Jolene

Mom to

Baby Roth, June 2003

Aiden Robert, July 2, 2004

Centerville, Minnesota
 

Soon after our first wedding anniversary, we became pregnant. We were ecstatic! We were in the process of buying our first home and couldn’t wait to start a family.

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Vickie

Mom to 

Abigail Frances Bacon, born still at term December 6th, 2003
and Anne Elise Bacon, born April 28th, 2005, died June 28th, 2005

Albuquerque, New Mexico

I’m Vickie, 48 & married since 1985. We have a grown son, who defied the odds & was born in 1986. I had a D&C later that autumn to resolve a miscarriage that didn't resolve on its own.

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Chrystie

Mom to Alyssa Marie Sams

April 30th, 2003

Bentonville, Arkansas

On April 30, 2003, I lost my precious baby girl, Alyssa. Ever since I was a little girl, I have wanted babies. 

My time came, and left with a pain almost unbearable. 

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Susie

Mom to Baby Wells, January 24th, 2003

and Avery Gayle Wells, July 13th, 2005

Tomball, Texas

In 2002 we decided to have another baby. My youngest of 2 had been such a handful that we waited awhile to have another. Nov 02 I stopped taking my bc pills. We figured we'd give it some time to get them out of my system and then aim for getting pregnant in January. We wanted an October baby!

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Kerry

Mom to Grace Biondi Morlan

Born still, May 19th, 2003

Des Moines, Iowa

After struggling with infertility my husband, Luke and I were so thrilled to learn we were pregnant with our first child. We did all the things expectant parents do: We read the books, signed up for classes, decorated the nursery, kept a journal with entries we wrote to our cherished first child throughout our pregnancy. I read and sang to the baby and Luke, a music lover, played a variety of his favorite artistes to my growing belly. My baby shower was planned and everyone was excited and the count down was on.

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Danielle

Mom to Baby Miscarried July 3rd, 2003

and Baby Lost in the 2nd Trimester on October 9th, 2005

I am writing about my losses in hopes that I may find some sort of closure. I have the most difficulty with my second trimester loss. It has been nearly 5 years since that day, and I still don’t like to talk about it. Here goes…..

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Yvonne

Mom to Matthew Christopher Joye 

 Born on January 10, 2003 and died on January 11, 2003

Dublin, Ireland

My name is Yvonne Joye, I am 41 years old and eight years ago we lost our fourth child and third son Matthew, 24 hours after his birth.

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Kristin

Mom to River Christian, full term 4/8/03

Blaze Canyon, full term 10/30/06 - 11/01/06

Miriam Beth, miscarried at 14 weeks 3/25/07

August Finn, partial molar pregnancy at 10 weeks 1/31/08

Benicia, California

I met the love of my life at college and we were married 1994.  We had 2 beautiful daughters, one in 1998 and one in 1999.  After my second daughter was born, I suffered from  severe post partum depression, and we had to give up our home and move closer to family. It took about one year to recover from the depression. Within a few years, we were expecting again. 

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Priscilla and James
Parents to our three angels
Jacob Tyler, September 4th, 2003 (stillborn at 21.5 weeks)
Jordan Skye, April 21st, 2006 (miscarriage at 7 weeks)
Olivia Hayden, December 14th, 2009 (stillborn at 36.5 weeks)
Olympia, WA

My husband and I have been struggling with the loss of our three children for nearly seven years now. We got married in August 2002, and knew right away that we wanted a family. Six months later, we decided we wanted to make that a reality, so we went off the pill. Just a month after trying, we were excited to find out that we were pregnant! The morning sickness was absolutely awful, but I didn't mind, as I was too excited about having that child 9 months later. Aside from that, the pregnancy was going well up until 21 weeks. The following is the story told by my husband of what happened after that...

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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

April
Mom to Chris
December 17th, 2002-March 1st, 2003
Lost to SIDS
Waterville, Maine

I woke up on March 1, 2003 to knocking on my front door. Still sleepy eyed, I walked to the door without checking the time. My mother had come over to drop some things off. I let her in, still not aware of the time. She sat down and asked where Chris was. I looked at the clock and realized he had not been awake in 7 hours, and that is so much longer than he'd ever gone before without eating. I immediately went to his room to check on him and as soon as I saw him, I knew something was wrong. He slept on his tummy, and instead of being in his normal sleeping position, he was face down, with his arms stretched out at each side. I didn't check him but instead picked him up right away.

He wasn't breathing and he was luke warm, his skin was very ashen. I ran him out to my mother screaming to her that he wasn't breathing and she took him from me and began CPR. I called 911 and in between begging them to help us and pleading not to let my baby die, I gave them my information. They stayed on the phone until the first responders, fire fighters, arrived. They took him from my mother and stated that he was in full arrest. They took over CPR and as soon as the ambulance arrived, they ran him out of the house, leaving my mother and me behind.

I went outside and sat in my driveway, crying. They did not let me into the ambulance, or tell me anything. The Sherrif's deputies arrived an had to question me. Silly questions like where I worked and what my social security number. Nobody told me a thing. The ambulance left while I was still being questioned, and I still knew nothing.

We were finally able to leave for the hospital, 5-10 minutes after the ambulance left. The drive seemed to take forever. I watched everyone else out on that Saturday, going about their shopping, with their families. I felt so angry at them, how dare they drive around so happy and carefree when my world was crashing in. We got to the hospital and we were escorted to a private room, where my father met us. We still knew nothing, other than they were working on him. A nun came in (Catholic hospital) and tried to console me, but ended up making things worse by telling me that I was still young and I could always have more children. I still didn't know if my baby was alive or dead. I just nodded silently. She was interrupted by a nurse coming in to speak with us, and she left.

I was asked if I wanted to go in and see him. I said yes, and as soon as I walked in, I had hope. He was no longer the ashen color, but he was pink again. I was scared, his tiny body had wires and tubes, and there was a needle sticking out of his chest. As soon as I got close enough to see his face, the hope disappeared and I knew he was gone. His eyes were open a tiny bit, and I could see them unmoving, just a fixed, blank stare. I saw the way his mouth looked with the breathing tube down his throat. I've never been able to erase that look from my head.

They took us out and within a few minutes, the doctor came in. He explained that they had been working on Chris for some time, with no response. He never started breathing again and his heart never started beating. They needed to know when to stop breathing for him. I wanted to be in there when they stopped so I could say good-bye. I went in and there were only two nurses now, everyone else had cleared out. They were still pumping his oxygen. I walked to him and told him how much I loved him. I stroked his cheek and held his hand. They stopped pumping and began to unhook him from everything. I looked up and saw one nurse with her head turned, crying, and trying not to show me. They asked if I wanted to hold him. I did. They wrapped him in a blanket and I sat in the rocking chair in the room, and rocked him. I patted his butt and kissed his head, as if I were putting him to sleep. I told him I loved him over and over.

It wasn't long before my father came in and told me I needed to go. I still regret agreeing with him. I handed him to my father, who is a hospice nurse and familiar with the hospital, and I left. I walked down the hall, crying, without my baby in my arms. I was walked to my mom's car and my first thought was how I needed to call into work. I did actually call them and tell them I couldn't come in that day, and when asked why, I flat out said that my son just died.
I walked around in a daze. I went to Wal-Mart and to Walgreens that day. I carried his blanket and often cried just walking through stores.

The next several days were a blur. I had to go to the funeral home and make decisions, I had to write his obituary. I managed well through the visitation, because I felt like I was with him. When we left that day, I felt so bad, leaving my baby behind. I was afraid he would be scared and lonely. The funeral was much harder for me. I think the hardest part was knowing I'd be leaving him forever at the end of that day. Even though it was just his body, I felt better being with him.

An autopsy was performed and they couldn't find a thing wrong with him. He had never been ill, there were no problems and his body was just perfect. They ruled his death SIDS, which is a fancy way of saying they don't know why he died.

To this day, we have no reasons, and we never will. I hate not knowing why my baby died. I hate passing each birthday without having him here to grow. I hate missing him, and I hate the pain that will never go away. There is an empty spot in my heart without him.

April blogs at http://journiesofamodernmom.blogspot.com/
You can contact her at luvmychrisandpj@gmail.com