In the weeks after the birth of their son Charlie, Maura and Sam Hanke were the picture of exhausted, blissed-out new parents. Maura’s pregnancy had been smooth and full of excitement. Her labor and delivery were straightforward, “nothing out of the ordinary,” she said. Charlie, the couple’s first child, came into the world on April 6, 2010, a healthy 7 pounds, 11 ounces and 21 inches long.
“That was the best day of my life, meeting him,” Maura, 34, told The Huffington Post. “It was awesome.”
As far as newborns go, Charlie was easy. He cried, but not excessively, and liked being held by his parents, quieting down whenever they read or sang to him in their home near the Kentucky-Ohio border.
But one night three weeks in, Charlie was fussier than normal, refusing to fall asleep in his crib. The inevitable sleep deprivation had begun to wear on Maura, and Sam offered to take their son so his wife could get some rest.
“Maura was more exhausted than normal, so I said, ‘I’ll stay up and hold him,'” Sam said. In the early morning hours, he held Charlie against his torso, and the child eventually settled down.
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“I would’ve loved to have more time with him, obviously, but there was already an old wisdom in those eyes and that face,” she recalled, breaking into quiet tears. “He just seemed to kind of know his world.”
For more information on SIDs and safe sleep environments, visit:
AAP Policy Statement
HealthyChildren
Centers For Disease Control and Prevention
This post is part of HuffPost’s Transforming Tragedy series (read more here, here, here and here). If you or someone you know has started a charity after the loss of a child, we’d love to hear your story. To submit a nomination, email thirdmetric@huffingtonpost.com.
