Parents say special goodbye to baby girl

Editor’s Note: The following account is from the Williams family, who spent three months in the Medical University of South Carolina’s neonatal intensive care unit, describing how the hospital’s Palliative Care team helped them in saying goodbye to their daughter, Charlotte, who passed July 14 from complications of prematurity.

My name is Jillian Williams and my daughter’s name was Charlotte Grey Williams. My beautiful daughter was born April 12, 2016, and was soon brought to MUSC. We were very nervous coming to this new hospital, but we learned very quickly that this was a special place.

My daughter spent three months in the NICU, and we were with her every single day. We were always able to leave her and get some rest because we knew she was in the best place being cared for by the greatest people. The entire staff cared for our daughter with such compassion and respect. We were always given thorough explanations of every medication, every procedure, every lab that came back, and they always made sure we knew exactly what was happening with Charlotte; we were never left in the dark.

When the doctor explained how gravely ill Charlotte truly was, they called in the Palliative Care team to help us cope with her end-of-life situation. We didn’t know what to do or think, and they took us under their wing and guided us fully through the two most difficult days of our lives. They held our hands and offered us opportunities to take family photos, have Charlotte baptized and create canvasses of her footprints. Finally, they offered to bring in a bed for us on the last day of Charlotte’s life so we could all snuggle together like a family. Never did I imagine that I’d be able to lay in bed with my sweet daughter and forget, if only for a moment, that we were in a hospital.

I would gaze at her while my husband would doze, and then he would watch her while I dozed. We told her it was OK to go. It was at one point when we both feel asleep that she passed. She did that for us. It was as if she knew it was OK. It was an amazing experience.

I cannot put into words how incredibly kind, patient and loving every staff member was to my daughter and my family at MUSC. We will do anything to help this hospital and the people who worked so hard to save our baby. The Palliative Care team played such an important role to us in the end, and they are the only reason why we had such a beautiful experience with our daughter on her last night with us. Our goal is to continue working with the Palliative Care team to ensure that other parents can have the same experience that we had, and we will do whatever we need to make that happen. I know the Palliative Care team is fairly new at the hospital, but you must realize how important they are. We would have never made it through those final days without them, and families like us will need them for years to come.

With love and admiration,

Steve, Jill, Annabelle and our precious angel Charlotte Williams