Some of the answers

As to how we are, devastated is an understatement and yet we are also as well as possible. We are eating, sleeping some, talking, existing. My mother is here with us and my friends are checking in on us regularly as are my in-laws and my family. Everyone has been very kind and there are offers of help from everyone. There really isn't much that we need, but it is appreciated.

We don't know what happened or why. It was sudden, unexpected and we didn't have a lot of warning. It could have been in some way related to the placenta previa and all the bleeding, but I don't think there is any way to know. Gabriel was healthy and well until his birth. He was alive when he was born and lived for a short time. He died in our arms, but we don't know exactly when. Just that he was alive when we were finally allowed to hold him and that later when he was checked, he was gone. We spent three hours with him, we have pictures of him, and they made a mold of his footprints for us and gave us the blanket he was wrapped in and the hats he wore.

I am not ready to talk about his birth, as the experience was traumatic and has left me angry and upset. I will at some point though, because it was my son's birth and it should be told.

He was beautiful and perfect, with these long, long limbs. He had his daddy's eyebrows and ears and long legs and big feet, and he had my nose and mouth and chin. He was going to have my eyes too, I think. His little hands and feet had perfect little fingers and toes with tiny, tiny fingernails. He weighed 12 ounces, but I don't know how long he was.

This morning we went to the funeral home to make arrangements to have his remains cremated. I felt like I was going to be knocked down by the pain. It will take at least a week and DH has to call again to make certain we will get his ashes. I guess it was unclear earlier but I didn't notice.

I am surprised that the world keeps turning. I expected that it would stop, just for a little while, just some acknowledgment that my son was born and has died. How it is still moving, I don't know. I wish it would stop for awhile; long enough for me to figure out how to live again.