Ayla's Final Story

I'm going to tell you a story. The story of Ayla's last days. As said previously I won't share pictures but I want you all to know of my baby's strength. Here we go:

Ayla was happy as could be on Christmas. The happiest I had seen her in a long time. Christmas night however she started fussing and holding her head. I took her in to ER. They checked her ears and said that there was nothing wrong and sent me home.

The 27th she was back to her normal self, smiling and being the sweet baby I know her to be. She threw up. Then was miserable. Later she ran a fever much higher then I thought healthy so I ran her to emergency. They passed it off as the flu and sent me off with a prescription and home I went. She got worse. All night I was alternating Tylenol every four hours and Advil every six. I didn't get any sleep. I cuddled my screaming baby all night.

The 28th I called the doctor explaining that she wasn't improving (she wouldn't drink her formula just very little of petalyte). He said the medication would take a while to start working. She got much worse. At 11 I took her to Lethbridge ER. By the time they saw her her eye was drooping, the pupil wasn't responding and she was in so much pain she barely cried.

Off to a CT scan to tell us what was wrong. It came back saying there was something off in her brain but they wanted to get an MRI to tell us more. Unfortunately they can't do it for babies in Lethbridge. So I called Arles and off in the ambulance we went.

The whole way there I prayed. Not my baby. No. Don't do this to me. It was rough. I will never get the way she looked at me out of my head. Her eyes begged me for help, and I couldn't do anything. We got to the children's hospital and they took her from my arms and next thing I knew she was surrounded by every doctor in the ICU. They got her stabilized and took her for the MRI. She was in a drug induced coma.

The MRI showed that their suspicions were true. She contracted bacterial menagitis. She had suffered many mini strokes. She was in rough shape. But even hooked up to everything she was still pretty dang cute. She suffered quite a few seizures over the next few days and after a second MRI we knew things were not looking good. No amount of medication could control the seizures. Nothing was working.

They did a third MRI and after knowing that she would never function enough to even move we took her off life support. She lived ten more days in the hospice. I am in such awe of my baby's strength. Truly. The doctors said that her body was strong and other then her brain she was very healthy. The last days with her were such a blessing and throughout that time I found a peace of mind.

My beautiful baby girl had a short mission and I know that her little spirit had so much to teach me. She's still here though. I can feel her constant presence and I know that she loves Arles, our families, and I dearly. Watching her pass away was one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with but it's a beautiful thing. She looked so peaceful. I know her spirit can soar everywhere now.

She is mine. Always will be.

Hasn't Set In

I can't believe that I have been to Europe...everything just seems so sureal, I saw so many cool things and tasted the best pasta in the world and I even threw a coin in the Trevi fountain. I still can't believe that I've seen everything that I have, and it probably will take me a while for everything to set in. So instead of talking about my experiences because there are so many to name I'll just show you through pictures with some captions:

Here's one of the Efile Tower, we didn't get to go up it because it was on strike but it was cool to see it up close.

This is Notre Dame, we didn't have time to go inside but looking at it was enough for me

This was at the Juno Beach Cemetery, this was one of the parts of the trip that I actually teared up, for those that don't know Juno Beach was one of the most significant battles for Canadians because we lost so many people, and seeing the number of graves there was pretty powerful.

The Arc de Triomphe

Me standing by the Louvre

A church in Florence built many years ago, it was huge!!! and Florence was by far my favorite part, I am going back to Italy someday I swear!!

I just wanted to show you how green Italy was :D

Yes this is defiantly the Coliseum...it's so pretty and amazingly beautiful

This is the inside of the Coliseum

I almost cried standing here, this is the Trevi Fountain...it looked so gorgeous and especially at night!!!! I loved this night, we walked around the city at night and everything was so pretty I could hardly believe it!!


After visiting the Vatican City we were in St. Peter's Square and we saw the Pope!!! here's the one in the middle.

Ok so that's a taste of what I saw in Europe, it was definatly a life changing experience and I hope that I can go again some day.