My husband was off work that day. We had a full day planned of shopping for a few necessities that we were lacking in our nursery… our baby girl was due in five weeks! But when I woke up at 5:45am I knew the day wasn’t going to go as planned. I had wet the bed… not literally, although it was very well possible with my baby using my blatter as punch bag, but my water had broke. A little bit of panic ensued… I didn’t have my hospital bag packed! we didn’t have her diaper changing pad yet! We were excited, but we were supposed to have more time to prepare for the main event!
At 2:55pm that day she came into the world, and they put this tiny bundle into my arms for a minute… but as her face slowly turned more and more purple they promptly took her back and removed her from the room. She was just a bit too early and needed some help with her suck, swallow, breath reflex. So instead of having my baby in my room with me she was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). We truly were the lucky ones there… our baby had made it so much farther in the womb than so many of the other babies… our baby was surely going to be okay, some of the others in there were not.
My husband promptly went down to the gift shop and bought our tiny daughter her first horse… we named him Trigger. When we had to walk away and leave our daughter connected to all those tubes and wires, Trigger stayed there with her… we liked to think of him as her guardian.
Since then Trigger has been a member of our family… sleeping with Avery every night, going with her every where, including to her new school to be her “guardian” during naptime. So when one night of searching for Trigger for bedtime turned into two days of searching for Trigger… I started to get worried.
I retraced some steps and called a restaurant we had been to the night Trigger disappeared. The hostess answered, and yes! She had seen what looked like a stuffed animal in the parking lot, but someone had picked it up and didn’t turn it in to them. So I frantically called all the other places in that strip to see if someone had turned it in at another place… nope. Then the reality set in that he was gone, and as I relived those moments in my head that Trigger had been a part of… I cried. I take that back… I bawled… for hours. I was a wreck- so much worse than my daughter who kept saying we’d find him, but I knew the truth that this little hopeful girl didn’t… Trigger was gone.
I thought about putting up flier, offering a huge reward, and yes we even put him as “lost” on Craig’s List.
A few days later the phone rang, my husband answered and soon was standing in front of me on the phone smiling and giving me a thumbs up… someone had turned him in!!! Trigger was found!!! I think I cried again 
Is anyone as crazy as me? would you offer a reward for your kids lost stuffed animal?
