Imogen's Anniversaries

How we remember, celebrate, commemorate.

Imogen in her ball gown.

My post at the MISS Board: 30 December 2002

Two years ago, a very special little lady came into our lives - Imogen Mighty Moen Meagher. Our pregnancy was overwrought with worry because Imogen wasn't growing properly and no one could tell us why. We had spent weeks and weeks in a state of worry and panic - the kind of panic that perchs on the back of your throat, constricting breathe and life. Because Soren had died just 15 months earlier from an infection, once we found out that she wasn't growing, I couldn't help but spend the day composing Imogen's funeral in my head despite the fact that she wasn't even born yet. In my head, I spent her funeral raging at the world, at people, at the randomness of randomness. I calculated that based on statistics, Kieron and I were well over 1 in a million if you added up all the numbers about what has happened to our children. And since Imogen was a mystery, that number didn't even exist. In my mind funeral, I wanted everyone to appreciate this awe-inspiring fact.

Then one day, the funeral thoughts stopped. I could breathe again. The facts still remained - we didn't know what was happening - but I felt relief in realizing that Imogen had the ability within herself, to do this. And she did.

So at 4:07am on Saturday, 30th of December, this little tiny scrap of a miracle was born. She popped out all of a sudden (details of the hours leading up omitted here for time and space reasons) and the doctor said, "Oh!" Kieron said, "I think she is moving, I think she is moving....." She was tiny tiny little. They gently wisked her to the intubation table and tried to get a tube in. She wouldn't let them. She cried tiny kitten cries, pearcing my heart and staying there. I could see tiny arms, the smallest arms I have ever seen, pushing vainly at the doctor. Eventually, they got a tube in and we would have to hope from then on that we could here those kitten cries again some day.

So we headed down the road of unretrained optimisim, we just couldn't help ourselves. We were excited - yes she had problems, but she was alive! And that had to count for something.

Kieron went with her to the NICU. One of Soren's doctors was there and exclaimed, "Oh no, not this family again!" They got Imogen set up and comfortable, then the nurse took a photo of her for me so that I could see for myself that she really did exist. One nurse told me later about Imogen's first night, "She was very restless, so I wrapped her up tightly in a nappy, binding her arms so that she wouldn't wave them around. Then I put some eye pads over so that she could get some rest. She is a live wire, that one." She never would rest, spending so much of her time watching everyone. The nurses said that they always felt her eyes on them wherever they were in the room. Such a curious girl!

We held her that night for the first time. She spend her time with Daddy pulling on his chest hairs with her little fingers. So tiny, but so happy to be with us. She really loved being held.

Here at MISS, so many friends followed Imogen's progress. I have never felt so much love and energy in my life as what we experienced here at MISS. Little Miss Mighty became MISS Mighty because she was so loved here. I will never ever forget this love. It means more to me than could even be known.

So that is the story of Imogen's birth. Now starts the time of her life and remembering that this time of year brings. The weather, the turn of the year, the months before March. This March will be the hardest ever, with Heloise's birthday shared by Kieron, and Imogen's death day one day before. I feel this all puts us into the one in a billion category. I used to hope that one day we could be ordinary, but I think we have traveled beyond the possibility of achieving this - that is ok now, I wouldn't want to be ordinary anyway.

Sending love,
Karin

She captured so many hearts the world over. I know that Kieron and I are never going to be the only ones to remember her special days.

Return to Imogen's 2nd birthday page.
Imogen's 3rd Birthday

Return to Birthdays title page.
Birthdays for Kae.
Birthdays for Aurora.
Birthdays for Søren.
Heloise's first birthday.