Back to previous page
On his twenty eighth day in life, a doctor put two new intravenous long lines into Will just after his father arrived in the morning. With his siblings in day care, Will's grandmas arrived for a visit. For the first time oma Bep saw Will open his eyes. At 3 pm, Jan and oma Bep left to pick up Piet and Emma from day care. Will deteriorated and had to be put back onto the oscillator ventilator. After moving the drain in the left side of his chest brought no improvement in his blood oxygen saturation levels (sats), Jan went back into the hospital. Oma cooked dinner for Piet and Emma and put them to bed. After another adjustment of his drain around 8pm brought Will's sats above 80%, mum went home, had a nap on the sofa and expressed some breastmilk, before driving back to the hospital. From 11.15 pm, his parents witnessed together how doctors were unable to stop or reverse the decline in his sats.
On his twenty nineth day in life, it was Thursday again. At 0.03 am Will's parents sang him happy birthday in Dutch for the fourth time, knowing time was running out. At 2 am, Will was transferred with all his tubes from his cot to his mother's arms for their first cuddle. It lasted long. At 3.10 am, just after removing the tubes into his stomach and lungs, Will died in his father's arms, twenty eight days young. We are heartbroken losing him, nothing prepared us for that, not even the knowledge during those four weeks that it could so easily happen. But he is in better hands now. His struggle has finally ended. It would be unfair to him to wish for an extension of his fight. We are deeply grateful that he chose the time of his farewell himself. Will, we are so thankful to have known you.
In the embrace of his father's arms, all his intravenous lines were removed and we carried him to a quiet room. Wrapped in a blanket and in our arms, he did not get cold. We chose to leave him at the hospital and drove back home together, arriving when daylight broke for a glorious morning.
We went back to the hospital with a car seat and took Will briefly to our house, where he arrived at noon. We spent an afternoon together as some kind of 'family'. Piet and Emma realised he was cold when they kissed him goodbye. They kept blowing him kisses when the funeral company car took him down our driveway.