Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope

Jennifer
Mom to Rebecca Lee Hartling-Thompson
Stillborn on October 30th, 2003 at 27 weeks
Oak Harbor, WA

My first pregnancy was amazing – I went through it without a single care in the world – I was 20 years old and expecting my first child – I was engaged, we were happy. October 27^th 2003 my world ended. A normal doctors appointment showed a heartbeat he couldn’t find – that afternoon it was confirmed that my child had passed away. We began the process to induce my labor and at 21 years old now (my birthday is in September) – I delivered on October 30^th 2003 a beautiful 1lb 14.3oz baby girl named Rebecca Lee. Rebecca never got to see my face but I saw hers and can still picture her to this day and she is forever a part of my life.

I was young – I was naive – I never thought anything could happen to my baby. I don’t want to scare people with the thought that there baby may die but people need to realize that after 12 weeks you aren’t safe anymore. I thought I made it past 12 weeks and I was safe. There is really NO SAFE point in a pregnancy – no one told me about kick counts – no one told me that my baby could die. I had no idea that stillbirth existed till I met my daughter.

I am now the co-host of a stillbirth board on Justmommies.com and I am educating people as much as I can about my daughter. My daughter is my daughter and will forever be part of our lives. I have since had two beautiful boys since losing her – spent 6 weeks in the NICU with breathing issues with my son Benjamin and then was asked if I wanted to terminate Logan at 18 weeks gestation due to Partial Agensis of the Corpus Callosum – I chose to keep the pregnancy and he is perfect with no issues and has a full corpus callosum.

I would love to be able to share my story with the world – educate people on stillbirth and the importance of kick counts. There are so many ladies that I have made incredible friendships with over the last 7 years since losing Rebecca that I would never have gotten to meet had she not came into my world.

You can contact Jennifer at Jenniferthompson.whidbey@comcast.net