“Just expect a heavy period.” On the ultrasound table, I knew that my baby was not alive. But just as surely as I knew that my baby was not alive, I was just as sure that God would speak life, breathe life back into my baby. And then, the ultrasound screen went blank, and I…
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To The Nurses Who Brought Me Back Into Life
Continue...Thank you for saving me. Your skills and your knowledge saved me from following my daughter into death, but it was your compassion that guided me back towards life. The humanity you demonstrated is what brought me back into life; you made it possible to think about living after death. For this, I owe you…
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In Pregnancy After Loss, Nothing Is Routine
Continue...“Have you been feeling movement?” the nurse asks as she takes my blood pressure at each prenatal appointment. Every time she asks, the words sting. I know it is a routine question at a routine appointment, but I am not a routine pregnancy patient. I’ve lost two babies in the second trimester, one to miscarriage,…
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Every Pregnancy Loss Is Birth
Continue...The waves of cramps came, then an urge to push. What emerged from my body mere weeks into my pregnancy did not resemble a child. Yet I wailed over the form because it was my child, or at least as much as I would ever know of her. I felt primal, instinctual, animal-like. My womb…
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Don’t Sleep on Your Back
Continue...Researchers are always trying to find out how to prevent stillbirth. As a result, new findings mean we have to change how we think about our losses. I was just at the International Stillbirth Alliance conference and new research has come out that changes my thinking on the death of my boys. Several different researchers, doing…
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Milestones
Continue...I’m coming up on an important milestone. And I’m going to be spending it in a heartbreaking place. Saturday, September 23rd will mark ten years since Nate and Sam died. 10 years. That very day, I’ll be at the International Stillbirth Alliance conference in Cork, Ireland. On the Saturday night, there will be a memorial…
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She Will Always Be a Hero
Continue...“I’m so sorry,” she told me, just before she announced what I already knew. “Your baby’s heart isn’t beating.” I was in shock then, struggling to believe that my baby had somehow died at 14 weeks. I’d already delivered one healthy little girl, and I’d thought that since I’d advanced to my second trimester,…
