2019 was the year that changed our lives. It was the year that my sister who had been battling with infertility for six years gave birth to a beautiful little girl who I was honoured to witness being born and it was the year that I lost 6 stone, which put my type 2 diabetes into remission and improved my polycystic ovaries. It was a brilliant year and the last time that I remember being happy, I know it sounds a bit dramatic but I guess everybody could say the same thing. There was no pandemic, I was healthy, I was socialising, I was the Deputy Manager of the care home that I had first started out at and I hadn’t yet become the person whose baby died. I know I had suffered a miscarraige the year before and I know, that for some this means their baby died and life would never be the same for them again but my miscarraige didn’t alter my life and it wasn’t something that changed who I was, the person who I was before the death of our Daughter Rudy however, died the day I was told that her heart had stopped beating.
On the 27th September 2019, we found out we were pregnant. We were excited and happy with this news but because of the year before, we were a little bit cautious. However, at our 12 week scan, there was our baby bucking away and with every movement my husband gasped with pure love and adoration. I remember feeling so happy that I was having a baby with a man that not only worshipped me, but was as involved and in love with this pregnancy as much as he possibly could. It was crazy how different the technology was to when I was expecting Matilda, who at 13 and half weeks resembled a little jelly bean with a nose on her ultrasound. Whereas with this ultrasound at 12 weeks, every single detail was visible. We received the due date of 4th June 2020, all was fine and about a week or so later, we received the letter that confirmed our baby had a low chance of having any chromosome disorders. This is when we started to get excited and plan for our future with our new baby. Matilda was excited to become a big sister but was desperately hoping for a boy as she had a total of four sisters, so she kept saying “I hope it’s a boy”. Secretly deep down, my whole family and I hoped for a boy, we were on our fifth generation of girls on my mum’s side and my dad was the last boy on his side which was fifty years ago. He had three girls, his brother had a girl, my mum had three girls, my aunty had a girl, I had a girl and my sister had two girls. So every time there was a pregnancy announcement in the family, everybody had their fingers crossed for a boy. I had the name Rudy picked out for a boy since before I met Paul and luckily for me, he loved the name too. I know that in this day and age, it’s not cool to hope for a specific gender as long as the baby is healthy but it was fun to try and guess what we were having and Paul wanted a little girl so badly, that either way we would have been happy.
I started to feel her moving around 16 weeks, I really noticed it during Matilda’s piano recital. When I was sitting down I could feel little tiny pokes right in the bottom of my tummy but they were so much more frequent at the recital during a specific performance of Primavera by Ludovico Euinadi. I absolutely adored his music and would listen to it often, I would lay with it playing throughout this pregnancy so I took it as such a good sign.
On the 21st December 2019, at 16 weeks and 4 days we went to a private scanning clinic with my sister and found out we were having a little girl, when I realised Paul was getting what he wanted and how happy he sounded just to see her on the screen, I instantly fell in love with the idea that Paul and I, would be having a little girl together. She was so cheeky and active, wriggling around and kicking. We got videos, amazing pictures and recorded her heartbeat into a bear for Paul’s mum whilst Paul recorded it on his phone. We then went shopping and made our first purchases as proud parents to be, including a pink born in 2020 baby grow. It was the best Christmas I had ever had, we put up decorations, watched Christmas movies, laughed, dreamed and celebrated our little girl. My mum had sent over some money to purchase the bigger things for us, so I’d spend my days off from work laying in bed making wish lists and buying things from it. On Christmas day, the buggy that I wanted went from £1799 to £599 for one day only and I just had to buy it. It just seemed like everything was perfect and was falling into place. We decided to call her Rudy, we both loved the name and felt that it went really well for a girl as well as a boy. My 20 week scan was booked for the 18th January 2020, but we’d already made it past the very misinformed ‘Safe zone’ of 12 weeks and found out we were having a girl, there was nothing to worry about was there? When I was pregnant with Matilda, there were no extra scans and you couldn’t even find out the gender unless you paid hundreds of pounds because the hospitals were not doing sexing at that time. So I already felt that I had experienced way more reassurance with this pregnancy and I didn’t have any concerns.
On the 2nd January 2020, I was laying in bed when an advert popped up for a private scanning clinic, the advert said £50 for an appointment today to see your baby and get some pictures. I remember thinking, “I only have to wait two more weeks, it would be crazy to even think about buying this” but I did. I booked it for 18:30 that evening, I wanted to see her cheeky little face again and watch her moving around, more than anything I just wanted to hear Paul’s gasps and watch his face because he made the experience so much better for me. Paul was a little bit frustrated that I had booked it, he was happy to attend of course and see his little girl but he didn’t see the point and I felt a little bit silly for doing it, but we made the plan to go shopping before the appointment as the scanning clinic was right next to the supermarket. We wandered round getting bits and bobs, in a happy bubble, laughing and joking. Then we sat in the car and I ate some prawn cocktail crisps whilst we waited for 18:30. It was a cold evening and the wind was whipping around us, but I was just glad the car park was close to the entrance. We went in and as we sat in the waiting room, I listened to the chatter around me, couples excited to find out what they were having and others heavily pregnant waiting for their first 4D scan. I could feel those little pokes as I cuddled into Paul’s arm, smiling because I knew she was ok, I knew she was a girl and all I wanted was to see her and her Daddy’s reactions. We were called in and I was asked to confirm how far I was, “18 Weeks” I remember Paul saying so proudly. The chaperone apologised for the delay but they had had a lot of awkward babies that day and a lot of couples were being asked to go for walks and come back. The scanner began scanning me without saying a word, he was quite an abrupt man and he wasn’t very chatty so I didn’t feel comfortable striking up a conversation with him, he almost seemed cold. I heard the chaperone gasp, because of the awkward position that Rudy was in. He asked me to lay on my side, then he asked me to lay on my other side. Then he put some tissue on my belly and said he was done. I smiled and wiped my belly, then stood up to pull my leggings up. The scanner looked me right in the eye as I smiled at him and said “There’s no heartbeat”.
I have always promised myself that I would never name the clinic in my posts when talking about my experiences as it is a well known chain and I don’t believe that naming that chain will ever get me anywhere or make me feel any better. All I can say is, for months his face was what I saw every night when I closed my eyes and everytime my grief creeps up like it does, his face is there with it. Because as my smile dropped in disbelief at what he had just said and even as I said “What?” his face didn’t change and he didn’t repeat the words. That night, as I desperately clawed my way through google and babyloss posts, I came across posts about how those ‘Five Words’ changed someone's life forever. “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat”. I got three words, I got three words given to me by someone so cold that his face still haunts me to this day. When I said “What?” it wasn’t because I hadn’t heard him, because I would have said “Pardon?”. I said “What?” because I didn’t expect it. I saw she was in an awkward position and as he was moving the probe around I saw movements, I also felt her moving a few moments before in the waiting room. So, I didn’t expect it. When I said “What?” instead of apologising, or repeating what he said or giving me a softer look of sympathy, he glanced at the chaperone as if to say “I’m done now, get them out”. I turned to Paul and I squeezed my eyes shut really tightly and I said “This can’t be real”. The Chaperone knew what his look meant, because she ushered us out of the room quickly and through the back into their staff room. She led us into their staff room and said she would be back. The room wasn’t meant for what we had been sent there for, there was nothing related to babies or even ultrasounds in that room, there wasn’t a leaflet on loss or information on what would happen next, there was no number to call for support and to add injury to insult, other staff members were “popping” in and out, and rightly so as it was their staff room, completely unaware of what was happening to us. I turned to Paul and the first words I said to him were “But I bought the buggy already” and then I started to cry.
We sat in that room for about 15 minutes, staff members popping in and out for various reasons. Then finally, the chaperone came in with a letter that said we couldn’t attend our hospital for five days. The appointment had been scheduled for the 7th January 2020 and we were advised to go home, I don’t remember this part as well as I remember anything else because I was trying to stop myself from grabbing this woman by the shoulders and shaking her really hard, I wanted to scream “She’s dead, how do I get her out, I can’t keep her in there for five more days.” Looking back on it, I like to think that she was trying her best to be as accommodating as she could or as accommodating as she knew how to be in this situation. She said “So that you don’t have to see all the families in the waiting room, you can use our back entrance” We exited through the back, into the dark, cold, windy night. Again, I like to look back on it and think that she hadn’t intentionally done this to us, that maybe she thought she was doing what was best for us but at the time, it felt like we had literally been pushed out into the cold. This meant that we had to walk around the back streets and buildings and around the edges of the car park to get to the car. I had my arms wrapped around myself, whilst the wind whipped my hair into my face, with occasional wailing sounds escaping my mouth through my shivering that probably couldn’t be heard because the wind was so loud. Whilst my husband, silently walked beside me as white as a ghost with his hand on my lower back.
We didn’t say anything when we got into the car, we sat in silence whilst the heater was blasting away but it didn’t matter how hot the car got, I couldn’t stop shivering. I stared at the half eaten packet of prawn cocktail crisps on the dashboard and thought about how I was feeling when I was eating them to how I was feeling now. Of course, when we were home that night didn’t bring sleep for me, what happens to a baby at 18 weeks when it dies? Will they chuck her in the bin? I desperately searched the internet, read blogs, followed baby loss posts and even asked the question on a facebook page, to be told my post had been removed as although I had put a trigger warning on it, it was too triggering for the other members. I was lost in those moments and I was desperate. Eventually, morning came and at 8am I couldn’t bear it anymore and I called the number on my maternity notes. I remember now exactly what I said, “I am so sorry to call, I know I am not supposed to go to the hospital until the 7th but I was told at a private scanning clinic last night that my baby had no heartbeat and I just need someone to tell me what is going to happen to her”. Gobsmacked, the midwife said to me “I am so sorry that this has happened to you, I am going to call the hospital right now and call you straight back” I sobbed and I sobbed, and I sobbed until she called me back and told me to go straight to the hospital. We were seen straight away and given another scan to confirm that there was no heartbeat and then we were taken into the bereavement suite to meet the bereavement midwife.
We sat in the Blossom Suite for a few minutes waiting for the bereavement midwife to come and see us, the room was bright and decorated with cherry blossoms and there was a huge blossom tree with a little angel (Isla’s angel) hanging from one of the branches. The room was set up like an open plan flat with a giant double bed in the middle and a kitchen with a sofa, there was a bathroom and then another little room with the door closed. When the bereavement midwife arrived, she introduced herself as Tabitha and was instantly warm and soft towards us. We explained what had happened and showed her the letter that had been given to us, she said she didn’t even know what it was. It was the strangest feeling, being in the Blossom Suite. It was like walking in to somewhere and all the fear being left at the door. I cried and said to Tabitha that I don’t know what happens to a baby at 18 weeks, will she be chucked in the clinical waste? She didn’t laugh, she didn’t scoff. She simply said “I can assure you, your baby will not be going in the bin”
Everything was explained to us, that we would have her in the Blossom Suite, we could spend time with her, make memories and then there would be a funeral. The relief I felt at hearing all of this, was indescribable. I was given some medication to prepare my body to be induced but we had to wait 48 hours, so we went home. Those 48 hours were a blur, one minute we were crying and the next minute I was cleaning behind the oven. Paul would say something that would make me laugh and then I would cry instantly after. We took down the decorations, which honestly felt like I was being suffocated. I just kept thinking ‘my baby was alive when I put these decorations up and now she’s dead’. Those 48 hours were lonely, I was in constant contact with my sister but I think everybody must have had the same idea.To give us space and allow everybody else to ask how we were or people didn’t know what to say, because although we had told everybody that she had died and they had responded that they were sorry, nobody messaged after that. There were no cards, people didn’t send flowers. All the things that I thought would make me feel better or make me feel like I wasn’t alone, just didn’t come. And it was nobody’s fault, people just didn’t know what to say. One thing I know for sure though, is that my sister took it just as hard as we did.
I was finally induced around 21:30 on the 5th January 2020, as my sister didn’t drive and she lived so far away, she was unable to come to the birth. The contractions pretty much started straight away. I had decided to give gas and air a try as I had an epidural with Matilda and it was pretty great stuff. It kept taking me away to my sister, it was honestly as if she was there with me. The only downside, is it kept taking me to a place where Rudy was alive, I knew I was in labour and I knew I was meant to be giving birth to her but I kept forgetting she was gone. I would suddenly come round and I was hysterically crying. She was born at 02:25am on the 6th January 2020, silent and tiny. She was smaller than anybody expected but she was perfect in every way possible. This is where we learned what lay behind the closed door in the Blossom Suite, it was beautiful. Our midwife took Rudy into the little room to weigh her and take her footprints and her handprint. There were rails and rails of outfits for all different sized babies, there were drawers filled with shawls, wraps and hats for babies even smaller than Rudy. There were teddies, hearts, angels, blankets, memory boxes, moses baskets made specifically for babies Rudy’s size and smaller, there were hand and footprint casting kits and so much more. The room was amazing. We made the most incredible memories with our girl and then we kissed her goodnight and placed her in the smallest basket with a cooling mat, to keep her cold and then we went to sleep together with her next to us.
The next morning, she was even smaller. She seemed to have curled right back up, bringing her legs up to her belly and folding her arms over her chest. She was so sweet but nobody got to see her the way that we had seen her the night before and unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures. It was the one thing I will always regret, that the few pictures we did get of Rudy, her face was covered or it was close up. I was too busy worrying about what everybody else would think, that I didn’t get pictures just for us to have. My sister arrived first thing and we cried whilst clutching hold of each other, it was the first time I had seen her since we had lost Rudy. My sister spent ages holding Rudy and kissing her, then Paul’s mum arrived for cuddles. We all sat talking about her and taking it in turns to hold her, but it was already clear that this was having an affect on her appearance.
When it was time to sign paperwork, we had decided that we didn’t want a post mortem. She was too tiny and there was already a chance that we wouldn’t get any ashes so we opted to send my placenta and have the remaining blood tests. Leaving the hospital was hard, probably the hardest part of the whole experience. We left her in her little basket and walked out of the room, I sobbed uncontrollably whilst walking through the hospital and people all around were staring. I know they didn’t mean too, but we were walking out with a box of memories and all of our belongings and I was crying so hard whilst trying not to make noise. When we did eventually make it to the car, I wouldn’t let Paul leave the car park for what seemed like forever. I wanted to run back in, I wanted to scream at everybody walking past but I knew that none of it would bring her back.
I did do something that was absolutely naughty and got Paul to buy some cigarettes on the way home. I hadn’t smoked for almost 8 months and I just thought fuck it, I don’t care. I smoked the first cigarette in the car and it was disgusting, I couldn’t breathe through my nose because I had been crying so much, so I had a disgusting taste in my mouth but I found myself smoking another one. I didn’t quit again until the 22nd Feb.
It was hard, I threw myself into preparing for her funeral and making everything I could to honour her memory and buying her everything I could think of to buy her, that would make me feel better. Paul was amazing and we were never down at the same time, so he was strong for me when I needed him and I was strong for him when he needed it. Because I was only 18 weeks, I was only allowed a week off paid and as we still had Matilda to take care of, having more time off work and only getting SSP just wasn’t an option. From finding out that she had died to returning to work was 11 days, looking back at it now I have absolutely no idea how I did it but I had sort of become numb. Work was busy and as a Deputy Manager, I was responsible for a lot of things so I soon became so busy that I barely had a chance to think about Rudy at all. In the first few days at work I started off upset, this was because it felt like the world just carried on without me, I was still stuck on the 2nd January because I had lost her and everybody else seemed to be moving forward. Then I became angry, angry that my baby died and nobody was mentioning her, nobody was acknowledging her, I was being treated as if this horrible thing hadn’t happened to me only weeks ago. At night, I would lay in bed browsing my own social media posts or my photo gallery, back to a time before I’d become that person whose baby had died. I remembered how I was feeling when I took the photo or created the post and I longed to be that person again. People would make comments like “you’ve changed” or “you’re not the same anymore”. My favourite was, “What’s wrong?”. The amount of times I wanted to scream at them, are you fucking kidding me? What do you think is wrong?
There were some people that said stupid things, things I know that if they were said to me now, wouldn’t have affected me so badly. I could have been over sensitive at the time, I’d just left my baby in the hospital ready to go to the morgue and I was being asked why I chose to give birth to it and why I didn’t have it vacuumed out as I was only 18 weeks or why am I even having a funeral, I’m not Catholic. When asked if they would like to see a photo, they said no, that should have been kept private between me and Paul only. Like honestly, looking back if that’s how they felt, that’s how they felt. I can’t change that. But there are things you say to someone and there are things that you don’t. I remember attending the Blossom Suite Support group and them asking how long it had been for me and they all gasped when I said “2 weeks” and then they all asked how I had managed to bring myself along so soon. My answer was simple, I wanted to know that what I was feeling was normal. Suddenly, I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I was causing so much fuss over an 18 week pregnancy loss. The photos I had up, even at home I took down because I didn’t want anybody to see how small she was. I carried on buying things and I continued to remember her, but I did it in private.
Those people were right that said that I had changed, I wasn’t the same person that I was. That person had died with Rudy and I don’t think she has ever come back, or that she ever will. I was lucky that I had access to the resources that I had access to, including home visits from the bereavement team. It was through talking with them that I started to find some comfort in how I was feeling. It didn’t matter how many times people told me that what these people had said to me was wrong, I couldn’t get past it. I just held onto the idea that they didn’t mean it the way I took it and they didn’t actually believe those things.
Rudy’s funeral was held on the 11th February 2020, it was the most beautiful service I ever could have hoped for. I honestly, couldn’t have imagined it any better. After weeks of agonising over it, I then started to feel guilty that I had felt so ashamed. I wasn’t ashamed of Rudy, I was ashamed at how small she was and that I had been allowed to create these memories and have a funeral and the guilt for that, still hurts me now. She was perfect and the day she was born, I was so proud of her and for a brief moment, I lost that.
We eventually received the results that Rudy’s death was likely caused by ‘hydropic abortion’ which is basically a build up of fluid that ended the pregnancy, this was discovered in the placenta. There isn’t really a cause or reason for it happening, it just was. I blamed myself most of the time, was it that cup of coffee I had in the morning that time or was it the day that I lifted something at work. Was I eating the right stuff or was it because I didn’t sleep enough. This result helped me to put some of those feelings aside, I think it’s natural as the mother to blame yourself if your baby dies inside of you, especially as they are supposed to be safe in there. My husband kept saying to me “Put that shit in a box!”
All of the things that people say about baby loss and grief are true, there is no better support network than those that have been through what you’re going through. The grief did come in waves like they said it would. One day I was crying multiple times and the next it was less, then I was crying three times a week, then once a month. It hurts, I won’t lie. The gaps in between were getting bigger but the pain hit just as hard when the wave came crashing in, even now I’ll blink and Rudy’s face flashes in my mind and suddenly, I feel as if I am losing her all over again.
When I received the call to say that Rudy’s ashes were ready to collect, I felt instant relief. Our baby was coming home and we were ready for her. I was so happy that we had ashes to collect because I honestly thought we would have nothing and once she was home, I knew that the next step for me was to do something about that sonographer. So, I sent a very long email describing what happened, how it affected us and what pain it had caused. I actually thought that it wouldn’t get me anywhere, I said things like “How can someone who is scanning women during the happiest time of their lives, be so cold? Why is he even in that profession, when he clearly doesn’t seem very happy with it?” and “I will do everything I can to make sure that everybody I know, never uses their studio again”. To my surprise, I received a call a few days later, my email had been passed to the area manager or regional manager of the company and honestly, she sounded genuinely upset at what had happened to us. She tried to make excuses for the sonographer and honestly, I wasn’t accepting that but she did say that they hadn’t experienced many situations like mine in that particular store and because of what had happened to me, they were changing their practise in all of the stores that she was in charge of. Apparently, when questioned the chaperone had commented that she did find it hard to believe that I had to wait five days and she did question it but hadn’t taken down the name of who she spoke to, which is another thing they implemented. They also took the details of the bereavement team, so that they could discuss what leaflets they could make available in their studio’s. This didn’t change how I feel about what happened, this mans face still haunts me and I still hear his cold words when he said “There’s no heartbeat” but at least if this ever happened again and I hope with all of my strength that it doesn’t, that nobody ever has to go through what we went through that day.
A lot of people ask how Matilda took the loss, obviously what I am writing about mostly is my journey of loss so I hadn’t mentioned that Matilda is Autistic. I have been very lucky, in that I haven’t needed to manage her grief as well as my own, sometimes I wish she would have had some kind of feelings towards it as she can be very matter of fact and cold about it. But I am mostly glad that she hasn’t been affected by it. I remember in the first week, she came into my room and I was crying, she said “Are you ok? Why are you crying?” and I said, “I am crying because I am sad about the baby” and she said, “eugh still?”. To her, people die and that’s what happens, that’s life. Rudy was not a personal gain to her, therefore Rudy was not a loss either. She had never seen or met this baby, so why would she be sad over it? There were some moments, where she let me know in her own way that she cared. I had bought ‘A special wish for my Sister’ bracelets and Matilda wore hers for weeks, the idea is you make a wish when you put it on, then when it breaks the wish comes true. She had wished that Paul and I would have another baby. Which I took as a sign that she does care and she also requested that Rudy’s matching bracelet goes in with her ashes which I also thought was very sweet.
On the day of Rudy’s funeral, we went to build a bear. Naturally after Rudy passed away, Paul’s Mum wanted to give us the heartbeat bear back. She didn’t believe she should keep it but we had bought it for her, there was no way we could accept it back. The plan was to go back and have her heartbeat recorded at our 4D scan when we were about 28 weeks and get our own bear, but because that wouldn’t happen, she wanted to give us hers. We decided on the day of the funeral, to make a bear (rabbit) and record Rudy's heartbeat into it at build a bear, we then made the certificate with Rudy’s date of birth on it and put the vest on the rabbit that we had used to make our pregnancy announcement. Rudy was too small to wear it so we kept it. I had purchased this really small pink heart urn, personalised with Rudy’s birthday and time of birth, it sat waiting in the little area that I had created for her to come home in. I decorated it with cherry blossoms and even hung one of Isla’s angels in the little fake branch, just like in the Blossom Suite. When I collected Rudy’s ashes from the crematorium, there were way more than we had expected, too many to fit in the urn. I had a bit of a melt down about it, panicking that she wouldn’t fit in the urn but together we decided to put her in the build a bear. Paul had a large bag that had his D&D dice in, it was satin like on the inside and suede on the outside. So we put her ashes in the bag, along with her sister bracelet, her Mummy & Daddy Love Rudy bracelet and some charms that matched my charms on my bracelet. I sewed up the bag and then I carefully unplucked the stitching from the build a bear, put the bag inside and sewed it back up. It was really the best idea we ever had because even now we can just pick her up and cuddle her whenever we want and all we have to do is squeeze the hand of the rabbit and we can hear Rudy’s heartbeat.
Being able to make the memories we did, the Blossom Suite, the bereavement team and being able to do the things that we could for Rudy, all played a part in our healing process. At Rudy’s funeral we managed to take about £170 in donations for the Blossom Suite, I also created due date candles. It was something that I focused on making to keep my mind busy whilst I waited for the funeral to come. They were little candles for families to light on the day of their baby’s due date, as that is a milestone that really hurts when you’ve lost a baby. All the things inside of the Blossom Suite, the memory boxes and everything else, were all donated by families like ours and I really wanted to give something back. One family donated the funds for each family to have their baby’s funeral flowers preserved into an ornament. Which gave me an idea, the one thing that instantly makes bereaved parents feel better is seeing and hearing their babies name, it validates their existence and it screams “My Baby Matters”. That is how I felt when I saw the white personalised photo frame that I had ordered, with Rudy’s name and birth details on. So we made another one to place inside of the Blossom Suite and inside the frame we placed our details so that families could contact us, so we can purchase one for them. A gift from our forever sleeping angel, to theirs. That is when I created the instagram page Remembering Rudy Dolden, specifically for these families to contact us. But it also became a place for me to post about her, remember her and read stories similar to mine. It is a community that you wish you would never be a part of, but once you are a part of it, it is the only place that you feel normal. Posting about Rudy on my regular social media became something I felt that I couldn’t do, afterall how many times can someone post about their dead baby before people get sick of hearing about it. I also couldn't share personal information about the loss or photos of her, so I used this instagram page to do just that.
The best thing that ever came out of my instagram page for Rudy, was my pen pal. One day I was laying in bed, scrolling through the instagram feed when I spotted a post titled ‘Loss Mom Pen Pals’. All I had to do was let the person that posted it know I was interested, then they sent me a set of questions to answer and they would pair me up with another Mummy. At the time of writing this story about Rudy, she is 14 months old. I am currently pregnant with Rudy’s little sister Aurora and she has a rare genetic disorder, so she too will be born sleeping or pass away shortly after she is born. My pen pal has been in my life for 13 months and I can’t imagine my life without her. This perfect stranger and her beautiful children have become such a massive part of my life and we have never even met. Whenever I think about Rudy, I think about her little girl born sleeping. Both of our girls are now permanently together in my mind and always will be.
