Ava's First Bath

This was Ava's first bath, and I don't kow if you can tell from the pictures, but she is completely limp and still in a coma. The nurse in the photo (who we had several times during our 3 month stay) was sooo sweet. I remember my husband and I were just sitting there by her bedside, numd really, and she asked us if we wanted to help bathe her. I don't know why it sounded odd to me, but it did. I guess because she was hooked up to so much stuff if was very intimidating. She instinctively knew that getting us involved in her care would help us to get our minds off the gloominess of the situation. She found out from Ava's chart, that we had attempted a home birth and ended up transferring to the hopsital. She later told me in private that, she too, had a homebirth and that her little girl had died due to a birth deformity. She must have sensed that maybe I was harboring feeling of guilt, because she looked me dead in the eyes one day and said, "This is NOT your fault. No one caused this, not you or anyone else." Bless her for saying that!