William Lucas Grant, better known as Luke, was born on June 2, 2010 shortly after midnight. In preparation of his birth we labored at home as long as possible before heading to the hospital. We waited a little too long and the doctor on call did not make it in time to the hospital, so the fabulous nurse working that night “caught” him. My mother-in-law and husband were in the room to watch him make his way in to this world. Luke was a full term baby, 21 ½” long, and 7 pounds 11 ounces. My sister came and stayed with us for hours shortly after his arrival, my mom took care of Luke’s older sister (2 ½ years old) until the morning when they both came to the hospital to meet Luke. The next couple days Luke met his wonderful new friends and family.
Luke packed on the pounds quickly and at his 2 month check up his weight was in the 99 percentile for his age, at his 4 month appointment he dropped to the 98 percentile. Luke and his sister went to daycare Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Their daycare is full of wonderful people that truly love the kids. The woman who is head of the infant room has three boys and has taken care of babies for many years; she always said “you do not take care of kids for the money”. As I had with our daughter I would go during my lunch hour to feed Luke and have a little bit of playtime with him. Tuesdays Luke and sis were with my mom and Thursdays with me. Luke was cutting his first tooth and drooling like mad. He was getting very ticklish (specially his back); it was so much fun to make him laugh. Luke was tolerant of his older sister’s man handling of him and always had the best smiles reserved for her. Because of not nursing as much during the day, Luke was still waking up at least a couple times at night to eat (sometime more), but it was easy to forgive being woken up by crying when he would stop and instantly smile at you as soon as you picked him up. Luke was already in 9 months clothes (or 6-12 depending on the brand) and weighed over 20 pounds. He had chubby kissable cheeks and plump thighs. He had beautiful eyelashes. My favorite thing was his belly button, when you gave him a raspberry there he would always smile. Luke had a nice firm grip and was constantly grabbing things and not letting go (especially hair and my charm bracelet). He was getting close to rolling over. Lately he did not like tummy time and seemed to be the closest to rolling over when he got mad that you put him on his tummy. He was a healthy happy little guy (big guy really).
When I was pregnant with my daughter, an ex co-worker of mine just lost his 1 ½ year old granddaughter to cancer. As he was congratulating me on my pregnancy and telling me of this recent loss he told me, “just love them and enjoy them while you have them, because you never know when you will lose them.” This was hard to hear. But I had thought of it very often as I gave my children kisses and love yous. I really did take this advice. Now of course I think of this even more often because that truth became such a reality for my family.
On November 22, 2010 I left work about ten minutes after 5. On my way to pick my children up I pulled over for an ambulance. When I arrived at the daycare the ambulance was there, my heart started racing. The worse words I have ever heard came when a cop met me in the parking lot and said, “Ms. Grant”. I was told the medics were working on Luke. The teacher in the infant room had not been able to wake him up from his nap. I knew before I even got to see him that he was gone, thought the medics and hospital staff tried valiantly for the next two hours to revive him.
Like most people I had heard of SIDS. As a mom I worried a little about it, but statistics seemed to be on our side. Besides being a boy, nothing put Luke at a higher risk. Luke was on his back when he passed away (he was checked on routinely), he was 5 ½ months old (80% of SIDS cases are before the baby is 5 months old), all of the known “risk reducers” were followed. This loss never can really make sense. It just is. Our families, my work, friends, and Luke’s daycare organization are all grieving with us. Our support network is amazing and we have so many wonderful people in our lives.
My husband and I are grieving, and at the same time working on savoring every moment we have with each other and all those we love in our lives. We would not trade our time with Luke for anything. We got 173 days and many do not get that much with their little angels. His death is a small part of his wonderful life.
