10 months without Jace

It is hard to believe that it has already been 10 months without Jace.  The time is flying by and it scares me.  It scares me to be further away from the last time I held him and breathed him in.

The day I spent with Jace after his passing was a day I'll never forget.  I didn't want to let him go.  I truly tried to memorize him - it didn't matter that in those moments he did not look like the Jace everyone knew, because I could still see him.  I could feel him.  I kissed him - his head, his lips, his fingers - every part of him including his surgery site where he had the ostomy bag in place.  Because that was Jace.  That was supposed to be the Jace we had here on Earth with us.  I was supposed to be learning how to change his ostomy bag and keep it clean until he could have his reversal surgery.  Those are things many may dread but God do I wish I could have all of those moments with him.  I don't have any regrets about that day, no regrets about staying with him all day even though his body was changing.  No regrets about giving him a bath for the first time wire free and the last time.  No regrets about getting pictures by the hospital and no regrets getting pictures done with Jace by Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.  No regrets asking others if they wanted to hold him because Jace was theirs too.  And no regrets handing him over to his nurse, Alexis, who had also become our dear friend, for her to take him from what was his home to the morgue.  I knew she loved him like we all did and that trip wasn't easy for her either but I knew he would continue to feel the love from her.

My only regret is that he died.  Of course, I ask myself every single day, could I have done something differently to save him?  I noticed that his stomach was distended days before he was diagnosed with NEC.  But, I had never even heard of NEC at that point.  Could I have saved him?  Maybe if it had been caught earlier he could have been saved.  I look at pictures from the first day of distention and I stare and stare at his belly.  How could I, as his mother, have missed that something was wrong.  I mean, I noticed it was big.  I said it several times that day.  But could I have done more?
These are all questions I'll never have answered.  Maybe if it had been caught earlier he would have lived.  Maybe if it had been caught earlier he wouldn't have lived. I know now NEC has a high mortality rate so maybe his chances would not have been great.  But it still would have been a chance.

So, on this 10th month without one of my children, I look back with so many thoughts and feelings.  But the biggest thought/feeling/truth of it all is that I am still thankful because he is my son.  I am his mommy.  I would take 23 days with him over not having him at all.