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I remember that night like it was yesterday... even though it's been almost 3 years ago.

It was sometime around 4 am on August 11th when the phone rang. Jenna rolled over and answered it, and I listened bleary-eyed from my spot in our cozy bed to her side of the conversation.

"Hello. This is She. Yes, okay, we'll be there soon."

I sat up then, willing my body awake, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I grabbed my t-shirt off the night stand and pulled it on over my head.

"Hospital?" I asked as I slid out of bed, watching as Jenna did the same.

She nodded, "Yep."

You may be wondering why we weren't jumping up or scrambling around in a hurry. Well, this had become a pretty normal occurance in our home by that point. The hospital would often call, day or night, if Jackson needed something. That something was often as simple as a refill on breastmilk, and sometimes it was something slightly more urgent like a medical test they couldn't perform without our consent. And so we would drag ourselves out of bed, or away from whatever activity we were doing at the time and we would head on over to the hospital.

We were totally used to it.

And so at the time that night didn't seem any different... and we didn't rush. We climbed out of bed and got dressed. I brushed my teeth while Jenna grabbed a couple of bottles of frozen breastmilk from the freezer and then we loaded into the car and headed for the hospital.

In retrospect Jenna often berated herself, saying she should have known. Anytime the hospital had called before they'd told us exactly why we were needed. That night they'd only asked if we could come as soon as possible.

I'll never forget walking into the NICU an hour or so after that phonecall. We immediately noticed Jackson's cubicle from across room. His typically quiet space had suddenly become a flurry of activity. Nurses and doctors surrounded his isolette and the machines around his bed that had been silent for weeks were once again up and running. Many of them were beeping noisily. Sounds I'd never heard, even in our earliest NICU days.

Jenna stopped short when she spotted Jackson's nurse from the very beginning, and her friend for many years standing beside his bed. "Karen!" she called out, her voice shaking as I felt her fingernails dig into my hand. I watched as Karen turned, her face an eerie pale white, her eyes filled with tears... and that was the moment I realized that something was horribly wrong.

She rushed over to us then, after pulling another nurse over so she could leave our son's side. Jenna immediately fell into her arms, pulling me along with her. Karen guided the two of us to chairs in the corners of the room and told us to wait there... Jenna nodded knowingly and whispered, "Go help them please!"

For the longest time we sat there and watched as the nurses and doctors moved quickly to stabilize our son. After what felt like an eternity, when the machines had finally quieted to a more normal beeping pattern, the room cleared out, leaving Karen, Jenna and I sitting there alone.

"What happened," I heard Jenna ask, her voice shaking with tears. I stood then, letting go of her hand and walked carefully over to where my son lay, now motionless in his isolette. I'll never forget the way he looked that night... tiny and more frail than he'd looked even on the day he was born. His body was a mottled color and he had so many new spots... tiny bruises and marks where they'd been working on him. But the biggest difference now was the ventilator. He'd never been on a ventilator before and the steadying humming sound it made as it pumped air into his little lungs was sickening to me.

Karen explained as best she could what had happened. She told us that at Jackson's last nightly check all had seemed well except for a slight fever, which we knew... they'd told us that when we'd called to check on him the evening before. The doctor had sent some cultures to check for bacterial and viral growth, but otherwise Jack had seemed perfectly fine. Then, at about 3:45, without warning, our son had crashed. Karen explained how she'd been in the next cubicle over with another baby when his apnea monitor sounded. She'd hurried over, expecting as normal to have to give him a little jostle or for it to be a false alarm, only to find him completely unresponsive. She'd called code blue and started CPR immediately but he just wouldn't come around.

At this point Jackson's doctor came in and I can sit here and try to remember everything he told in the following minutes, but I don't. He spoke to us for over an hour and the most I remember is this; they performed CPR on our son for approximately 50 minutes before finally getting a heartbeat, even still it wasn't strong. Jack was not breathing on his own. His body was weak and struggling and at that point they didn't know why.

"The next 24 hours will be crucial." Those are the words I remember the most. Karen explained to us, though she didn't really have to, that Jackson had gone without oxygen for a long, long time. That brain damage was extremely likely. That he may never wake up.

I remember the doctor getting up and walking out of the room after that. I remember that I wanted to scream, cry and vomit all at the same time. But I didn't do any of those things. I remember walking back to my son's bed and pulling up a chair and I remember Jenna coming to sit beside me. We held each other's hands and we both reached out and held Jackson's. I remember looking at Jenna and shaking my head.

"How did this happen?"

Jenna shook her head back, but she never answered... because that was not a question that could be answered.

~~~~~~~~~~

The four days that followed that long night in August were by far the hardest days I've ever experienced in my entire life.

Jenna and I spent nearly every minute of those days and nights at our baby's bedside, only leaving to go to the bathroom, or occasionally to get a snack, even though neither of us ever really felt like eating, we knew we had to eat to keep living... and we knew we had to keep living for our son.

For the first time in our whole NICU experience I felt like all of those parents I'd felt sorry for before. The ones I'd noticed for weeks going in and out of their children's rooms, exhausted looks and pained expressions clearly etched upon their tear-streaked faces. And for the first time ever I found myself wanting to step out of my private little corner to reach out and hug those other parents tight... to let them know I felt what they felt -- the pain and frustration that came along with being in a place like this and feeling so damned alone.

In the coming months friends would ask us why we never called. They would tell us that they would've come in a heartbeat. That we didn't have to be alone. And Jenna and I both knew they were being honest. We have the best friends in the world like that. But the truth was, in those four days, Jenna and I never thought about anyone but Jack. We never thought to pull out our phones and reach out to the world outside those hospital walls. Our minds were on one thing and that one thing was our little boy.

I remember at first, in the 24 hours following Jackson's initial decline, when we still had something to hope for... I remember how Jenna and I watched the monitors around the room all the time for any indication that something positive was happening inside his tiny body. Anytime a number would change or a monitor would beep we would get excited. But then, without fail a nurse or doctor would shuffle in, arrange something with a tube, or push the buttons on a monitor and all would return to just as it had been moments before. The monitors would stop beeping and all would be quiet once more. That uncomfortable silence spoke volumes about our son's condition.

I wonder now and have often wondered if maybe we'd paid less attention to all of those monitors and more attention to Jackson himself... maybe if we looked at him a little longer... lingered on his lifeless form for more than small moments at a time (because in all honesty that's as much as our hearts could take), we wouldn't have ignored all of the signs that Jackson's body was already giving us. Ande maybe we would have realized sooner what we finally understood on the morning of August 15th.

Not that it's all such a bad thing. I mean, in the end I think those four days spent by our son's bedside served their purpose... even if the only purpose they served was to give us a little more time with our baby.

I remember the morning of August 15th vividly. I had just come back from the cafeteria and Jenna was seated in her normal spot beside the bed. Nothing seemed different, and yet, everything did. I couldn't put my finger on it but I walked over to where Jennas was sitting and noticed for the first time that she was crying. I sat down beside her and pulled her into my arms where I rocked her back and forth as the two of us cried together. Neither of us spoke... neither of us had to. I think in those early morning moments of that fourth day we both simply knew. Jackson was done fighting. It was time to let him go.

The next hours were spent discussing things with the doctors, preparing ourselves (not that you can ever truly do that), and calling our closest family and friends. I still remember the shock in their voices... and the heartache. Telling your friends that your son is going to die is not an experience I ever could have imagined I'd go through... nor is it one I ever wish to go through again. But of course we needed to let them know what was happening. We wanted everyone to have the chance to see Jackson one last time. Especially knowing that for some of them it would be both the first and the last.

At some point I sat down for a few minutes and just stared at my son. I tried not to imagine all of the things he was going to miss out on in life... but I couldn't help it. Images flashed before my eyes of what he would have been like as he grew up. I thought about taking him home and about showing him off to our fans. I thought about taking him to the park and teaching him things. I even thought about how he would have been as an adult... and unlike a month before, I didn't see him as an adult dependent on his parents... I saw him as an awesome individual who smiled all the time and who was loved by many. And then I shook my head because I realized that none of that would ever be.

And then, I looked over at Jenna, who was on the phone with her own family and friends, wiping tears repeatedly as she rushed through conversations, eager to get off the phone and get back to us. I wondered how we'd ended up where we were. We'd had a baby we'd thought was perfect and we'd found out he had Down Syndrome. We'd discovered in our own time that he was perfect anyway... and despite being born premature he'd done amazingly well and was always deemed a 'fighter'. And now, we were supposed to be getting ready to take him home in a few days and instead we were getting ready to say good bye. How unbelievably unfair could life be?

The hours passed too quickly that day as friends came and went, photographs were taken by the hundreds. Everyone was able to hold Jackson and love on him, just the way we wanted it to be. Well... not really, because it was not the way we would have ever wanted it to be, but under the circumstances, it was perfect. Karen was there to help us move him in and out of his isolette so that our friends and family members could touch and see him. Brian, Aj, Howie and Kevin all made it to the hospital that day... together. The hour that they were there with me is an hour I'm eternally grateful for. They were wonderful... holding my son, oohing an aahing over him. We cried together... and laughed. If anyone can bring laughter out of the worst situation in life it would be those guys.

And then everyone was gone and Jenna and I were left alone and it was time. Karen and our doctor came in once more and Jackson was placed in our arms. All of the machines were turned off, the tubes removed and we wrapped Jack in the blanket that a friend of Jenna's knitted for him. We sat and held him together. We sang to him... we cried. He lived for twenty-two of the most beautiful minutes, and then he peacefully left this world for the next as we held him in our arms and told him that we loved him.

We spent the next hour bathing him, dressing him, and holding him.

And then it was time to say good bye forever.

Karen came in and we gave him final kisses and we hugged her for all that she'd done for us. As we were getting ready to walk out the door she stopped us.

"Jenna," she whispered quietly, and we turned back towards her and looked, "I just noticed... I'm sorry... it's just, I noticed on his birth certificate... there's no middle name."

I watched as Jenna sighed and turned towards me, tears rolling down her face. I shook my head, Jackson's middle name was something we'd had trouble deciding on since his birth... Jenna wanted it to mean something special, but she couldn't seem to think of anything special enough. Of course, we always thought we'd have a long, long time to decide. I watched as Jenna's shoulders sagged and the tears fell faster, "He can't not have a middle name." She reached out and touched Jackson's head.

"Think about it for a minute," I pulled her over and we sat together, our son's body on the bed beside us. The most unnatural feeling in the world.

A few minutes later she smiled. "I know it," she whispered and Karen and I both looked at her together, waiting to hear.

"Tennyson." She finally sighed, "After Alfred Lord Tennyson."

I didn't catch on right away... but Karen clearly did. She reached down and gently touched our sons cheek. "That's perfect," she whispered and Jenna nodded.

"Tis better to have loved and lost..."

I smiled despite the tears that were rolling down my own cheeks.

I pulled out my cell phone and without even really thinking what I was doing I typed in the text message: "Well, he has a full name now -- Jackson Tennyson Carter passed peacefully from this world a little over an hour ago. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. We'll be in touch soon."

I hit send and shook my head... none of this made any sense. This was so not how this should ever be.