Our Daughter's Funeral

A funeral service will be held on Monday January 16th at 11 a.m. for Isabella. She will be laid to rest at the Mesa Cemetery on Wednesday January 18th. Yesterday we traveled to the funeral home that would be in charge of the funeral in Apache Junction. We were greeted immediately with open arms by our funeral director. We learned that she too had lost an infant after birth, and sympathized with our loss. We discussed times and locations, and spoke about Isabella's current condition. Her body was in Mesa at the funeral homes additional facility. We had brought her tiny dress, as we were under the impression that she was in this building, and that we would see her then. We were instructed to drive into Mesa the next day where we could dress her and decorate her casket. Both Chanel's mother as well as mine tagged along, and we were all excited to see Isabella. She was in a more delicate state than we have before seen. Because little is known about CDH, we knew doctors could benefit from what Isabella could teach them. An autopsy was performed in St. Louis before we had returned to Arizona, and we had not seen Isabella since. Her frail body was wrapped in a plastic from the neck down that protected her during travel. The plastic could not be removed under any circumstance. We dressed our daughter in the most beautiful of dresses, and put little ballet slippers on her feet. Chanel and I sat in the room for a while afterwards with Isabella and wrapped her in her grandmothers crocheted blanket. She looked so peaceful and beautiful. We wept over our daughters open casket, but not for very long. We were finally coming to terms with ourselves that this would not be the last time we would see Isabella. We kissed our daughter goodbye, wiped our tears and left for home. There was still funeral arrangements that needed doing. We want everything to be perfect for our little princess.