettable nonetheless and so very precious to us; we will forever be grateful for this gift of time with Oliver.
During this 5 hour wait at the maternity wing, I was supported by two wonderful nurses. I will name one Laura to protect her privacy. Laura is Ella’s mom. Laura prepared me for delivering Oliver, she explained to me how it would all work and what to expect. Having given birth to Oliver’s siblings naturally, this was a whole new experience for me…I was lost, scared, excited to meet him  and numb all at the same time. Laura was the bereaved coordinator who supported other moms who had experienced stillbirth as she did 14 years ago with Ella. Laura comforted me and was there every step of the way. There was something extremely powerful that she told me that night, little did she know the impact her words will make in my healing process….She said that at one point on this journey I would question everything and everyone, I will try to find the whys of this event and even question myself, the medical community and feel so lost. At the end of the day all you’d have left is your faith, she said. Those words forever changed the course of how my love story with Oliver could have gone…I was more lost and confused than ever after I heard her say that especially when she asked if I had a pastor or clerk I could speak with. I had been raised in a conservative Roman Catholic family where technically this horrendous event happened because “I deserve it’” or that god knew what he was doing when he took my Oliver from me. Thankfully I had never been religious but somewhat spiritual, I wanted to believe there was something out there greater than us, a force that we can only feel but not see. At those moments I did not understand that faith means believing in something I could not see and not exactly being religious. As weeks and months went by, I shifted my perspective and stand on our existence, and life itself going from somewhat thinking or wanting to believe there could be more out there or within me, that Oliver was not indeed lost. I did not lose him. To believe that there is a greater power or place out there where Oliver is to nowadays almost a year later after Oliver’s passing simply KNOWING Oliver still exists within me and all around me. I could write a whole book about our connection, synchronicities, signs he sends me, our telepathic communication and I could go on. I don’t need to hold on to any belief system to KNOW my son is still very much alive in a different form. He’s still with me in everything I do. 
Receiving death when life is expected is an event that no parent is prepared for and should never have to be. An event like this changes you in inexplicable ways. Giving and losing life at the same time changes anyone for better or for worse. In my profound anguish and despair, my goal is to make this a positive change in Oliver’s name. I will end this part of our love story by sharing that during my hospital stay after I gave birth to Oliver I had instructed the nurses to note on my chart that anyone who provided me with care during my hospital stay to refrain from telling me, “I am sorry for your loss.” Just hours shy from finding out Oliver would be born still I intuitively knew he was not lost. He was not “gone,” I did not lose him. I remembered telling his grandma (my mom), “I know exactly where Oliver is,  he is not lost. I don’t know where this place is exactly but what I do know is that he is there right now.” Perhaps because mothers have such strong intuition…perhaps because our intuition goes beyond our physical connection. The physical connection I thought would be strong enough for me to notice what happened with Oliver’s umbilical cord….I may never know exactly why that accident happened from a deeper perspective. I might never come to terms on how Oliver died.  What I do know is that love is energy and energy can never be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another as Oliver did. I am transforming in his name now into a more conscious being living my life with a deeper awareness than I did before he touched me and our family with his magical existence. 

OLIVER IS LOVE. MY LOVE. Therefore he is alive in my life and in my reality.  And that is all for today.
~ Ada, Oliver’s Mom

“Light can only be understood with the wisdom of darkness.”
~ Ingrid Honkala P.hD 

“Sometimes it takes only one act of caring and kindness to change a person’s life.”
~ Jackie Chan

“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”
~ Albert Einstein