Reflections

Life after SIDS:
our journey to healing

Tatiana & Jonathon Vopinek

Written in the year following May 8, 2013

When we picked up our 3.5-month-old Savannah's lifeless body early May 8th, 2013, our world was rocked. We had no idea how our healthy little girl could have gone from alive to dead in an instant. It seemed like a bad dream, something we would wake up from one day and realize it didn't really happen. We waited weeks for the autopsy, only to find out they couldn't find any explanation, labeling it SIDS. No hole in her heart, no aneurysm, no internal bleeding, no signs of suffocation, no disease, no sickness. She just stopped living. For some reason still unknown to the medical community, about 2,000 babies a year in the United States, usually between 2 and 6 months old, stop living. SIDS is a diagnosis of exclusion: it means all the reasons we know cause death are ruled out. We had so many questions and so few answers.

Through the haze and paralyzing first weeks of grief we were determined to find out what happened. We craved hearing from parents who had been in our shoes. We read their stories, reached out to them, sat in support groups with them, and tried to learn everything we could. Did they ever recover and have a normal life again? If their life took a turn for the worse, what were the reasons, and could that pain be avoided? If they became more caring, sensitive, loving people filled with hope, what was their secret? We are forever grateful for those who shared their stories and let us learn from both their missteps and their wisdom.

Our hope in writing this and sharing our personal journey is that it brings encouragement, insight, and hope for those who have suddenly had a loved one taken from them. Whether you are a parent like us, or a family member or friend, we hope our experiences help you. We would love to hear your story as well.

"God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us." — 2 Corinthians 1:4

First Post

She Is Really Gone

May 7th – 10th, 2013

Tatiana with her pregnant friends, January 2013
The pregnant amigas, January 2013. Savannah would get to grow up with great friends.

On the night of Tuesday May 7th we gave our sweet Savannah kisses good night like we did every night. I can still picture holding and squeezing her cute little body before we put her in bed. She gave us her signature big smile as she looked at us peacefully and happily. We had no idea that it would be the last moments we would have with her. The baby monitor was on all night with picture and volume. She had just started sleeping through the night, but my body was still programmed to wake up at 5am for the morning feeding I had been helping with. So at 5am I got up, grabbed the monitor, went to the living room with my laptop, and got Savannah's bottle ready so I would have it as soon as she woke up. I checked the monitor every few minutes, steps away from the room she was sleeping in. She was peacefully sleeping in her crib with her head turned to the left.

At around 7:30am Tatiana and her niece Priscilla were ready to go out for breakfast with the kids. Tatiana kept checking the monitor, waiting for Savannah to wake up. We talked about how impressed we were that she was sleeping so well already. I had an 8am meeting I should have already left for, but I couldn't get a report to print that I needed. I tried three times and for some reason it wouldn't go through, so I was still there. Tatiana had already gotten our 2-year-old son Levi dressed and decided it was time to get Savannah up. I can still hear Tatiana's scream when she walked in the room to wake Savannah up and picked her lifeless body up instead. My first thought was that some bug was in the room and freaked her out, but as I ran in and saw Tatiana simultaneously screaming and sobbing while holding Savannah, I knew something was irrevocably wrong. I grabbed Savannah and tried to give her mouth to mouth. I can still feel Savannah's little lips on mine as I hopelessly tried to breathe life into her. I called 911 and remember saying I think my little girl is dead, she isn't breathing and her body is hard. I screamed, how could this happen.

After I hung up with 911 I screamed at God to somehow bring Savannah back to life, telling him he couldn't have really let my little girl die, pleading with him to make this just a dream. I remember feeling in the moment like he was 100% to blame. He had been so good to us all our life. How could he let something like this happen to her? The rest of the day, and the next, are a blur. The ambulance arrived along with police and firefighters. It wasn't until I heard Chris Reed, our neighbor and a pastor at Saddleback, tell them incessantly that we were good parents who loved our children, that I realized we were being semi-investigated. Later we learned this is standard protocol, and we understand it needs to be done. It didn't affect me, but it bothered Tatiana, who felt like she was being accused of killing her daughter. I remember seeing Savannah being taken away in a body bag and wishing I hadn't.

That night, along with the next few, were the longest nights I have ever had. It felt like they went on forever and the morning light would never come. All the horrible images of the day would come to mind, burned in. Tatiana spent much of the night on her phone googling sudden infant death syndrome and anything else she could find. I don't recommend this. We were hungry for an understanding of what happened but struggled to find anything that made sense.

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer." — C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Second Post

Our First Time Leaving the House

May 11th, 2013

Good friends of ours were celebrating their son Ryder's 1st birthday and we had RSVP'd before Savannah passed away. We had pictured Savannah growing up with Ryder. This would be the first time we left our house and were out with other people. We felt conflicted. We wanted to be with friends who cared about us, but we were scared to be in an environment we couldn't control, unsure if we could contain our emotions. We wanted to celebrate that their child made it to one, something we had taken for granted just a week ago. But we were also afraid being there might bring unwanted sadness to their party. Would everyone feel uncomfortable around the parents whose daughter just died? After all, we had failed at the most important aspect of being a parent: protecting our child. Our son Levi loved a party and really wanted to go. That put it over the edge. We decided then that we would not let our grief ruin Levi's childhood. He had already lost a sister; it wasn't fair for him to also lose his parents to the confinement of our grief. We went to the party.

It was both encouraging to be around friends who loved us and horribly uncomfortable feeling we were now defined as the parents who lost their daughter. It was around this time we started to realize that our life moving forward would be filled with both highs and lows simultaneously. Joy and sadness, not taking turns, but occupying our thoughts and emotions at the same time. Hope and despair together. Beautiful moments now tainted with brokenness, and even in our deepest despair, elements of beauty and joy. As a person who didn't grow up speaking about emotions, all this was overwhelming. Was I depressed or hopeful? Sad or happy? Grieving or thankful? Somehow I would feel seemingly opposite emotions at the exact same time.

"The screaming pain we feel at the loss of those we love reflects the pure pleasure we felt in knowing them. We cannot have one without the other." — Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised

From Savannah's Memorial

Jesus Loves Me

Shared May 15th, 2013

Two weeks before that fateful night, Tatiana asked Levi to sing Happy Birthday to Savannah because she had just turned 3 months old. Levi loved to sing to his little sister; when she would get fussy he would run to her and sing, and it made her smile. For some reason, that day, when Tatiana asked him to sing Happy Birthday, he insisted on a different song first.

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong; they are weak, but He is strong."

God knew this is the message we needed to get deep into our hearts. He knew this video of our precious baby would be watched over and over by us and many who loved her. He knew our hearts would be breaking, that we would want to be angry, that we would be tempted to feel guilt for not finding some way to protect her. He knew Tatiana and I would be lying on the floor in her bedroom on the soft rug Savannah loved, looking at all the clothes people gave her that she will never wear, watching this video in a moment of complete brokenness. He knew there was one message we had to hold on to when the waves of depression and doubt hit. Savannah was so little and weak, but He is strong, and He has her in his arms now. She belongs to Him. He loves us, and our pain is not bigger than that love.

Two days after Savannah passed away I was lying on the floor praying, unable to even stand, and God brought a thought that gave me peace. He helped me realize Savannah was His before he let us be with her. That he loved her before she was born. That he always knew the night of May 7th would be her last one on this earth, and he still wanted her to be born. As a Father who lost a Son, he felt our pain. We were shocked; he was not. He knew the pain we would feel back when Tatiana and I first started dating, and he had prepared us to stand against this storm and not be completely crushed.

The night after she passed, a memory came and a calm came over me. We had once gone to Cancun for a work event, and her Abuela, Tatiana's mom, begged to keep Savannah the few days we were gone. We never worried about our sweet girl, because we knew she was with someone who loved her dearly. We missed her, we looked at her pictures at night and wished we could kiss her good night, but we never worried, never felt guilt, never felt depressed, because we knew we would see her again. And it hit me: this is a very similar situation. Savannah is with Someone who loves her dearly. She is not in pain. We will see her again and know her unique personality for all of eternity. It is as if Savannah is on vacation right now, and one day we will get to join her.

God brought to mind something he taught us years ago. We had helped with a ministry in Mexico that cares for orphans, Genesis, and once put on a camp for 30 orphaned children. When it ended and the kids had to return to their orphanage, many cried and didn't want to go. Greg, the leader, gathered them and explained that life has different seasons, some filled with joy and others with sorrow, but God can use them all. We should never look back on a season of joy with sadness that it ended, but remember the great times and be thankful for that season. Little did I know God was teaching us a lesson we would need so badly. We are not to look back on the happy season of our life with Savannah and kick and scream that it is over. We should remember the good times and be filled with the joy we had together. Knowing everything we know today, including this heartbreaking pain, if given the choice we still would choose to have our little girl for those 9 months of pregnancy and 3 and a half months of life. She is worth the pain.

The last way God comforted us was through how Levi handled losing his little sister. At bedtime I started explaining that Savannah had died and gone to Heaven. As we read his children's Bible there was a picture of a beautiful angel, and I told him an angel like that took Savannah to Heaven to play and that she lives with Jesus now. He kept processing and asked, "Does Jesus have cars for her?" I laughed and tears welled up, and said yes buddy, I'm sure he does. He kept thinking and then asked, "Is she taller now?" I told him yes, I think she probably is. He said good, smiled, and was ready to finish the Bible story.

When I told Tatiana that Levi asked if his sister was taller now, she laughed for the first time since Savannah passed away. Levi had always asked if Savannah could play cars with him, and Tatiana would say she could when she got taller. So when I told him Savannah didn't live here anymore, his first thoughts were whether Jesus had cars for her, and whether she was tall enough now to play. He just wanted to make sure his little sister was having fun, and once he knew she was, he was at peace. Levi trusted me completely. Tatiana and I want to trust our Heavenly Father the same way: like a child who trusts their loving father, even though our minds don't fully understand the how.

The Journal

Notes written in real time across that first year, mostly at night, mostly raw.

June 6, 2013

On behalf of parents who have lost a child, I want to share a vulnerable glimpse into why sometimes we struggle to be as good of friends or family as we used to be. Losing a child is disorienting. Children aren't supposed to die, and definitely not silently with no warning in their own bed in the safety of their own home with their parents steps away. From the day we find out we're pregnant we become acutely aware of our need to protect that child. And then one day your worst nightmare comes true; all your efforts to protect the child you love more than your own life have failed. There is no redo, no reset, no waking up from this nightmare. Every dream and hope you had is gone, replaced with a future that at times doesn't feel worth continuing on with.

Your mind continuously searches back for ways you could have avoided this. What if we never moved, what if we used a different crib, what if I woke her early that day. The thoughts go on for hours, almost impossible to shut off. You learn quickly that this kind of thinking will destroy you, so you block it out through the day, and then you lie down to sleep and the battle wages again.

So here is our hope and suggestion for all of us: show those around you grace. Give them the benefit of the doubt. The way people treat you often has little to do with you and much more to do with the battles they're facing. Don't wait to find out someone is struggling to be more loving toward them. Assume life has been hard for them and show them the grace you want God and others to show you. Tatiana and I have been on the receiving end of this grace and it helps more than you can know.

June 4, 2013

At times we feel angry and bitter about this passage, and at other times extremely comforted by it. We are reminded that although we were shocked, God was not. That Savannah was his before he loaned her to us, and he loves her more fully than we are capable of. That we will never know why her body so suddenly shut down. If I am to take the comfort in his Word, I must also be willing to take the parts that make no sense to me. This passage has both.

"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." — Psalm 139:13-16

June 2, 2013

Tatiana and I have had moments when the grief is so strong that death seems a lot more attractive than continuing to live. In these overwhelming moments we have tried to follow the example Jesus gave when he felt the same way:

"He became anguished and distressed. He told them, 'My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.' He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying." — Matthew 26:37-39

What we have done, again and again:

1. Ask your closest friends to be there with you. Not to give advice or try to cheer you up, but just to physically be there with you.
2. Pour yourself out in prayer to God your Heavenly Father, who loves you.
3. Repeat the process until we have the strength to get up and live again.

A note before you read on If you are carrying grief this heavy right now, please don't carry it alone. Reach out to someone you trust today. If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available any time, by call or text at 988. You are loved, and there are people ready to sit with you in it.

When the worst pains of life come, it is too much for us to stand up on our own, no matter how strong we are. Tatiana and I know we are too weak to do this by ourselves. We continue to grow closer together and are sure good will come out of this pain, because our confidence and roots are in God.

May 31, 2013

Five reasons Tatiana and I have decided to post transparently since Savannah passed: Writing out what we're learning helps the good stick and replace the bad thoughts that creep in. It gives us a log to pull up and read when the waves of despair hit. People reply with their own experiences and encouragements that comfort us. We refuse to go through this pain without finding a way to help others in pain. And hopefully it encourages those with children to be thankful for them and really enjoy their time together. We would give anything now to "have to" wake up in the middle of the night and feed Savannah. We never again want to take for granted time with the people we love. There is no guarantee we'll have tomorrow together.

May 25, 2013

To find comfort in grieving, I don't pretend it didn't happen. I focus less on the pain of losing her and more on the excitement of eventually spending forever with her. Between stimulus and response lies your choice. Choose to be better, not bitter.

"So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever." — 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

May 24, 2013

Why am I tempted to ask "Why me?" when something bad happens, but I forget to ask "Why me?" for all the good in my life? I didn't have control over what country or era I was born in, or if my brain would work, or if I'd have a family that loves me, or that I'd be born at all. Focus on being faithful with what is my responsibility, and trust God with the rest.

May 13, 2013

The five songs bringing me peace right now: "I Will Rise" and "God of Angel Armies" by Chris Tomlin, "Starry Night" by Chris August, "Like a Lion" by David Crowder, and "Beautiful Things" by Gungor.

"Beautiful music can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us." — Martin Luther