Letters to Eva

Thanks for joining me!

I am going to use this first post to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about why I’ve decided to begin this project.

I am Jessica Peters, a born and raised Saskatchewan girl who loves her family, friends and her job. In 2012 I met my husband, Jordon Peters, while we were both working for the Grain Company, Viterra. We connected almost instantly, both of us farm kids raised in small communities. There was only one problem – Jordon lived in Wymark, and myself in Lloydminster. Long story short, we over came this hurdle and in 2014 we bought a home in Swift Current and were married soon after that. Jordon was, and still is, everything I wanted in a partner, he stood by me through many moves, job changes, and other personal struggles. We couldn’t be more different people but we just seem to fit. He is the Type B to my Type A personality, the traditional to my modern taste, the calm to my sometimes crazy.

In January of 2015 Jordon and I decided it was time to take the next step in life and start thinking about babies. Soon after, early march, We found out we were expecting our first child! We couldn’t have ever imagined what a whirl wind journey was about to come our way! In June we found out we were expecting a perfect little girl, ten toes, ten fingers, and growing healthy and right on schedule! That’s about where schedule stopped for us – little Eva Alice Peters joined our world two weeks early on October 12th, 2015! She was everything we ever dreamt about, a little spitfire from day one. She met milestones and grew like a weed. Her first word was most definitely NO!, at about 10 months old, and that was only the beginning. Everybody who ever met our little darling was 100% in love and wrapped completely around her little fingers.

On January 10, 2018 after a few days of noticing some bruising on all different parts of Eva’s body we took her into our local Emergency Room to have her looked at. Eva was then quickly diagnosed with ITP – Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, an auto immune disease in which the immune system destroys the bodies platelets. Platelets are a necessary for our blood to clot properly. When our blood doesn’t clot normally we are at higher risk of very serious bleeding. Eva was immediately given IVIG which is a protein from our blood that makes the platelets stronger in order to survive being fought off by the immune system. At this point her platelets rebounded nicely and she was on the mend! Whew – crisis adverted – so we thought. 10 days later Eva’s platelet count dropped again and at this point we started on our journey to get those platelets to stabilize. We spent much of our time in Saskatoon at RUH and RMHC-SK, seeing doctors and trying 5 or 6 different treatments, all of which never resulted in great results. On March 13th 2018 Eva came down with a viral cold that caused her platelets to drop again. We believe that over night that night she coughed in her sleep and a blood vessel broke. Eva suffered a brain bleed and on March 14th 2018, in her mamas arms, Eva gained her angel wings and will be forever 2.

Our family is in a hard place and deep grief but we know that our sweet angel will guide us through this journey, just as she taught us so much in her short life. I decided to create this blog as an outlet and to write letters to my baby. I’m also hoping that one day this blog may touch another mom who needs to know that she’s not alone and she is 100% normal. This writing will be coming straight from my heart and I know at times it will be very raw and very ugly. I hope you can weather this storm with me, because I know together we will make it out on the other side!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton