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stillbirth

“I Had Just Heard His Heartbeat”: A Mother’s Story of Stillbirth and Strength

November 19, 2024 by Winter

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses infant loss, including miscarriage and stillbirth. Please listen with care.

Hours after hearing her son’s strong heartbeat at a final checkup, Veronika received the devastating news that her sweet Benjamin had passed away. Looking back on her challenging pregnancy, Veronika shares the heartbreak of losing Benjamin at 40 weeks from having only one umbilical artery, and the impact it has had on her life.

In this episode, Veronika opens up about her pregnancy, finding a new OB-GYN, and hearing Benjamin’s heartbeat only to be told he had passed.

Listen to the podcast here:

Highlights from our conversation with Veronika:

  • The emotional impact of the ultrasound and fears that something was wrong
  • The overwhelming emotions and confusion surrounding her experience
  • Receiving support from her church community
  • Challenges with funeral home arrangements
  • Allowing her other children to grieve and how they helped her through the loss

Veronika’s story is a reminder of the different ways each person grieves. Her story shines a light on the importance of self-compassion, community, and getting support from loved ones.

"She said, 'Mommy, I'm very sorry Benjamin didn't get to know you. You're a great mommy, and he didn't get to know how good you are.' And that was just the absolute sweetest thing." – Veronika

Quotes:

“She said, ‘Mommy, I’m very sorry Benjamin didn’t get to know you. You’re a great mommy, and he didn’t get to know how good you are.’ And that was just the absolute sweetest thing.” – Veronika (17:49)

“I didn’t scream or cry—I just shut down. I wanted to be left alone. I was really irritated by all the staff coming in, and, you know, you still had to deliver that baby, so you can’t just get up and go home. You still have to go through all of that.” – Veronika (40:55)

Other Episodes You Might Appreciate:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/since-my-baby-passed-powerful-life-lessons-from-a/id1473594556?i=1000671153704

Support the Show:

By donating $5 or $10, you’ll be supporting the ongoing production of these stories. We appreciate your help toward production and hosting costs. 

Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/stillapartofus

Thank you for your support! 

Subscribe:

YOUTUBE: 

Please subscribe to our YouTube channel for more birth stories from families who have experienced a stillbirth or infant loss. We’re grateful that you’re part of our community! https://www.youtube.com/stillapartofus

THE PODCAST:

Please subscribe to Still A Part of Us wherever you find podcasts.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/still-a-part-of-us-a-podcast-about/id1473594556

Links: 

Grief Support Groups: https://nationalshare.org/

Some of these links are affiliate links, which means we may get a small commission off your purchase, at no extra cost to you.

Filed Under: birth story, grief, infant death, podcast episode, stillbirth

Since My Baby Passed: Powerful Life Lessons from a Stillbirth Mother

November 19, 2024 by Winter

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses infant loss, including miscarriage and stillbirth. Please listen with care.

Nothing can prepare you for navigating life after the stillbirth of your child. My guest, Veronika, shares her experience of grieving her son, Benjamin, who only had one umbilical artery. She opens up about the comfort she found in community support, the challenges of loss, and the words that have been both helpful and hurtful along the way.

In this episode, Veronika reflects on the church’s compassion and support that surrounded her and her husband, Scott, during their grief. She also discusses what helped, what hurt, and how each of them processed their loss in unique ways.

Listen to the podcast here:

Some highlights from our conversation with Veronika:

  • The emotional impact of not knowing the cause of Benjamin’s passing
  • Why grieving a child is different from other types of loss
  • The importance of self-compassion and resisting self-blame
  • Ways Veronika and Scott supported one another 
  • Finding comfort in hearing others’ stories of loss

Veronika’s story is a reminder of the unique ways each person grieves. Her journey sheds light on the importance of self-compassion, community, and openhearted support from loved ones. Through shared stories and compassionate listening, healing becomes possible.

“There’s no exact reason why, and you kind of want to have that, because that could, I feel like, help you in a lot of ways to process and grieve. Your mind just wants to know why and what went wrong.” – Veronika

Quotes:

“There’s no exact reason why, and you kind of want to have that, because that could, I feel like, help you in a lot of ways to process and grieve. Your mind just wants to know why and what went wrong.” – Veronika (01:23)

“But when people from your church family tell you, like, ‘This was the Lord’s will,’ and ‘Everything, you know, works out,’ that’s not what you want to hear at that moment. You need to find that out for yourself, not somebody on the outside, or someone who’s never gone through it trying to encourage you.” – Veronika (22:12)

Other Episodes You Might Appreciate:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-had-just-heard-his-heartbeat-a-mothers-story/id1473594556?i=1000670284332

Support the Show:

By donating $5 or $10, you’ll be supporting the ongoing production of these stories. We appreciate your help toward production and hosting costs. 

Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/stillapartofus

Thank you for your support! 

Subscribe:

YOUTUBE: 

Please subscribe to our YouTube channel for more birth stories from families who have experienced a stillbirth or infant loss. We’re grateful that you’re part of our community! https://www.youtube.com/stillapartofus

THE PODCAST:

Please subscribe to Still A Part of Us wherever you find podcasts.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/still-a-part-of-us-a-podcast-about/id1473594556

Links: 

Grief Support Groups: https://nationalshare.org/

Some of these links are affiliate links, which means we may get a small commission off your purchase, at no extra cost to you.

Filed Under: advice, grief, infant death, podcast episode, stillbirth

She Had a Full Head of Dark Hair: A Mother’s Heartfelt Stillbirth Story

November 19, 2024 by Winter

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses infant loss, including miscarriage and stillbirth. Please listen with care.

Being a young mom of two is both beautiful and challenging. But when you become pregnant and experience constant morning sickness throughout the entire pregnancy––that adds another level of difficulty.

In this episode, our guest, Melissa, shares the moments leading up to the birth of her baby girl, Patricia, who was stillborn at 36 weeks due to a pinched cord. Even though this happened over 16 years ago, Melissa’s love for Patricia has only grown, just like any mother’s love for her child.

Listen to the podcast here:

Some highlights from our conversation with Meilssa include:

  • The challenges of morning sickness
  • Navigating pregnancy and early appointments
  • The third trimester and an unusual, concerning strong kick
  • Time spent with Patricia after her birth
  • The emotional impact of funeral arrangements

Melissa’s story is a powerful reminder of love, support, and the journey of healing and this conversation truly highlights the bond between a mother and her child and the resilience that comes in the face of unimaginable loss.

"They had to give me something to sleep because, you know, here are all the other babies, and I don’t have mine, and all I had was a stuffed animal.” – Melissa

Quotes:

“They left me in the labor and delivery room, so it was like I was able to hear the other babies. And then that is when I, once everyone left, is when I started crying. They had to give me something to sleep because, you know, here are all the other babies, and I don’t have mine, and all I had was a stuffed animal.” – Melissa (31:07)

“Even though I know it’s not my fault, you know, I would think, like, what did I do wrong?” – Melissa (31:35)

Other Episodes You Might Appreciate:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/16-years-of-remembrance-melissas-journey-with/id1473594556?i=1000672862574

Support the Show:

By donating $5 or $10, you’ll be supporting the ongoing production of these stories. We appreciate your help toward production and hosting costs. 

Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/stillapartofus

Thank you for your support! 

Subscribe:

YOUTUBE: 

Please subscribe to our YouTube channel for more birth stories from families who have experienced a stillbirth or infant loss. We’re grateful that you’re part of our community! https://www.youtube.com/stillapartofus

THE PODCAST:

Please subscribe to Still A Part of Us wherever you find podcasts.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/still-a-part-of-us-a-podcast-about/id1473594556

Links: 

Grief Support Groups: https://nationalshare.org/
Some of these links are affiliate links, which means we may get a small commission off your purchase, at no extra cost to you.

Filed Under: birth story, grief, infant death, podcast episode, stillbirth

16 Years of Remembrance: Melissa’s Journey With Grief and Honoring Her Daughter, Patricia

November 19, 2024 by Winter

Melissa’s daughter, Patricia, was born 16 years ago. Tragically, due to a cord accident, Patricia did not survive. Though it’s been 16 years, Melissa continues to not only remember, but celebrate her daughter’s life.

In this episode, Melissa shares her journey of remembrance and grief and we discuss the importance of understanding that these heartbreaking situations are not your fault.

Listen to the podcast here:

Some highlights from our conversation with Meilssa include:

  • Coping with the loss of her daughter, Patricia
  • Her children’s connection to their sister
  • Ways Melissa keeps Patricia’s memory alive
  • The different ways people experience grief
  • Melissa’s mental and emotional journey during subsequent pregnancies

Whether it’s been six months or 16 years since the loss of a child, grief can resurface on birthdays or even in everyday moments. You may catch yourself wondering “What would they be doing now?” or “What would they look like?” The grief is always there in some way, but hearing others’ stories can bring comfort and we hope Melissa’s story brings you that sense of understanding and connection.

Quotes:

“I always had it in the back of my mind that, you know, something would go wrong, that it could happen again. And that was just always something that stayed with me.” – Melissa

“In the moment of holding her and spending a little bit of time with her, I tried to enjoy it, and it was good––I held it together pretty well after, until that night…” – Melissa (1:48)

“I always had it in the back of my mind that, you know, something would go wrong, that it could happen again. And that was just always something that stayed with me.” – Melissa (9:12)

Other Episodes You Might Appreciate:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/she-had-a-full-head-of-dark-hair-a/id1473594556?i=1000671902845

Support the Show:

By donating $5 or $10, you’ll be supporting the ongoing production of these stories. We appreciate your help toward production and hosting costs. 

Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/stillapartofus

Thank you for your support! 

Subscribe:

YOUTUBE: 

Please subscribe to our YouTube channel for more birth stories from families who have experienced a stillbirth or infant loss. We’re grateful that you’re part of our community! https://www.youtube.com/stillapartofus

THE PODCAST:

Please subscribe to Still A Part of Us wherever you find podcasts.

Links: 

Grief Support Groups: https://nationalshare.org/

Some of these links are affiliate links, which means we may get a small commission off your purchase, at no extra cost to you.

Filed Under: advice, grief, infant death, podcast episode, stillbirth

Baby Hazel, Stillborn Due to a Tragic Handgun Accident: Mom Bailey’s Story

January 15, 2024 by Winter

Mom Bailey tells about how she was shot below the hip in a tragic handgun accident, being 37 weeks pregnant with her first child. Her daughter Hazel died en route to the hospital due to the injuries she sustained because of the gunshot wound. Because Bailey was in stable condition, but starting to labor and in a lot of pain, they performed a C-section. She didn’t get to meet Hazel when she was born because she was in and out of consciousness due to her pain from the wound.

Watch her story here on YouTube:

Listen to the podcast here:

Shownotes:

Pregnancy:

Bailey discovered she was pregnant, when on a whim she decided to take a pregnancy test after watching YouTube videos about different families who were getting pregnant. She and her boyfriend were both shocked.

Despite being pregnant during the COVID-19 pandemic and experiencing morning sickness and weight loss, the baby remained healthy and Bailey received a lot of support from her family. They learned they were having a girl at a gender reveal party. As the due date approached, Bailey and her boyfriend prepared Hazel’s nursery, receiving gifts from a virtual baby shower due to COVID restrictions. They eagerly awaited Hazel’s arrival.

Handgun accident:

Bailey recounts the events of Memorial weekend, where she had maternity photos taken at a lake, despite her initial reluctance to have the pictures taken. The next day, while spending time with her boyfriend and some of their other friends, her boyfriend mishandled a gun and accidentally shot Bailey who was sitting next to him in the bottom of her hip, nicking part of her uterus. Despite initial confusion and attempts to locate the exit wound, Bailey’s primary concern was the well-being of her unborn baby. The EMTs arrived, and her anxiety intensified until she heard that they were able to find Hazel’s heartbeat.

Bailey, at 37 weeks pregnant, was airlifted to a hospital after the accident. In the hospital, they did an ultrasound and discovered that Hazel had died during the transport due to the injuries she sustained from the gunshot wound. The medical team also got x-rays and CT scans to determine the location of the bullet and found that it was lodged in her other leg, the bullet narrowly missing a major artery. Because Bailey was stable, but had started laboring and in a great deal of pain, her study team decided on a C-section to deliver Hazel stillborn. Because she was in and out of consciousness during the C-section, she didn’t get to meet her daughter, but learned that the doctor had placed Hazel on her for skin-to-skin contact before being taken away.

The medical team waited a few days to operate on Bailey further to remove the bullet, which they did successfully. Bailey remained in the hospital for a few more days and had to do rehab in order to walk again.

Funeral:

Returning home was challenging, especially with Hazel’s nursery all set up and ready. Family and friends thought ahead and helped pack everything up before Bailey and her boyfriend arrived home. Bailey with the help of her family started to plan Hazel’s funeral, and Bailey expressed her desire to walk before the funeral. Meeting with the funeral home, they decided on cremation. After the autopsy and before Hazel was cremated, Bailey and her boyfriend were able to spend time with her. She brought meaningful items like her baby blanket and her boyfriend brought his military name tag. During the hour spent with Hazel, Bailey touched her, read to her, and took pictures of her hands, legs, and feet. However, she couldn’t bring herself to look at Hazel’s face, because she was unsure of how she would look from the gunshot wound.

The funeral service was emotional, attended by a supportive community, and Bailey chose to bravely walk down the aisle unaided as a tribute to Hazel.

Autopsy:

After the tragic incident involving the unintentional gun discharge, Bailey was grieving her daughter Hazel’s death and regretting she had not looked at her face when she could. Her sister encouraged her to reach out to the doctor who performed Hazel’s autopsy. When she called the office, Bailey asked if they had pictures she could see and told them her story. She went to the office and discovered that the staff had made a slideshow of pictures, some edited and some unedited, to show to her. Bailey also describes the significance of obtaining pictures from the autopsy, highlighting a special moment where she saw unedited images that provided a more complete and beautiful picture of Hazel, bringing her a sense of closure.

Healing:

Bailey shares the aftermath of the incident, detailing her emotional journey and the impact on her relationship with her then-boyfriend, who was involved in the gun discharge. She emphasizes the challenges in coping with grief, anger, and the strain on their relationship. Bailey discusses her decision not to press charges, the support she received from her family, and the eventual end of her relationship. Over time, therapy, particularly EMDR, played a crucial role in her healing process. Bailey expresses gratitude for the support of friends and family and the podcast that provided solace during her difficult moments.

Time Stamps:

  • 00:52 Introduction
  • 02:02 Bailey’s pregnancy
  • 18:36 Handgun accident
  • 25:37 Hospital and Hazel is stillborn
  • 42:17 Going home and planning the funeral
  • 51:07 Hazel’s funeral
  • 57:21 Hazel’s autopsy
  • 1:04:34 Healing after

    Full Transcription:

    Bailey 0:00
    Hazel Kay

    I always remember her long hair, it was an inch and a half long.

    Winter 0:13
    Welcome to still a part of us a place where moms and dads share the story of their child who was stillborn or who died in infancy. I’m winter. And I’m Lea, we

    Lee 0:21
    are grateful you joined us today. Please note that this is a story of loss and has triggers thanks to

    Winter 0:26
    our loss parents who are willing to be vulnerable and share their children with us. If

    Lee 0:30
    you’re listening to this podcast, just know that on our YouTube channel, there are pictures and videos that are related to the stories that are being shared.

    Winter 0:37
    Subscribe and share it with a friend that might need it and tell them to subscribe. Why? Because people need to know that even though our babies are no longer with us. They’re still a part of us.

    Welcome to Silla part of us. We are so grateful to have Bailey here with us today to talk about her sweet daughter, Hazel. I am really looking forward to this conversation. I’m a little nervous, to be honest, because of a part of her story that is, is a little tricky. So I’m so grateful for you, Bailey for coming on today. So welcome.

    Bailey 1:11
    Thank you. And thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here.

    Winter 1:14
    Yeah. Well tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us where you’re at and what your family looks like the time that Hazel was born. I

    Bailey 1:23
    live in a small town in North Dakota. I was just with my boyfriend and I at the time we just got a house. We’re starting jobs were young, 21 years old. Okay.

    Winter 1:35
    What were you doing for a job? And kind of what maybe what were some of your hobbies?

    Bailey 1:40
    Um, I was working at a daycare. And it was during COVID. So there wasn’t much going on. Yeah. I love to be in with my family and my nieces and nephews. Yeah.

    Winter 1:53
    That’s great. And just a little bit of point of reference. How long ago was Hazel born?

    Bailey 1:58
    She was born three and a half years ago, three and a half

    Winter 2:02
    years ago. Okay. Yep. So right smack dab in the middle of COVID. You guys I like it’s it’s nuts, talking to people that have gone through the COVID experience and having been pregnant or given birth. So there’s like an extra dose of sympathy from him. Because I just feel like that is hard. It is hard. So. Okay, so you guys were you had purchased a house together? You guys were young living together? And were you planning on getting pregnant? Was that something that was in your? Oh, no. Not at all. Okay, so super surprising. Yes. Okay, so tell me how that went then. Like when you found out? Or? And then did you tell your ex about that?

    Bailey 2:46
    Um, yeah. So I, it’s kind of a funny story. But I was by myself at the house. And I was just watching some videos on like YouTube. And some, like families that I watch recently, or whatever, and they’re all getting pregnant or whatever. And I was like, oh, that’s like, I don’t know, I just had a random test in my closet. And I was just like, let’s just take it like no signs of pregnancy at all. None. And then get there was

    Winter 3:19
    no way. Yeah, it

    Bailey 3:22
    was very shocking. I had no signs of pregnancy. Didn’t even miss my period yet. Like it was. Very soon, obviously. Yeah, completely. Yeah. And then yeah, I called him right away. And it was a shock to us both. We didn’t know how to take it in. We didn’t know what to do. He was working out of town at the time. And I was like, well, there’s always those things of like, false positives. I was like, that could be a thing, right? It was late at night is like 9pm. And I was like, I’ll run to $1. General real quick, because we live in a small town and went to grab a couple more tests took them and sure enough, I was pregnant.

    Winter 4:05
    I just can’t believe that you just took a test on a whim. Like, you’re like, Man, that is so funny. But yeah, sometimes I guess you get it when you get a feeling you get a feeling about something. Yes.

    Bailey 4:15
    Oh, yeah. I was not expecting that at all. Yeah.

    Winter 4:19
    So did you end up telling anybody like

    Bailey 4:23
    my mom, okay, right away. So by myself, and I was told her I started bawling. And I was like, I don’t know what to do. I’m young. I don’t have like a secure job. I was like, I don’t know how I’m gonna afford this. It’s like a big step in the life. Yeah. And, yeah, it was. And then I called my dad. And I said the same thing to him. And he’s like, we got this. I’ll be there for you. I’ll help you out when you need. You guys will be the perfect parents.

    Winter 4:52
    Okay, so you got a lot of support. That’s good. Yes, very. Did your boyfriend at the time tell his His family or is he from the same town by the way? Or is

    Bailey 5:03
    the same town His family lives in town? My family lives like 3045 minutes away. Okay.

    Winter 5:09
    Okay.

    Bailey 5:10
    So did you tell them how old? I think one of his parents I want to say his dad. And it was kind of the same thing. Like there’s obviously there’s a lot of anger, like, what did we just do, but also excitement, but also wondering, how are we going to do this? And he has a very supportive family as well. So it’s nice to support our families. Yeah,

    Winter 5:35
    that’s great. I, it’s always a little tricky. Yeah. When, especially when it’s a surprise, and you’re like, Wait a second. This is not part of the plan right now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you guys, you’re pregnant? And obviously, like you said, quite early for you not even to notice that. I mean, nothing, had your period hadn’t been skipped or anything. Did you end up like, setting up an appointment with an OBGYN? Did you have a regular OBGYN that you were gonna go see,

    Bailey 6:08
    actually, my cousin works at the OB GYN in the town. And she kind of knew who to put me with or who to try put me with. I called them and made an appointment. Yeah, I found out in early October. And think I didn’t my first appointment in November. Yeah, I was. I wanted I was by myself. Because my boyfriend at the time was in the National Guard. And he had to leave for some training. Okay. Yeah. The town or the state. And so I went to the appointment by myself. Was

    Winter 6:42
    that around? It was a kind of early, like, eight, nine weeks or so.

    Bailey 6:46
    Yeah. Yeah. And my sister came, met me there. And then they did the bedside ultrasound. And they’re like, just the heads up. Like sometimes we can’t always see the heart or hear the heart because it’s it’s so little. And then I remember like, hearing everything go away. And they’re like, Well, you gotta be good. And then, yeah, so that made it feel all real bad. A little bit of pictures there. So I got to send it to my boyfriend. And that was pretty special.

    Winter 7:23
    Yeah, it is really amazing. Seeing that little. It looks like a little bean with a heart. Yeah. Okay, and then, how are you feeling at the time? I mean, now that it was a little bit farther along, were you starting to feel some of that any morning sickness or any other pregnancy symptoms? Ah, yes,

    Bailey 7:42
    I got really sick. But, I mean, ever over the sickness, it was all okay. And all other problems going on? So that’s always a plus. Yeah, total. It’s really sick and tired, obviously. But, yeah. And working and doing COVID started. Yeah,

    Winter 8:05
    I know. I was like, so you because you got pregnant at the very beginning of COVID. Is that right? So early? 2020. I think the United States shutdown in May in March, I think. Yeah, essentially. So. So you guys went? So you’re, you’re going along, and then tell me about how some of these doctor’s appointments are going. Kind of early on?

    Bailey 8:28
    Um, they’re going really good. I just went in came out because like, the quickest appointments ever,

    Winter 8:35
    because it was it? Yeah. It’s like, oh, everything looks

    Bailey 8:39
    fine. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And when we came around that 20 weeks, when we were finding out the gender, um, we didn’t want to know, but we wanted to have like a little surprise party. Okay. Yeah. So that was kind of a cool ultrasound getting to see her for the first time, like, up on the big screen, seeing her feet move and her toes and her hands and just her Wiggles. And I remember the doctor kept telling us to, like, look away, and then we can look and then he’s like, I just got to double check. Again, so then we’re like, oh, maybe it’s a boy then. We didn’t know for sure. Yeah,

    Winter 9:19
    yeah. Okay. That’s, I’ve always kind of wondered how that works. But like, oh, yeah, look away. Yeah, I’m checking things out. Yeah. That’s cool. Okay, so And was your boyfriend able to be there at that appointment? Yep.

    Bailey 9:36
    Yeah, that was his first appointment coming to and seeing her. Oh, good. Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

    Winter 9:41
    And how did she look at that time?

    Bailey 9:44
    Um, good. Any issues they

    Winter 9:47
    or was Everything looking good with your placenta, everything

    Bailey 9:52
    was on track. Okay. Awesome.

    Winter 9:56
    Okay, and then tell me how how things went along with your Your next appointments and anything that you guys did to kind of celebrate Oh yeah, maybe tell me a little bit about your the your gender reveal party. Yeah, it’s always kind of fun to hear this

    Bailey 10:10
    is kind of funny too. Um, so we went to my sister’s afterwards and I dropped off the little envelope. And I was just wanted to look at it. It’s got to be a surprise for everyone. So put it in their mailbox and we drove off out of town. And what we did was my sister boiled eggs and then color them pink and blue. And then there is obviously a one raw egg. That was pink or blue. And, and so we had a couple of our friends and family over at my sister’s and we had a crack an egg over our head. Our color was cracked. But it’s so fun. Yeah. And I was like, Oh no, like, you get your hair done. You get all prettied up or whatever. And I was like, the egg is gonna crack on me. I just know it. But my boyfriend took one. He took a pink one right away. And there it was. It cracked right away the first one very first one.

    Winter 11:19
    Yes, that’s perfect, then yeah, it was like, Oh my gosh. Were you guys expecting what? Well, obviously, he grabbed the pink one. So I’m was he expecting a girl? Or was that just

    Bailey 11:31
    he kind of said, like, I’ll start on this end. You start on this end, and then we’ll meet like in the middle, but I was like, okay, whatever.

    Winter 11:39
    So are you were you told me? Were you excited for girl? Boy, I

    Bailey 11:43
    was so excited for a girl. Yeah, but I knew my bank account was not going to be excited.

    Winter 11:47
    No, girls are expensive. Seriously.

    Bailey 11:51
    But no, I was excited. Growing up, I always thought it was gonna be a boy mom. So it’s kind of cool to change it around. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, I gotta learn how to do hair. I gotta learn how to do all these things. That so?

    Winter 12:07
    I know. There’s not

    Bailey 12:11
    a girly girl. So I was like, Oh my gosh, you’re gonna have to paint her room pink. It can’t be gray.

    Winter 12:16
    It’s gonna be tough. Yes.

    Bailey 12:18
    But no, it was so much fun. Oh, good. Yeah. Googled all the things afterwards buying all the things and

    Winter 12:25
    you just get so it’s so exciting. It’s It is

    Bailey 12:29
    so exciting. Yeah. And the first girl grandchild on my side,

    Winter 12:35
    on your side. And that’s so so exciting. Yes. Yeah. Grandparents gets so excited about that kind of thing. Because that they get they get to buy stuff, too. Yes, yeah. When you guys found out that you were having a girl, did you guys start thinking of names? Or did you really have a list kind of go in? Um, names? Yeah. So

    Bailey 12:55
    we got that. I always want to say it’s like a tinder app, but it’s for names. Like you pick and they pick and then if you guys come together on one, it shows up on your guys’s list or whatever. So we went through that. And I always liked Hazel. It was always a name that was probably on the top of my list or in my list. I use a nanny a little girl. And her name was Hazel. And I always loved it from that second on, I was like, I am going to have a girl name here. So one day,

    Winter 13:23
    this is sweet. Sweet name is so cute. Yes. And

    Bailey 13:27
    yeah, we came up with a couple names kept going back and forth. And we picked one I think we picked like a I think we said Delilah right away. And then I was just like, No, I’m just not feeling it. We gotta come up with different ones. And you just go back and forth for more pregnancy. But yeah, we had a couple that we liked. But we didn’t want to tell anybody the name.

    Winter 13:46
    Yes. Oh, that’s good. Okay. Yeah. Because people have opinions about names. Yes, yes. They’ll shoot you down. You’re like I used to know somebody in high school. They were a jerk. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, awesome. That I think that’s that’s a cute name. Okay, so then the pregnancy is going along at two you had the at 20 weeks you found out well, right. I guess it was about right around 20 weeks. Yeah, that you guys had that. Okay. And then how else how were you feeling the rest of your tell me about any other appointments after that? I

    Bailey 14:20
    was feeling really good. Until about I want to say like 3435 weeks I started getting really sick. Oh, and throughout my whole pregnancy I dropped 30 pounds. So I never gained I dropped. So how sick I was. I wasn’t able to eat kept going into the ER getting fluids. Oh, no. Yeah. And then I like broke out. And like cold sores all over my mouth one day and I just couldn’t eat or drink anything. So then I had to go in and get flu words and then they sent me up to a different town with a more high risk pregnancy doctor. Okay, and so I went in there and that’s actually where I got the last 3d photos of her. Oh, so they did that. And then I got to see this video of like her hair through the ultrasound you could like see it like standing up?

    Winter 15:23
    That is cutest. That is the cutest.

    Bailey 15:26
    Yeah. But then, after all the medications I kind of felt a lot better than I was feeling good again.

    Winter 15:33
    She it just was like a viral infection or something. Yeah. Oh, that’s no clear. But yeah, yeah, that’s i It’s so tricky. Especially like, you mentioned you were doing COVID and all sorts of other things were popping up to you know,

    Bailey 15:48
    I thought I had COVID. And then when I was first starting out, you’re like, oh, my gosh, you have COVID Like, it’s a big thing. Yeah.

    Winter 15:56
    But you didn’t have that it was something else. Yeah. Crazy. Okay. Was, but Hazel was doing okay. Even

    Bailey 16:07
    the whole time. It was nothing with her. So that’s all I was like, alright, I’ll go through it all. You’re gonna be alright.

    Winter 16:13
    Yeah. You’re being miserable. I know. Yeah, we do so much for kids, right?

    Bailey 16:18
    Yeah, for real. And I was pretty much by myself. My boyfriend at the time had an older town job. So he was gone during the week. And so, yeah, there’s a lot by myself, but yeah,

    Winter 16:29
    that is. Did you take anybody with you though, to some of those appointments like your sister, your mom?

    Bailey 16:34
    Yeah. My mom and my sister usually came with me. Oh, bigger ones. Yeah, small ones. I just went in by myself, but okay. And

    Winter 16:42
    okay, so then tell me so that’s around 34 weeks that you got quite sick. Was that like a week or so? Um, how long was that? Second?

    Bailey 16:52
    Yeah, that was actually probably a couple of weeks. Two weeks. Oh, you

    Winter 16:56
    were sick a long time? Oh, yeah.

    Bailey 16:58
    It was it was miserable.

    Winter 17:02
    No. And then yeah, just tell me as as you go on, tell me what happens.

    Bailey 17:07
    I went on. Obviously COVID was there. And so places were shut down. We didn’t really hang out with friends. Unless it was like a small gathering in the house or whatever. And then it came to be made. And things were going good. We got her nursery all set for nursery was ready. It was ready to go or babies were packed. Around the 37 weeks. You

    Winter 17:36
    guys had to you guys probably had a baby shower and everything. Before actually.

    Bailey 17:41
    I said yeah. My baby shower was going to take place in March. Like right won the pandemic hit so so yeah, I had to have everyone just mail me the gifts. Oh, really

    Winter 17:52
    had a baby shower. Yeah, darn it. Yeah.

    Bailey 17:54
    But I just remember like, gifts coming in. And it was like Christmas every day. You walk up to the door and there’s a bunch of packages. Like we’ll take it. Yep. And so I actually just kept all the packages until my like, Baby Shower day. Yeah. And then we opened it up on that day. Oh,

    Winter 18:13
    yeah. Okay, that’s, that’s, I guess a good enough way to have a baby shower during Yeah. Yeah.

    Bailey 18:21
    I don’t think we need anything else. Her room is tactful. Okay.

    Winter 18:25
    So you guys were well stocked, though. I mean, yes. We got a lot of love from family and friends. So that’s great. Yes, very supportive. Okay, so sorry to interrupt here. So everything was packed nursery was ready to go.

    Bailey 18:36
    Yep. Yep. And it was Memorial weekend. And it was that Saturday, the 23rd. My sister has been begging me to do maternity photos. And I’m not a photo girl. I don’t like being in photos. But she’s like, You need to remember this too. first pregnancy. I was like, Okay, fine. So I got ready, we got ready. And then we headed out to the lake that was only like 20 miles away. And my sisters, and she had this arm land in the back of her like place. And that’s where we just took our maternity photos. And they turned out wonderful. I’m very thankful I have them. And that was the 23rd. And then the next morning was the 24th, obviously, and woke up and I was gonna go out to the lake to see my family again, while my boyfriend at the time went out to a friend’s house out in the country. And so is separated in different ways. And I decided to hide my family and then they were packing up to leave. I was like, oh shoot, like, you’re leaving. So I got to figure out a different thing to do today. And so I said goodbye to them and then I went back to the house and I called up my boyfriend’s like, what do you guys do mean? And he’s like, Well, you can come out here if you want, there’s nothing really going on. I was like, Okay. And then I always remember like going in and out of the house, like, I would go to my car, then I’ll be like, Oh, I forgot my water bottle, like go back in the house, and I come back out. And I’m like, oh, I need to do this. So it’s like those little things that you always remember. Like, were they all signs? I don’t know. But it was just took the felt like forever to get out there. And so I went out there on the country, and a couple of my friends were there, which was nice. So those people to talk to while the boys hung out. And the boys are just talking less girls got bored. So we went driving. And then we came back. And some more people were coming over. And it was kind of a first time like hanging out with friends with the whole COVID going on. Yeah. And so we’re sitting down around the table. And I remember like the topic about guns kept coming up. And which is whatever. And I remember there was a certain thing that they were talking about. And it was like about the grips on a gun. Oh, the grips, do whatever, I’m a gun. And I remember there was a gun brought out it was on the table. And again, talking about the grips or whatever. And then the person next to me, grabbed the gun, looking at the grips, checking it out, or whatever. And like when I say next to me, like we were literally right next to each other. And that’s when all of a sudden I was in shock. And I was in did not know what happened. My ears were ringing. And I knew the gun went off. And I remember just like what is happening, and everyone’s just like, freaking out around the table. And I looked down and I was like, I just got shocked. Oh, and that was neat. So

    Winter 22:07
    the person that was right next to you had grabbed the gun was just kind of messing with it. Yeah. And it discharged.

    Bailey 22:16
    It discharged. Yeah.

    Winter 22:20
    And so where was the where you said it was on the table, but this person had it in their hand or, like, from

    Bailey 22:29
    the table. And I’m guessing it was on my lap. I think I was talking to somebody else on this side. And then the person next to me was on the other side. So we were talking and then all sudden, it went off. And then you’re just in so much shock right away. And I just remember everybody just freaking out. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

    Winter 22:52
    Where did you get shot? Um,

    Bailey 22:55
    it was right in my bottom of my hip.

    Winter 22:59
    So bottom of your hip area and did it go?

    Bailey 23:03
    It’s like, where are your hip and your leg needs?

    Winter 23:05
    Yes. Okay. So through there. Yeah. So did it go through? You did? Or was the I’m assuming the bullet was lodged somewhere? Yes.

    Bailey 23:16
    Well, actually, that’s the first thing that everybody did. They came over and tried to find the exit. Yes. And we couldn’t find it. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I wasn’t bleeding. I wasn’t nothing was happening. That they just couldn’t find it. I remember someone calling 911. Yeah, and were

    Winter 23:38
    you in pain? I mean, like, I know, you were in shock. Were you Did you feel any pain? I mean, cuz shock can help protect you. For sure. Yeah.

    Bailey 23:50
    No, not that. I remember. I I wasn’t in any pain until later on when I went into back labor. But no, I know. I they kept telling me I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. Okay. I remember I was sweating. I started feeling lightheaded. I was starting to like be a thing do you feeling Yeah. And I just like kept telling them what I needed as I need an ice rake. I need this. While they’re still checking me out all over trying to find this exit one and nowhere to be found. And so, obviously, my first thought was my baby. Is my baby going to be okay? And if I go is my baby going to be okay. I did not know what was happening. I didn’t know if I was just gonna be alive for a little bit and then I go, I was like, I just need to know that my baby’s gonna be okay for me to be stronger. In this moment, I just wanted to close my eyes and like go, Yeah, but I kept closing my eyes and then forcing myself to stay awake because I didn’t want to pass out until the EMT came and It was a bunch of them. They came and they brought. I remember a stethoscope and listening to Hazel’s heartbeat. And I could just kept telling me like, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know right now, if you can hear it or not. And then later I was like, I want to know, I need to know if you can hear it. Please let me know if you can’t. And he’s like, I can hear it. I think she’s still alive. Okay. Okay. Okay, we got this, then I was like, I’m going to be strong. We’re gonna do this.

    Winter 25:31
    And then, can you tell me again? What about week? Are you 3637 3737

    Bailey 25:37
    was just gonna go in for my next appointment that week. And I was actually going to be asked if I could be induced because my boyfriend at the time was leaving for 80. So they take like, two and a half, three weeks. Yeah. Long content. Yeah. Sounds like for him to be there with her for a little bit. But yeah, I was 37 weeks. And so I was like, well, that’s a good if she was have to be born right now. And if she’s alive, then there’s a possibility that she can make. Yep, she’s full term. And so yeah, I remember the EMTs coming up. Then it was up up on the stairs. So they had to put me on a stretcher, and then carry me down to lifeflight. I remember, like flight flying and meeting us in the driveway. And I kept asking if somebody could come with me. And they kept saying, No, I had to go alone. And then I remember if I need to go to my doctor that I’ve been seen, that is in a different town. But I had to go to the high risk hospital that had better people for please, actions. And so I remember going in there, or into lifelight, I kept asking someone to call my mom. And I just really wanted my mom to be with me. Yeah. And going into lifelight. And just talking to her asking her, like you feel like it’s gonna be forever to get there in the moment takes forever, but it’s just a quick trip. Like, I think it took seven minutes. And yeah, I remember flying and landing on the roof and going in through the door, and then all sudden, there’s a bunch of people, yes, and white, just all ready to go. I want to say there’s like 20 People just waiting for me. And they’ll push me in into this room. And I lay down and there’s a doctor there that was going to do an ultrasound and there’s a nurse by my head that’s just kept saying we’re gonna pray it before we find out and I pray that everything’s gonna be okay. Right that everything’s gonna be alright, and you’re gonna make it and I remember the doctor but the Jelani, but the ultrasound on? And she’s like, do you want to see the screen? Or do you not want to see the screen and I said, I want to see the screen. And so I remember her checking. And obviously it took a while. And then that’s when it hit me that I knew she didn’t make it. There’s no way. And then the doctor brought over another doctor and kept asking if they see anything. And then they push the screen away. And then that’s when it really hit that should not make it. And obviously I’m still in shock. At this point. No feelings are going through me. no emotions, no nothing. I was by myself. I didn’t know what to do. And then they turn the screen back over. And that’s when she said I’m sorry, really, your baby did not make it. And I was like, Okay, and what is the next step? Like I am by myself. This is gonna feel real at the moment. I feel like this is a dream. But I said, Am I going to die? Is there a chance that I’m going to die? And she’s like, we we do not know at this point. I said, she’s like you need to go and get a CAT scan because they said that if she was alive that they were just going to go straight into emergency C section. Yeah. But since she wasn’t they took the time to get the X rays to find more where the bullet was more aware what things were going on inside. And so I remember that I kept going in and out. At this point. There’s the stuff that like I can’t really remember but I remember going into the CAT scan And I kept telling them, they can’t lay on my back. There’s, there’s no way I can lay on my back because I was just in pain. They said it will only be a quick 10 minutes tops like, and I was like, okay, so they helped me out and put a pillow on my back. And then I went in, and they checked it all out. And that’s where kind of like my memory kind of stops. Yeah. Because then I went into emergency C section. I went out, obviously. So I remember a thing about it. And I remember waking up in the room. The doctor was there. And she’s kept repeating me like, What just happened? I lost my baby. And I was still by myself. And I was like, and I was my mom, here is my sister here. Is anybody here? And they said, Yeah, your mom’s here. She can come in. Said, Okay, so it was my mom, my sister, and my cousin that came in. And I didn’t know what they knew, and no idea. But I told them, I said, maybe that make it and I remember my mom saying I know. And that was kind of that was tough. Yeah. Tough knowing that. I don’t know, you get the nod. The blame comes for yourself. Like I was I there? What was I doing? You know,

    Winter 31:34
    after the CAT scan, they just took you or emergency C section right away. Right? And then did they? Did you get to see Hazel at all? Um,

    Bailey 31:45
    so right away? No. When the doctor was there that woke me up. Or when I woke up, she was there. She kind of told me that they placed Hazel on my chest and did that. A few minutes of skin to skin before they took her back. So I mean, that is really nice knowing but obviously it sucks not not being there in the moment and not remembering it or singing it or because

    Winter 32:15
    I mean, most emergency C sections. I mean, yeah, they kind of put you out sometimes and other times you’re I mean, yeah. But I was gonna say they were probably working on you as well. Right? They were sewing you up finding whatever needed. I mean, they need to find the bullet they needed to take care of you. What, what, what was all involved in that surgery to take care of you? Um,

    Bailey 32:38
    so basically, it was just a C section right now. They found where the bullet was a bullet was actually stuck on my other leg. Oh, well, I went through. I went through my uterus. And then but obviously very low. Yeah, yeah. And then was stuck between two bones on my left leg. Okay. Yeah. And the bullet was they told me it was point five millimeters away from a big artery. Holy cow. That I could have lost it. Yeah.

    Winter 33:15
    Holy cow. That was Yeah. I say lucky. But that is not. Right. Right word.

    Bailey 33:21
    I mean, obviously, the scenario I wish I would have went into would have been Yeah, no.

    Winter 33:26
    Okay, so they did the emergency C section. And, and then you came out again, and then were they going to prep do you prep you for what was gonna have to happen for the rest of the surgeries? And yeah,

    Bailey 33:39
    so they are? I think since I was doing all right, that they were okay with waiting a couple days before I did think it was two days waiting for my other surgery to get the bullet out. Okay. So we came back into the array was back in the room. And I remember, my boyfriend at the time went to go see a nurse to see if he could see Hazel, okay. And I’m pretty sure he got told No, not right now. And so he came back in. And that’s when the first time that we saw each other again. Then the doctor came in. And she’s like, do you want to see Hazel? Or, actually, I should maybe backtrack a little bit. So it was my boyfriend, my cousin, my mom and my sister. And they said, Do you have a name for her? And I was like, um, I don’t know. And then I looked at my boyfriend at the time and I said, he’s okay. And he said, Absolutely. And so that’s when we named her he’s okay.

    Winter 34:52
    That’s cool. And where did you get case? I should have asked Is that a family name or?

    Bailey 34:56
    Yeah, so my sister and my mom. See middle name. Okay, okay.

    Winter 35:00
    Yeah,

    Bailey 35:02
    that’s fun. Well, yeah, I named it after them. And then the nurse came in and asked if I wanted to see Hazel. And I said, or something along the line of my boyfriend saying, No, you didn’t want me to see her in the circumstance. And then then there’s

    Winter 35:23
    he said, No. Yeah, yeah, were you.

    Bailey 35:26
    And, um, and then I thought about as like, Well, maybe not. I don’t know what happened to her, you know, and has told me nobody has. Okay. Okay. I don’t know, if the bullet hit her. I didn’t know if I didn’t know. I didn’t know thing. Yeah. Um, so I was like, Yeah, I don’t want to see her. And it’s one of the biggest regrets in my life. But so we moved on. And she said, Well, I took some photos of her, just in case you didn’t want to see her. But I took these photos whenever you’re ready, if you want to see them. She just took them on her phone. It was something very special that she didn’t have to do. But she did. Yeah. And I said, Yes, I would like to see them. And so I think I backtracked a little bit.

    Winter 36:21
    Yeah, that’s Oh, no, that’s okay. No, it’s totally fine. I think that is we, I wanted, we should definitely spend some time on what you did with hazel, or what your decisions were with hazel? Because that’s like the Yeah, it’s important.

    Bailey 36:35
    Yeah. So obviously, we’re grieving together. And we had family come in throughout the night, it was a long night of just our immediate family come in right away. Yeah. And obviously, COVID going on, right away, I only could have one person, and then they bumped it to three people, and then all sudden, they’re like, whoever wants to come and see you can come in and see you. And I was very grateful for that. And yes, they gave me a big room. And I’d stay in that room until for a couple days until my next surgery. So family kept coming in friends kept coming in visiting us. And then a couple of days later, is when the doctor came in and told me that she took pictures on the phone. Oh, okay. And so this is when I already knew that Hazel was off to the autopsy place to get all her autopsy done. And then she was going to head to the funeral home.

    Winter 37:40
    So you guys did get an autopsy? I just I’m not familiar with because there was a gun in involved. The autopsy is an automatic. Is that correct?

    Bailey 37:52
    I think so. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, they had to do an autopsy. Okay,

    Winter 37:56
    gotcha. Okay, to make sure to kind of rule out whatever happened. And so yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. And

    Bailey 38:03
    so the doctor showed us these pictures off of her phone. And obviously, we just bought looking at her how much actually at the time, we could not see her hair. Her hair was covered too is she had a little hat on, and then a blanket. And we couldn’t see anything else. I was just like, Oh, her face. And I mean, it was still very special. And we’re just, I’ll bet her nose was her chubby cheeks like it was actually like, I mean, we like, you know, you’re pregnant. You know, you’re gonna be a mom, but like seeing them in real life is a big. It’s a big difference. Yeah, that’s how I knew I was like, I That’s my daughter, my daughter right there. And I would say I just stay in a hospital for a couple of days. And before my surgery, and then I went back and got the bullet removed. And then I had to stay a couple more days. I think my total stay was a week long. The doctors brought in the mold of her feet, or hands. Oh, good. I have those which was really special. They took the stamps. And then they cut out cut off some hair. They did have a little envelope of her hair. Oh, good. Yeah. And that was pretty much our hospital stay away. People coming and going. We had funeral homes coming in. We had people to talk to for therapy, obviously it’s a big Oh, yeah. Big thing with making sure that we’re okay. And knowing the next steps. I mean, obviously you don’t plan for this in your life. Nobody plans this when they’re pregnant. And I never really thought I would be in charge of a funeral. Yeah. For my daughter.

    Winter 39:58
    So Bailey when you did finally show, talk to the doctor, and she showed you the pictures of Hazel, did you ask her any questions about maybe how she passed away? Obviously, you, you had a major trauma just that basically happened to you. So I’m curious if and it had gone through your uterus. So entered like, did it? Did it hit any bones or shatter any bones or anything like that? Okay, no, no,

    Bailey 40:29
    no, it just went straight through. Okay.

    Winter 40:32
    And then launched into your other leg into the bone itself. So, okay, but didn’t break that. Didn’t it just launch there? Okay. Yep.

    Bailey 40:41
    Yep. And, obviously, I, I was in a catheter for most of my stay. I wasn’t able to walk right away. I had therapy coming in, it was basically learning how to walk again. Yeah, no, I mean, how to get up. And I remember one of the days that they came in, they’re like, alright, we’re taking the catheter out. And I was like, no way. There’s no way I’m gonna be getting up and going to the bathroom. And so we pushed for it took a little steps day by day. Then I finally moved on to going up and down steps. And obviously, it was very slow, very hurtful. It was very painful. Yeah. They wanted me to be able to go upstairs, downstairs and be able to walk as our house had serious to get up to Yeah. Before going home. And finally got to the point where I was able to leave. We had a funeral in mind. But nobody was pushing things at the time, which was very nice. They said, let us take us at a at our own rent or at her own time. Yeah. And I remember packing up everything. And obviously, all the flowers, all the things that you get from everybody just very special. But also, it’s very hard to go walk down the halls afterwards without baby. Yeah. And I see other families being happy, which they should be, but it’s hard.

    Winter 42:13
    Yeah, you don’t have

    Bailey 42:17
    the drive home. Like I said, it was about 45 minutes from our house. So that drive home was really long. Really sad. And then getting home was probably another hard thing. Obviously, her nursery was set. We had everything ready, ready to go. We actually had family and friends come to the house while we were in the hospital. And they kind of helped us pick up everything. And we told them right away that we wanted the door shut to Hazel’s room. I mean, I had her bottles outed the clean mean stuff out. And so they kind of just packed it all up for now. Yeah. And so we didn’t have to walk in to everything baby girl for everything, baby. So we got home as long and then we’ve had to start doing the funeral process. And I always said that I wanted to walk before her funeral. That’s one of my goals. I want to walk without my walker. Yeah. So I don’t want to have her funeral until then. And we knew that she wanted or we wanted her to be cremated. Okay. So we met with the funeral home a couple of days later. And then they told us that she should be coming back from her autopsy. And then that will be a time where we can finally say our goodbyes before she goes and gets cremated. I remember waking up that day and feeling very sick. Like it was like the first time that I ever felt like a real elephant was sitting on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t know what to do. But I actually had my cousin who was a nurse was actually made a connection with their hospitals. I want to say aggrievement person who comes in and talk to them. Yeah. She gave me yeah, she gave me a phone call. And she kind of went through all the steps about how today’s gonna go. She’s like you can do anything you want. You can tell them anything you want. This is your child. If you want to write down a journal of what you want to say to his or you want to sing her lullaby if you want to bring anything to be cremated with like your baby blanket or a certain outfit, she’s like, you can do literally anything. She’s like, I want to give you some points. You take it and you can do whatever with them. That’s good. Yeah. And so I gathered Oh, my baby blanket. My boyfriend took his name tag from the military. And so we brought that in. And I wrote a little note that I still have what I wanted to say. And remember, our families came with us, our parents came with us to the funeral home, we kind of went over the steps of the funeral home what we wanted. And then it was finally time to go into the room and see her. And they kind of gave me some advice. So they said, We, I don’t know if it was that word for word, but it was something around like, not sure about holding her as she won’t feel like a baby. And I was just kind of crushed by that. I didn’t know how to take it, and didn’t know what that meant that No, like fluid or thing got to her. She was like, lopsided, like I still at this point, had no idea what truly happened to her. Okay. And and so we went in, they said that right away, she’s gonna be covered with two blankets. And then as you want, you can take off a blanket. And then you’ll see her arms. And then you can take off another blanket, and you’ll see her feet and her legs. And so obviously, you go in there and you see blankets covering your child is very hard to see. And so just took my time. And that was the first time I got to see her hands. And it was very special. She had really long fingers at the top. And then she had like, chunky from the knuckle down. Oh. That’s kind of like a memory we always have and what we kind of can laugh about is her. Only say her funny hands so long and skinny and chubby. It’s like her mom’s hands in the front. And then the bottom was her dad.

    Winter 47:05
    That’s funny is a hand. Yeah.

    Bailey 47:10
    Um, yeah. And then her legs and her feet. She had long legs. She was 20 inches long. And she weighed about five pounds in 10 ounces. Oh, yeah. And then we saw little hairs on her legs and our arms. And that’s kind of how I came out. I came out with a lot of hair came out a lot with a lot of hair on my body. My dad always made the joke that I was half monkey. Oh, yeah. But um, so it’s kind of special, like, seeing those resemblance of you on your child. And then I still didn’t see her face. It was covered. And it was something that I couldn’t do. And then obviously, the another regret that I wish I would have pushed for and pushed for my child and pushed for myself as being able to see her in person. Yeah. At the time, I was just listening to everybody else. And worried about everyone else’s feelings and not really on my own. And I knew that I I shut it on it. I should have looked at her. So I held her anything I wanted. Um, and then I think we spent about an hour in there. And then it was finally time to say our last goodbye. We gave her all the things covered are up on my blanket. And then we came back out. And there’s another tough day. Yeah, so my walker. I say it’s exhausting. You just don’t know how to cope with it. Yeah.

    Winter 49:04
    Right. In the funeral home is yeah, not. No, not great. It’s not

    Bailey 49:11
    at all I see this walk in and it’s just your motors. But

    Winter 49:18
    Bailey, can I ask you a quick question? What are some of the things that you guys did with her? For that hour that you spent?

    Bailey 49:27
    Um, obviously, I touched her the whole time. Yeah. I kind of got I read her what I wanted to say to her just apologizing for everything. And wishing things were different. Obviously, we had a couple chuckles about our fingers. So it was kind of nice when we’re just sobbing and crying. We had a couple laughs Yeah. But, and then I wanted to take some pictures pitches that I had. And so we took pictures of our hands and our legs and feet. And then we took them off holding them in our hands. So it’s kind of like us both. And then her feet were on. Those are pretty special pictures. Yeah. Basically what we did during the time, lots of crying lots of holding hands and just spending that time with her. Yeah, the first time really.

    Winter 50:24
    And and you did mention that you were worried about looking at her face. Up until that because it nobody still had told you what had happened or how she looked or anything like that. Is that right?

    Bailey 50:38
    No, no, nobody. I mean, I guess it’s not really a question I asked either, because I kind of just assumed, yeah, but I also did not know what, yeah, okay. Yeah. Obviously, I knew that that’s how she passed was from the bullet. But I didn’t know where it went in. Or if it went in or if it hit something. I had no idea at this

    Winter 51:01
    point. Yeah. You did have some other pictures from the doctor that showed her face and everything.

    Bailey 51:07
    Okay. Yep. Yep. So you hands more? Yeah, I had a picture of her face. And it was actually just a picture of her half face. There was a blanket covering the half of her face. So that’s kind of where I put into my mind that she that was where she got hit. Yeah. But again, I didn’t confirm it with anybody. It was just in the back of my mind. And so we planned the funeral that day. I think it was like a week or two later, I asked my sister, she would sing because she has the most beautiful voice. And she said, if you want me to I will. And so it’s a song I always remember. It’s jealous of my angels. And she’s saying that. And the other day of her funeral. We had an early morning. And I remember getting to the church. And all of a sudden this church was just packed. Sure. From top to bottom. We had a very supportive community. Yeah, I’m forever thankful for it. They were there for us. It was a packed church. And then the pastor told me, it’s pretty packed in there. I don’t know if you want to walk down the aisle or else you can come out from the side. Yeah, it won’t have to face anybody. And so we decided to come out from the side and go in the pew. And it was a beautiful service, a lot of cries. And then finally, I wanted to walk by myself down the aisle back. It’s just something that I wanted to do for her. I wanted to be brave, I wanted to be strong. And so we exited. We went down the aisle. And we had people come out. I was trying to get away and head to the house. But obviously when people come out, they want to see you they want to give you the hugs. And so I think I held almost everybody in there, which again is it’s grateful for

    Winter 53:09
    that support. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s great. Yeah, yeah.

    Bailey 53:13
    But yeah, posters made or canvases. And I had her mold out. And then we got these like dog tags from the hospital too. So I had those out. And I have just like a little table of remembrance for her. Yeah. And so that was pretty special to have that.

    Winter 53:32
    That’s great. And then did you get the autopsy results after that? I know it takes a while to and autopsies to actually come back. Yeah,

    Bailey 53:45
    so yeah, we went through, obviously, you go through your own grieving process, your own therapy. And then one of the things I wanted to do was meet with a doctor. That was in my surgery, and I just wanted to go have an appointment with her. And I wanted to ask all the questions. Yes. I had a list of questions I wanted to know about her. And, and so it was a couple of weeks later that I went in, and I talked to her. And well, I also had to get my staples out, too. And so I got staples out on my stomach and staples out on my leg too. Yeah. And so

    Winter 54:22
    Oh, man, that’s like a lot of like, your surgeries, like your emergency C section and then plus your other surgeries like I Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot. That’s so much Bailey. Like, holy cow. This is crazy. Okay, so you went in and had those taken out? And then what did you ask her all of your questions?

    Bailey 54:41
    Yeah. So I asked her and I said, I want to know if the bullet hit her where it had her and where it came out or and I said, and then I asked, did she feel like a baby being held? And she said yes. And then that’s what I broke down, knowing that I made the wrong choice. And she told me that it did go through her head. And it came out to her head, went in her back behind her ear, and then came out on the bridge of her nose. Oh. So that kind of put into place by the picture that we had of her was covered. Yeah. We kind of talked about it, how she had tan skin. Her hair was crazy. It was super long, and did a little wave to it. And it was kind of I finally got that. I want to say I don’t like closure, a little bit of knowing what happened to her. Yeah. And, and so then, after that, I kind of just did a remembrance of her every month, we let go of balloons. And then obviously picking out her gravestone. We knew, obviously, she wasn’t gonna be buried there. But we want to do some Memorial bench for her or people to come and visit and just spend the time or. And so picking that out. It’s a lot. It’s crazy for parents just pick that up for a little baby. Yeah. And so we found the perfect one. And we got to make it personalized for her. And then I think I want to say it was about December, my sister and I were sitting at her house. And we’re just like talking talking about her. My sister was the most supportive person ever. It couldn’t have done it without her. And she’s like, did she go in for an autopsy? And I was like, Yeah. And she’s like, because I always told her he was one of my biggest regrets was not being able to see her. And she said, Oh, why don’t we reach out to the place that took it? And see, because obviously, they have to take pictures for them

    Winter 57:18
    for their reports and everything. Yeah.

    Bailey 57:21
    So she’s like, why don’t you reach out to them, and just see if they have any pictures. They’re like, we know what’s over that six month I was like, I don’t know if there’s a certain time limit that they keep everything or what they do with it. So I reached out to them. And the lady called me back a couple days later, and said, Yeah, we have pitchers. We have things if you want. And I said can I am I able to come and see them. I was like I told her kind of the story. I said, I didn’t, I wasn’t able to see her. I wasn’t able to do anything. I just want to see her I want to see it before her. And she said absolutely. So we arranged a time. And my sister came with me. And we came in and it was pretty special. Like they they could have just given me these pictures. And that’s it. But this girl went above and beyond. And I walked in and it was like a slideshow. Oh, Baby Hazel. Oh baby girl, Hazel. And I was like, This is awesome. So kind. Yeah. And so her and I talked about it. And she said the first picture is this. The second picture is this. And then the third is when you’ll see her like fully without edited without anything because she said that her and another person she worked with, they actually took the time to edit photos between the time that I called now. And so she told me she’s like, this is an edited one. And it was like her full face. Yeah. And it was just beautiful. I could see her for who she was. Yeah, the whole her. And that’s when I first time I saw her hair. And I looked at my sister and I was like, holy cow. She has a lot of hair. Yeah. And that was pretty special. I mean, it was dark. And that’s when she told me that her eyes were brown. Oh, okay. And I was like, oh, that’s something I just didn’t think of I didn’t think to ask I didn’t think of what the colors they would be you know. And so at the time, yeah, her eyes were brown. So that was pretty special. Because I got blue eyes. Yeah. But um, yeah. And so we went through those pictures. And then it was she’s like this next one is unedited. You’re gonna see it and I said it, okay. And she’s like, I’m just gonna give you a heads up, like where it is on her work, what you will see and everything. And then I look at it and my stomach just dropped. And I said this is this is her, and is actually pretty special to know. Like, you couldn’t really see anything at all. There was no, I mean, obviously there was damage, there’s blood there was a little bit but nothing that I was pictured in my head. Okay. You couldn’t fully see the exit hole you couldn’t really see much. And it was just the most beautiful picture. Oh, okay. Yeah,

    Winter 1:00:45
    that’s a nice thing right there. Holy cow. That is

    Bailey 1:00:48
    Yeah. And then. So that was a close up of her. And then the next one was her full body. And those are the two pictures that I have on my phone that I just I love them. Because I can see her full body. Like I can see your stomach. I can see her legs. I can see your neck. I can see your head like just everything. And it’s it’s just perfect. Perfect little baby. Yay.

    Winter 1:01:12
    Yeah, those little babies. Yeah. So they’re just, they’re perfect. Right? They

    Bailey 1:01:19
    are? Yes.

    Winter 1:01:21
    What a special. First of all, I’m going to say your sister is a godsend because like even just to put that in your head to just go try and see if you can get that file or or the picture. Absolutely. I think that was a big deal. And then the people there at the coroner’s office was they, they Yeah, they sound amazing. Like, it kind of people not

    Bailey 1:01:42
    expect anything like that. And they did. And they actually gave me a flash drive. I have these pitchers forever. Yeah.

    Winter 1:01:49
    That’s awesome. Yeah, that is wonderful. That’s wonderful. Did that feel like a bit of like you said before, it’s not necessary closure. But did you feel? Yeah,

    Bailey 1:02:01
    I did. I did feel I felt like my last step that I always wanted, was met. And I got to see her for who she was. And I got to see the full her without edited without covering. Yeah. And I know, everybody was just trying to protect me. And maybe it was, but it was, it was, it’s what I needed is to see the full thing who she was. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a picture that I hid for, honestly, two years. And then show anybody until this past year.

    Winter 1:02:39
    Really? Yeah. Sometimes those are sacred. Those are special and just you kind of hold them close to your heart. And that is that is wonderful. So because those are, yeah, there’s a few of them that I don’t share of my son yet, either. Not really, just my husband I’ve seen I’ve seen them. So I’m just so sorry. This is like I’m assuming your recovery for your your legs, muscles, all everything that was essentially damaged by the bullet was okay was progressing. Well, any permanent damage damage that you are aware of? Um,

    Bailey 1:03:19
    no, no, I, I recovered, and they said it that I was able to have more babies when I was ready. Okay. And so that was one of the most the biggest concern that I wanted if I was ever going to be a mom again. Yeah,

    Winter 1:03:35
    especially if it went through your I mean, yeah, it hidden obviously hit Hazel. So went through uterus and everything. Yeah. So. Okay, so they they do feel like it is a positive. You have a it looks positive for you. So yeah, yeah. Good. That’s great. Bailey, I think that there’s going to be a few people that want to know a little bit more about the whole the gun discharging so I’m wondering if you can go a little bit into that and what happened and like what happened afterwards? Because obviously, there was actually one right there’s one casualty and and your life you’re you have been hurt significantly. So can you tell us a little bit about how that was handled and and if you don’t want to get into certain things, you don’t have to mention that. I’ll try not to pry too much. But if you want to share then I’m sure others will be curious to know what happened and and if there was any resolution to that.

    Bailey 1:04:34
    Yeah. So the person next to me that was sitting next to me was actually my boyfriend at the time. Okay. And he was the one that the gun went off in his hands. And so that is why he couldn’t come with me right away. We didn’t know what was was gonna happen. But afterwards after we got home the sheriff came over. And I kind of had to say my statement. And it was an accident. And accidents do happen. And I press no charges. It just something that we have to learn from this day forward. Yeah.

    Winter 1:05:30
    Probably was quite heavy. And

    Bailey 1:05:34
    it was a hard, really hard recovery with going through grieving. Yeah, when we’re both on two different pages of the story. Yeah. And supporting one another, it was really hard.

    Winter 1:05:48
    Did you find that you’re getting getting some support from him? Or, I guess I can imagine there was a lot of obviously anger and, and guilt. And there’s, yeah. Yeah. Along with the grief and right, there’s like, there’s all of it. There’s like so many layers of it. So how, how was that?

    Bailey 1:06:14
    Um, yeah, it was hard. But obviously, we went through right away, we’re really together, we were supporting one another, really listening to one another. We kind of kept to ourselves for a while. And then as months go on, I think is when anger started to come out. And just things that it was kind of it was really hard, actually, because I wanted my house to be full of her. I wanted her to be everywhere in my house. And my boyfriend at the time can take it, you can take looking at her. And I think that was the one of the biggest things that hurt me the most. Is the baby that we made, baby that we created. Maybe that I carried for almost nine months. Yeah, that I just have to not have her in the house. But we came to terms and we had one little area of her. We still had a nursery up for a long time. Yeah. And but yeah, there was a lot of anger, a lot of anger. And, obviously, I think, a couple of years, or a year and a half after is when those are falling out. We couldn’t be together anymore with what happened. It was really hard to support one another and love one another. And to be on the same page again, it was something that we knew that we probably wouldn’t ever be on. So in that time, it was his house. And so I had to pack up everything. And that was the first time packing up Hazel stuff.

    Winter 1:08:12
    Oh, so Bailey, I know that we kind of went over a number of the details in your birth story. And not really talking that not really mentioning that it was your then boyfriend that had that had discharged the gun. So I suspect that there was a lot of I personally, if I if this happened to my sister, this I would have I would have been all up in his face, honestly. So I’m i How did your family take that information? And news and yeah, how did how did that work out?

    Bailey 1:08:52
    Obviously, the first thing was to make sure that I was okay. Yeah, everyone was there for me. But it was a long process. It was a long road of being able to face my parents and still being together. Obviously, there’s a lot of anger, a lot of anger with our family between our my mom and dad really and my sister. But they kind of kept quiet as they knew that I I was kind of basically I was protecting him. I didn’t let my feelings come out. I didn’t protect myself and my life. I was really worried about him in the ways that I probably shouldn’t have been. But you think of it when you’re young. You’re in love you think that that is your forever and it really wasn’t. And it was just, it was really long. It was yeah, it was long. It was a long couple of I think it was a year and a half afterwards. And

    Winter 1:10:02
    So were your parents. I know that you, you said that you kind of put hit him a little bit first and kind of put your feelings in the, in the background there. Did you? Or did your parents say anything to you or your sister say anything to you about it or question you about not pressing charges, that type of thing?

    Bailey 1:10:24
    Not really, I think everyone was still in shock right away. And I knew there was a lot of anger. But I remember my dad always saying if if you’re okay, and if this is how you want to live your life, then I have to keep my mouth shut, and I have to protect you. And he said, If you’re happy, then I will support you in any ways that I can.

    Winter 1:10:56
    Good, right.

    Bailey 1:10:57
    Yeah. I never thought about pressing charges. It was never really a thing that came to my mind. I knew it was an accident. And I knew that it wasn’t on purpose. Yeah, I’m in accidents do happen. And I don’t know, I don’t know how I would have been if it was a friend that did it. Or if it was somebody else that did it. Right. I mean, you think of it, then yeah, maybe I would have pressed charges. But knowing that it was a boyfriend at the time, and knowing that it was an accident that it wasn’t really something I thought of as we grieved of losing her together that I didn’t really want to do it by myself.

    Winter 1:11:39
    Yes, because it is hard. It’s a hard road anyway. So Bailey, thank you so much that I think that will help others feel like knowing that sometimes it’s a journey. And sometimes you learn a lot about yourself. And as you go through life and sounds like you’ve had in the three and a half years, you’ve really been able to like, heal and grow and learn some stuff has been important. Yeah,

    Bailey 1:12:10
    I think this last six months, has been the happiest that I’ve ever been since then. And I’m pretty proud of it. That’s

    Winter 1:12:18
    great. Because it does take work to to be in that place.

    Bailey 1:12:23
    Yeah,

    Winter 1:12:24
    that’s great that you have felt like peace and happiness for the last six months. I’m wondering, is there anything that has been helpful to you to in that healing in that? Yeah, the growth? Is there anything that’s been helpful for you?

    Bailey 1:12:38
    Yeah, I went to therapy right away. There’s a couple that I went in, I didn’t really like. And then I finally found a girl. And she did EMDR training, which is the eye movement, dissonance, annotation processor, diarization, yeah. Processing. And I did not have any idea what it was. And so we took it. So basically, that’s how I’m able to tell my story. It’s how I’m able to say it fully. And what we did is we broke up the trauma, and the accident by little pieces. And each session that we did, we focus on the one section, and it was about talking about it, and then thinking of like a different room, you’re in something that calms you. And think of different things when we were able to say it. And so I think that really helped me process the full traumatic event. And, and I’m able to say it to the state. And I think that is really amazing. I am thankful for the EMDR therapy that I did. And really just my friends, and my family just being there for me every year. celebrating her birthday is a big thing. We get together and we all release balloons. And I let the kids draw on these rocks that I bring out to her memorial bench. And I think the biggest thing is letting go of the relationship that I was in. I think that had to do a lot with the and truly happy now. Yeah, it’s a big weight that is off my shoulder that I didn’t think was ever there but it was but

    Winter 1:14:32
    it was. That’s, that’s great. I just, well a couple of things. EMDR has been it’s very has been a very helpful therapy for me honestly and I think Lee has also found it helpful when we have done that mode of therapy. So I think that’s awesome. If you don’t know much about it is it does help process trauma like and this is a big T trauma type of situation like there’s there’s a lot that you have dealt With and, and it’s great that you were able to find somebody, oh, that was going to be another thing I’m going to throw in there is that you got to shop around for a therapist until you find the right person. Because you really do, you’re not going to click with everybody. So that’s just another little tip. If you are going through this chopper route, it’s okay. If somebody doesn’t click with you. It’s not, it’s not the right might not be the right person. So yeah. And then I think that’s really cool that your family is so supportive of honoring Hazel remembering her, they seem to be very involved in and wanting to talk about her and wanting to do they

    Bailey 1:15:37
    are and I am very thankful that they’re actually see her as a grandchild and, and actually a person, not just an event that took place. And not just the trauma that took place. She was actually the baby, she was the person to she was there. And it’s somebody that I will never forget. And I do want to say thank you for providing this podcast, because during my time, I was searching on podcast, and I found you guys. And that’s what really helped me the first year was listening to other people’s stories, and connecting with them and just driving in my car crying alone with them. And that is another thing that helped me a lot. And I’m thankful for you guys.

    Winter 1:16:27
    I’m so glad that’s what we we we wanted to have a podcast to listen to, but there was nothing there. So we’re like, let’s just start it. We’ll just do it. Yeah. So I’m glad that that was a comfort to you. And thanks to all the parents that have shared other stories that were willing to be vulnerable just like you Bailey to tell your story. Bailey I thank you again for your time today. I want to just ask you one last thing that anything that you would like to share about Hazel briefly before we close today, what to remember about her and say to her,

    Bailey 1:17:03
    um, that I will always remember her a little cakes and our hiccups in my belly. And that she was forever my hero. She saved my life. If I would have been for her that I know that I wouldn’t have made it and that I always say that she is forever my five pound 10 ounce sweet baby girl who is my hero.

    Winter 1:17:30
    Thank you this beautiful thank you

    Filed Under: birth story, late term stillbirth, podcast episode, stillbirth Tagged With: c-section, stillbirth

    A Dad’s Grief Process After Stillbirth | Baby Lydia

    February 17, 2022 by Winter

    In this interview, dad Jonah talks about the things that helped him after his daughter Lydia was stillborn at 30 weeks because of an umbilical cord accident. He understands that he and his wife Danielle mourn differently and they both strive to help each other in the moment. Jonah also talks about the anger he had after Lydia died and how he had to acknowledge it as part of the grief process.

    Watch here (YouTube):

    Listen here (podcast):

    Time Stamps:

    00:00 Welcome
    02:27 Open communication with his wife
    05:24 Overlooking insensitive comments
    08:52 Writing after Lydia’s death
    10:06 Homemade Molly Bear
    12:23 People grieve differently

    You might appreciate these other episodes:

    • Watch/listen to Jonah‘s birth episode of daughter Lydia: Click here
    • Watch/listen to Danielle‘s advice episode of daughter Lydia: Click here

    Wanna help?

    • DONATE! Consider giving a one-time or recurring donation to help with production and hosting costs: Go here for more information.
    • SUBSCRIBE! Head over here to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our podcasts.
    • SHARE! Spread the word to a loss mom or dad, or those who may be supporting a bereaved parent. Send them a link to this post. Pin one of our graphics on Pinterest.
    Baby Lydia, stillborn at 30 weeks

    Full Transcription:

    Filed Under: advice, late term stillbirth, podcast episode, stillbirth

    In Loving Memory of Baby Lydia Jaelle | A Dad’s 30-Week Stillbirth Story

    February 17, 2022 by Winter

    Dad Jonah recounts the events of his wife Danielle’s first pregnancy, and how he remembers Danielle asking the doctor about whether she should be monitoring the baby’s movements. Danielle noticed decreased fetal movements, and when they get to the hospital, they are unable to find Lydia’s heartbeat. Lydia Jaelle was stillborn at 30 weeks due to an umbilical cord accident.

    Watch here (YouTube):

    Listen here (podcast):

    Time Stamps:

    00:00 Lydia
    02:42 Pregnancy and finding out
    07:28 Going to the hospital
    10:52 Birth
    16:25 After birth
    19:46 Going home
    30:37 Funeral arrangements

    You might appreciate these other episodes:

    • Watch/listen to Jonah‘s advice episode of daughter Lydia: Click here
    • Watch/listen to Danielle‘s birth episode of daughter Lydia: Click here

    Wanna help?

    • DONATE! Consider giving a one-time or recurring donation to help with production and hosting costs: Go here for more information.
    • SUBSCRIBE! Head over here to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our podcasts.
    • SHARE! Spread the word to a loss mom or dad, or those who may be supporting a bereaved parent. Send them a link to this post. Pin one of our graphics on Pinterest.
    Lydia’s tiny hand

    Full Transcription:

    Jonah 0:00
    My daughter’s name is Lydia.

    Jonah 0:07
    When she was born, and we got to see her for the first time, I was at an absolute loss of words to describe how beautiful I thought that she was. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life. It was– I’d never experienced anything like that before, where I just could not comprehend how beautiful that she was. So I remember she had curly hair, dark curly hair. Which was a bit of a surprise that she had dark curly hair. We always thought that she would have blonde hair. I think my wife was hoping that she would have blonde hair like her. Then blue green eyes like me, but we never got to see her eye color. She had big feet. Very similar. I think Danielle said that she thought that her feet reminded her of my feet. That was the thing that I just remembered the most about her. I just could not comprehend how beautiful she was. I mean you see babies and people talk about babies all the time. About how cute they are, and all that. I will be the first person to admit that when my son was born there was a period of time where I was like he’s a little bit scary looking. But once she was born, she was absolutely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

    Winter 1:42
    Welcome to Still A Part of Us. A place where moms and dads share the story of their child who was stillborn or who died in infancy. I’m Winter.

    Lee 1:49
    And I’m Lee, we are grateful you joined us today. Please know that this is a story of loss and has triggers

    Winter 1:55
    Thanks to our loss parents who are willing to be vulnerable and share their children with us.

    Lee 1:59
    If you’re listening to this podcast, just know that on our YouTube channel, there are pictures and videos that are related to the stories that are being shared.

    Winter 2:06
    Subscribe and share it with a friend that might need it and tell them to subscribe. Why? Because people need to know that even though our babies are no longer with us. They’re Still A Part of Us.

    Lee 2:20
    Well, wonderful, thank you so much, Jonah.

    Jonah 2:22
    Yeah.

    Lee 2:23
    For this podcast tell us a little bit about the time period leading up to the pregnancy of you and your wife, Danielle? And then where were you guys at? What were you guys doing? Was this a planned pregnancy, or was it a nice surprise or?

    Jonah 2:42
    So we had just moved to South Carolina in 2013. It was actually in April when we found out I think it was April 15th. So tomorrow I believe would be the anniversary, I guess. If you want to call it that of when we found out that we were pregnant. We had been discussing definitely wanted to have children. At the time, I kind of wanted to wait a little bit longer. Just because I mean, we had only been married for maybe two years. So living together was all new and all that to me. You have a wife, and you’re still trying to figure out how to live with one person. Then not even 10 months later, you get another person come in here. It’s difficult to figure that all out.

    Jonah 3:42
    So we had been talking about getting pregnant. Then it turns out that we were. So at the time I was working at a hospital in cardiac rehabilitation. Then Danielle was working remotely. So she worked from home full time. She’d occasionally have to travel for various meetings and whatnot, or presentations. So back to Virginia or Maryland or various other places.

    Jonah 4:16
    So we were renting a home at the time. So it was in August of 2014 that we had purchased our first home together. It was just two months after that when we found out that Lydia was not going to make it and she was stillborn. So that was very difficult. Because only being in our home, two months in a brand new home and then having to go through that experience. That was like not starting off on the right foot or so to speak and whatnot. So we had some, I would say negative–

    Lee 5:04
    Probably negative feelings yeah.

    Jonah 5:07
    Yeah. But we figured that out. I remember details about the evening very clearly, so. I believe, so that time, obviously this was well before COVID, and all that craziness. I went to pretty much all of the doctor’s appointments.

    Jonah 5:29
    I remember very clearly, my wife asking the doctor, if she should be counting kicks. Monitoring movement, maybe, the baby’s movement patterns and whatnot. He hesitated for a second, and then said, No. There’s no need for you to do that. I can remember it very clearly like it happened yesterday. That was seven plus years ago.

    Jonah 5:59
    So one night, we were watching TV, and it was actually we’re watching The Walking Dead, it was on a Sunday night. So it was kind of later; it was after nine, around 10 o’clock or something like that. And Danielle noticed that Lydia wasn’t moving much. And I could see that she was getting pretty frustrated or pretty concerned, we were at 30 weeks at the time. So I think she had called into the doctor’s office and the doctor’s office suggested that we go to the emergency department. So we went upstairs to get ready.

    Jonah 6:37
    I remember praying about the situation and never having considered for a second that we would find out that our daughter was gone. It was quite the opposite. I remember when I was closing the door to go out of the garage to get in the car. I was thinking to myself, I was like, I looked and looked into our home. And I was like, when we come back from the hospital, we’re going to be bringing a baby back home with us. And that was absolutely not the case. So we jumped in the car about what to–

    Lee 7:16
    About time was this? You were watching The Walking Dead?

    Jonah 7:23
    Yeah.

    Lee 7:23
    You called, got ready. Was this about midnight, that you started to leave for the hospital?

    Jonah 7:28
    No, it was a little before that. So it was before 11 o’clock, and all this stuff started. So we got to the hospital late. That’s about a 45 minute drive, something like that from where we lived at the time. Couldn’t figure out what entrance to get into, we were on the wrong side of the hospital, I had to go around to the other side. Then we got in there, they got us back into one of the rooms.

    Jonah 7:54
    They started off doing a Doppler and I can remember, there were two or three nurses in the room. They just kept trying to do an audio capture of the heartbeat and they couldn’t find it. Then they got the doctor who was there that night. He came in for an ultrasound, I can remember as clear as day seeing our daughter inside of my wife’s belly. Seeing her face, I can remember her face. She was laying on her right side. You could see the outline of her rib cage, all of that. I remember clear as day. You could just see her heart that wasn’t beating. So that’ll be something that sticks with me the rest of my life. It was absolute shock, disbelief. The doctor said I’m sorry, but your baby doesn’t have a heartbeat.

    Jonah 8:58
    It’s just the exact opposite of what I was literally thinking when we left .I was fully expecting that something would happen and we would deliver. Even though it was at 30 weeks I was still expecting somehow that we would deliver a baby that night. And in a couple days we’d come home and that you’d be home and my wife would be fine. Our baby would be fine. So it was definitely not the exact opposite so.

    Lee 9:27
    Yeah, no. It seems like it’s a running thing with parents. It’s always like, you never expect that. You never expect to not come home with a child. I remember cause we were sitting in church and my wife’s like, Oh, I haven’t felt him move in a while. I was like, No, he’s just getting big. It’s no– there’s not a lot of room in you for a baby. So we went up to the hospital. The whole way there I was like, yeah, I’m glad we’re going because it’s going to put her at ease. I never expected like what you said, I never expected to hear those words. That your child, your child’s not alive.

    Jonah 10:11
    Yeah.

    Lee 10:12
    About what time was this just to sort of set? You left about 11 o’clock. You got up to 45 minutes ish to get to the hospital?

    Jonah 10:22
    Yeah, it was probably after one o’clock. When they actually did the ultrasound and they determined that her heart wasn’t beating.

    Lee 10:33
    What are the next steps after that? Did the medical staff give you options? With us they said we could start the delivery process right now. We can hook you up to pitocin and get you guys going. You can go home? What were the options in the steps that they told you?

    Jonah 10:52
    Yeah, they did, I guess, give us the option. I do remember them saying something about, you guys could go home and come back for delivery, but you’re gonna have to deliver the baby. So we did not do that, we stayed there. So at the time, we had a dog. So I think we had to call a neighbor or friend to take the dog out that kind of stuff. So we stayed in the hospital, though.

    Jonah 11:23
    They moved us to another room. The experience and I guess this is kind of like a bittersweet thing to say. The experience that we had and the care that we received in the hospital was spectacular. The nurses were amazing. I would say as bad of a situation as it could have been. It was great to have the care and the staff that were taking care of us.

    Jonah 11:53
    Still to this day, my wife is friends with a couple of the nurses who were there. So, each year we try to go back on her birthday, October 13th. We try to go back and take doughnuts over to the labor and delivery or something. Treats or something like that. We’ll see some of the nurses that had been there that night and talk to them and whatnot.

    Jonah 12:20
    Anyways, we decided to stay there. They put us in another room that was kind of away from the rest of the other rooms that had mothers and babies in them. Extremely difficult. Slept in the room and Danielle probably didn’t really sleep a whole lot. Then it was late. I think they induced the next morning and she was in labor for several hours. Then we delivered the next day later in the day early evening. That was on the 13th we went in on the 12th. So on the 13th we delivered in the evening. Then I think we stayed a day after that.

    Lee 13:06
    So let’s go back to the labor. Was it an extremely hard labor for your wife Danielle? Was it like, with our situation winter got an epidural. She was already in a lot of pain, mentally. She’s like, I don’t really want to experience it physically. So we had an epidural. It was yeah. It was good for us to do that. But how was it for you guys? Was it a long?

    Jonah 13:38
    Yeah.

    Lee 13:39
    Or?

    Jonah 13:39
    Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. I mean, obviously the mental state of my wife at least was not good. Understandably so. I believe she tried to go without an epidural. It was either with Lydia or maybe one of our next children. But she did get an epidural. So yeah, so I’m pretty sure they induced in the morning. Then it was 10 ish hours, maybe around 8 to 10 hours of labor.

    Lee 14:20
    You mentioned that you guys had moved from a different part of the country to the Carolinas. Did you have family that had come in? Or do you have family in the area or friends that came in to support you? Or did you guys just want to be alone?

    Jonah 14:35
    At that time we had my mother in law and her husband were there as far as family goes. Then we had friends from our small group from church. People were still in contact communication with at least via social media like today.

    Jonah 14:58
    So I had called people to let them know. I called my family, called my wife’s family, and let them know. Her family was there pretty quickly. Her dad flew down from Virginia, which was awesome. He made the sacrifices and did what he had to do to get there so quickly. Then my mother in law and her husband were there, not too long, and then our church group friends were there very, quickly as well.

    Jonah 15:35
    That made a big– that had a significant impact. Just the negativity, the weight of the negativity that comes with the loss of a child. It’s necessary to have friends that are supportive, and want to help. And want you to not hurt and to be in pain and, and all that. So, they were, it was great support that we had was awesome.

    Lee 16:05
    That’s good. That’s good to have support and people who love you, around you, so.

    Jonah 16:11
    Yeah. It’s necessary.

    Lee 16:13
    And so you said that you were able to be with Lydia for about a day?

    Jonah 16:19
    Yeah. Yep.

    Lee 16:21
    How was that stay in the hospital for that day?

    Jonah 16:25
    So it was obvious we had no expectations of how it was going to go. I was battling internally about what to do. How to handle the situation, as far as I have my firstborn child here that I am never going to get to see again. In a matter of hours, and I kept debating or battling within myself about should I take pictures of her? Is there something wrong with that? Is that acceptable? Is that not? Is that normal? Is that not normal? That kind of stuff. Fortunately, one of the nurses had mentioned something to us about an organization called now–

    Lee 17:14
    Lay me down to sleep?

    Jonah 17:15
    Yeah, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. They said that they have a photographer that can come in and take pictures. We were definitely like, Yeah, absolutely. So, I took a few pictures on my phone. Then we had her come in, and that was awesome. We still have those pictures of her up still at our home. So that we see her every day.

    Jonah 17:38
    But it’s just the people you don’t know what you don’t know. Then when you’re in one of those situations, you have all these thoughts going through your head and the emotions of it all. It’s just, you don’t know which way is up. You don’t know which way is right thinking, or which way is wrong thinking. To have somebody be able to say we have somebody that can take pictures, so that you can remember your daughter. It was something that was in my head before they had mentioned it. Then I kept battling with myself about whether there’s something wrong with wanting to take pictures of my daughter, even though she’s not alive.

    Jonah 18:25
    So, fortunately as I said, before we had a nurse that mentioned that to us, and they came in and we took several pictures. That was, again, as bad an experience that it can be there was good. We now have pictures that we can have forever, and our children, after Lydia will be able to see pictures of their big sister.

    Lee 18:49
    It really is one of those weird things, nobody in the hospital really knows what to do. It seemed in our situation, nobody really knows what to advise you to do. I sort of sometimes wish somebody was like, yeah you should do this. Or you should think about doing this. You should think about doing that. And it really was like, fly by the seat of your pants and you hope you’ll never regret it. There are things that I personally regret that I didn’t do or that I did do or that I didn’t ask. I don’t know. Yeah.

    Jonah 19:02
    Yeah.

    Lee 19:02
    I’m glad you guys were able to get some photos.

    Jonah 19:29
    Yeah.

    Lee 19:30
    What happened after you guys left the hospital? Did your wife Danielle, have any complications? Or I don’t know how to say this. Was she released on a clean bill of health? And you guys had to go home and figure out stuff?

    Jonah 19:46
    Yeah, I think we stayed like, at least part of an extra day. So that we could get, I guess. Well, our time that we had with Lydia was limited. Just due to her state decreasing.

    Lee 20:05
    Yeah the body is decomposing.

    Jonah 20:07
    Yeah, yeah, exactly. So our time was kind of limited. We had to see her for like kinda periods of time. She couldn’t stay with us the entire time. She had to go back into where the nurses were. Back in the room. So, after they were like, we have to take her. She’s not in a good place right now and it’s gonna get worse soon.

    Jonah 20:29
    We stayed a little bit, like at least half a day longer just because I think it was best for Danielle. She needed to have other people around her and that sort of thing. Because it was just her and I at our home. Being very new in the neighborhood and living there only two months. We hadn’t made a bunch of friends and all that. Both of us are, for the most part, pretty quiet, not like super extroverted. I’m quite the opposite of extroverted.

    Jonah 21:16
    It was just the atmosphere was good, because of the things that the staff had done for us there. So it was, I think that was the best place for her. She was released with a clean bill of health and all that. Then going home was difficult, we had painted the nursery, gotten everything set up and all that. So she really wasn’t comfortable, and wasn’t able to go into the nursery. I think we closed the door for a period of time. Then as time passed, she was able to get into the nursery and start going through the clothes and whatnot.

    Jonah 21:55
    One of the things that I think that I kind of battled with a lot was life afterwards. I had spent hours and all possible time that I was able to just thinking about that scenario of not really moving on, but moving forward. The thing that I had kind of thought of, or that came to me was that life was, there was a new normal that was created by this event. I think that I had read some things about that afterwards where that was something that other people would say that you’re not moving on or away from that experience and whatnot, but you’re moving forward. Creating a new normal with the memory of your child. So it’s not you’re not forgetting just moving forward which we know we have to do that’s what life is.

    Lee 22:59
    I’ve heard that phrase moving forward not moving on. That is a good way to put it. That event is such a the event of losing a child is such a life changing, life shattering. You’re not able to put it behind you and say that it was a good experience. But you have to move forward, so.

    Jonah 23:24
    Yeah, that was difficult. Danielle being at home by herself. Working at home. All of the alone and kind of secluded time so to speak I think that maybe made things more difficult.

    Jonah 23:43
    We did go to some– found a support group through one of the hospitals in Charleston. That was really good. Met some friends and some families there. Got to hear others talk about their experience and whatnot.

    Jonah 24:03
    My I guess kinda grief process. I took– I was off work for about a week. Then I went back to work. My grief process kind of unfortunately had to deal with anger. So that was kind of my main reaction: anger and impatience, that kind of stuff. None of it was towards Danielle or anything like that. It was just kind of general impatience and anger about everything or anything.

    Jonah 24:39
    So we were in our group for pregnancy and infant loss. Then I started seeing a counselor through work as well. Sure talking about the extent It’s that’s. I guess that’s fine. It wasn’t, I didn’t feel that it was super beneficial. But it’s always good to have somebody that is there to listen to your thoughts on things that you’re going through. Sometimes it’s difficult to talk about all your problems with somebody that you’re in the middle of this kind of a situation with, because it’s like, obviously, you’re both down low, and then the PAL, you’re bad or you’re low, from your day on to the other person who’s already low can make things a little bit worse.

    Lee 25:39
    So sometimes it feels unfair to be like, Oh, sure, I can’t, I can’t do this, and I can’t have you do that on me too. So?

    Jonah 25:47
    Yeah, yeah, we both are, I guess, kinda introverts. So we literally had to tell each other to talk to me. Tell me how you are doing. Tell me where you are. We have to make sure that we’re not doing the things that we feel we want to do. Make an effort to do the things that we know, that we should be doing.

    Jonah 26:14
    So we had some friends and family come to our home. One of the small groups kind of arranged things. We had people from out of town come in, and it was great, but still being very fresh off the loss of a child. Both not being big people, people. I guess, we kind of had to take breaks from things and kind of get our time. Where it was the two of us and get our thoughts and minds back in order.

    Jonah 26:53
    So, but it was, yeah, I mean, it’s necessary again. My natural tendencies are to just push everybody away. Go off by myself, figure it out mentally. Decide on how I’m going to proceed and get through and make it happen. Being relatively newly married, and having done those things throughout the course of my life. Then going through this experience, and then my wife is almost the opposite of how– handles things almost the opposite of how I handle things. There’s a whole bunch of consideration and thinking that has to be done to understand that she doesn’t handle things differently. Her experience with this loss is much different than mine, or having carried a child for 30 weeks, and the child living inside of her. That’s something that I’ll never understand, just to respect and support, so.

    Lee 28:04
    The experience of each individual is so unique to them. And you mentioned that you felt the anger and frustration. I felt those exact same things. I had to, and I couldn’t, I didn’t, like you said, I didn’t show the anger to people, or the frustration. It was all internalized. It just ate me up. Until I– and counseling helped me quite a bit to understand. I could feel those basic feelings of anger and frustration. But I didn’t have to hold on to them. Like, I could feel them. I didn’t have to act on them. Then I could release them. It was like, until I could understand that I always had– I can’t pin it on anybody, so I’m just going to pin it on myself. But yeah, the individual’s experiences are so unique to themselves. So yeah.

    Jonah 29:09
    I discovered that for me my outlet or release of anger was managed by doing something. Being active using my hands to do something, refinishing furniture, building something, fixing something that was broken like whatever. I mean, something along those lines, and that’s how I figured out that kind of my release of anger. And that helped me tremendously.

    Lee 29:46
    You were able to parlay that anger and that frustration into something that you could release it into something so.

    Jonah 30:16
    Yeah.

    Lee 29:53
    That’s good. Did you have a service for your daughter? Did you bury her? Did you have I was that being a young husband and father? For myself, I had no clue what to do. I’ve only been to funerals that were planned by somebody else. And it was– So I had a one track mind. I got it done, but I had no clue what I was doing. And it happened. There was a lot of help from the people around me. But I didn’t– I don’t know how that funeral ever got planned. Nothing, I really did myself. How was it for you? How was it for you guys?

    Jonah 30:37
    Yeah. So we did, we did have a viewing or memorial service. Then also a funeral where she is buried in a mausoleum, so she’s not like down in the ground. So she’s on a structure above ground. So we had a chance to remember who I guess it was somebody from the hospital, who had given us suggestions on different funeral homes or whatnot. They literally had a list of five different places. Their list was like, this places the nicest, this places the next nicest, this is the next on then the bottom one. The bottom one, basically, they said, this is the one that’s the least nice. It was the closest to our home. That’s what was important to us. So that’s what we went with.

    Jonah 31:05
    At the time, I would pass that cemetery every day, twice a day minimum, when I drove to work and took my kids to school. Then when I drove home from work and brought my kids home from school it was less than 15 minutes from our home. Early on, after we put her in the mausoleum or buried. We would get over there more frequently for visits.

    Jonah 31:54
    So as far as planning everything. We had family members present to help with planning and organizing. My parents were there, my brother, one of my brothers was there, my father in law, and maybe my mother in law and her husband as well. So we had input from family as far as how things were to go. How we should kind of proceed with things.

    Jonah 32:42
    We were completely blessed by our, my father in law, and my brother who and this is just a horrible thought, but you know, horrible thing, but it’s something that’s necessary. All these things have to get paid for. So we were completely blessed by my father in law and my brother, and they paid for everything. So, a blessing that was to us that we didn’t have to pay for any of that. It’s just an absolute, it’s mind boggling to think that parents should be paying or parents have to pay for their baby’s funeral. But I mean, when reality is that there are things done, and people have to, unfortunately get paid. In that situation for that.

    Jonah 33:31
    So our family was a huge part and helped to organize the funeral service. We had a viewing and it was an open casket. That was something that we debated as far as where we’re going to barrier, or cremation. We didn’t do the cremation. We got a casket and buried her. Again, as we were talking about earlier, you don’t know what you don’t know. Just how odd and unreal the situation is of carrying your daughter out in a tiny casket into the back of a car. Then riding to a cemetery and then putting the casket inside of a tomb, or whatever they’re called the mausoleum. It’s just yeah, it’s difficult to describe.

    Lee 34:33
    I got to carry my son in his casket. I’ve been pallbearers for a couple of other funerals. It’s usually with six people. I was able to carry my son by myself.

    Jonah 34:47
    Right.

    Lee 34:47
    It was such a juxtaposition to how small and delicate it felt. To pick up and carry my child to his final resting place. It was like, Oh, thank you for talking about that.

    Jonah 35:08
    Sure.

    Lee 35:08
    Is there anything else that you would like to talk about?

    Jonah 35:12
    I would say the impact that this child still has in our lives, six and a half years later, it’s indescribable. I mean six and a half years later, I’m talking to a stranger that I just met about an hour ago. We’ve been talking about our children for the past hour plus. Like I mentioned early on, I’m always trying to find the good in situations. Again, has terrible of a situation this is it’s created new ways of seeing things and life and value. In things that I never would have considered before or would have just taken for granted.

    Jonah 36:08
    Giving thanks for every single thing that we have that I don’t deserve, and all these things. So it’s her life. While it was brief, in terms of, from when she was conceived till the day that she was born. Just that 30 weeks time frame has changed my life and so many other people’s lives. And will continue to change until the day I’m no longer on this earth. So I’m thankful for that experience and thankful for being able to see things from that perspective. To allow them to change me as a man to be a better man, a better father, a better husband.

    Lee 37:00
    It is amazing how impactful the situation is.

    Jonah 37:05
    Yeah.

    Lee 37:05
    As you said, the brief life of Lydia for 30 weeks has impacted you and will impact you and your whole family for the remainder of your lives.

    Jonah 37:16
    Yeah, absolutely.

    Lee 37:18
    It’s all awe-inspiring and sad.

    Jonah 37:22
    Yeah, there’s no single word. I don’t think there’s any single word to define all the emotion. From all the different directions, the highs, the lows, yeah, it’s very difficult to describe or define.

    Lee 37:43
    Well, Jonah, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on the podcast and thank you for talking about your wonderful daughter, Lydia.

    Jonah 37:52
    You’re very welcome. Thank you. I appreciate your time.

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

    Filed Under: birth story, late term stillbirth, podcast episode, stillbirth Tagged With: stillbirth

    Mom of Stillbirth Encourages All Pregnant Moms to Count the Kicks

    February 17, 2022 by Winter

    Mom Danielle talks about how she’s grieved, mourned, and celebrated her daughter Lydia’s life after she was stillborn at 30 weeks. She died due to an umbilical cord accident.

    Danielle talks about her 2 pregnancies after loss (PAL) and how she coped with the anxiety, and encourages other pregnant moms to “count the kicks” using the Count the Kicks phone app. She also started a local Walk of Remembrance with her friend and fellow loss mom Emily as a way to honor Lydia.

    Watch here (YouTube):

    Listen here (podcast):


    Time Stamps:

    00:00 Welcome
    2:17 After Lydia’s birth
    7:17 Pregnancy after loss with Luke
    10:29 Count the Kicks
    17:08 Work and how’s she’s coped
    27:23 Therapists and grief support
    36:14 Coping as a couple
    44:06 Keeping Lydia a part of her life

    You might appreciate these other episodes:

    • Watch/listen to Danielle‘s birth episode of daughter Lydia: Click here
    • Watch/listen to Jonah‘s birth episode of daughter Lydia: Click here

    Wanna help?

    • DONATE! Consider giving a one-time or recurring donation to help with production and hosting costs: Go here for more information.
    • SUBSCRIBE! Head over here to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our podcasts.
    • SHARE! Spread the word to a loss mom or dad, or those who may be supporting a bereaved parent. Send them a link to this post. Pin one of our graphics on Pinterest.
    Sweet baby Lydia

    Full Transcription

    Winter 0:00
    Welcome back, everybody to Sill A Part of Us.

    Winter 0:02
    I am winter and I’m so grateful to have Danielle here with me today to talk about how she has navigated this time after she’s lost her baby Lydia.

    Winter 0:13
    First of all, before we get started. There are a couple of housekeeping items, this conversation is going to be full of triggers. So we are talking about infant loss, we’re talking about stillbirth, we are talking about grief and actually pregnancy after loss. So please do not watch this episode, if this is something that would trigger you and be too difficult to listen to. We just want you to be safe and happy. And well, I mean, you can be sad to be safe, we want you to be safe.

    Winter 0:42
    If you are just joining us for the first time, please consider subscribing to this podcast or this channel. We are a community of loss parents and we are trying to help and support each other. So hit the subscribe button. That helps us out and helps other people find us as well.

    Winter 0:56
    So Danielle, thank you again for coming on. If you missed her birth episode, I encourage you to listen to it. It was really nice to hear about Lydia and to honor her in that story. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing Lydia with us.

    Danielle 1:13
    Absolutely. It was my honor. Thank you for having me.

    Winter 1:16
    Oh, yeah, most definitely. Most definitely. So for some context and background, can you tell us how long ago Lydia was born? And what happened to her?

    Danielle 1:26
    Sure. Lydia was born about six and a half years ago on October 13, 2014. She was stillborn at 30 weeks pregnant. After a picture perfect pregnancy. We lost her due to an umbilical cord accident where the cord got really tight around her neck and her right ankle. So yeah, it was very, very unexpected, and very heartbreaking. She was our first baby. And the daughter who we love and miss very much every day.

    Winter 1:59
    Yeah. I’m so sorry. Just it is– it’s so unexpected and devastating. Yeah, there’s nothing more to say just I’m sorry.

    Danielle 2:09
    Thank you.

    Winter 2:11
    It’s been six and a half years. How has that looked for you? How has that grief landscape looked for you?

    Danielle 2:18
    Um, it’s been full of lots of ups and downs. Grief is really crazy. I found over the years, especially as more time goes on, I’ve learned to live with the grief a lot better. Of course, early on, it’s all consuming for so long. But now it’s just kind of a part of me. I’ve accepted that. It has its ups and downs. I definitely have a lot more good days now than I did after we first lost Lydia. There are still times where something comes up. And it really triggers the fact that she’s not here, or triggers something that we experienced around the time we lost her. It just makes it feel so raw and fresh again.

    Danielle 3:02
    So it’s crazy that even as so much time has passed there can still be those moments where it feels like it just happened. Like I just held her and one funny thing I found about grief, even kind of early on as in that first year. I get more upset the more time that passes, because it’s been so long since I got to hold her. So it’s almost like I feel those memories are getting further and further away. That feeling of holding her. I can still feel her against my chest. But now that more time has passed. It’s just hard to accept that it was even longer ago. The memories are not as fresh as they once were.

    Winter 3:47
    Yeah.

    Danielle 3:47
    So that’s been kind of a hard thing. Yeah I guess every day is another day closer to being reunited with her and heaven one day, I believe so. There’s that part of it too but yeah, grief’s been crazy. We have had two other babies since then. Actually we have another one on the way right now.

    Danielle 4:12
    Congratulate

    Danielle 4:13
    So yeah, after Lydia died, she was our first baby and I just felt so empty. I mean I’m sure every mother who’s lost a baby feels so empty, but it was so hard to return home to a quiet house. I was just so devastated about that and so desperate to have my baby in my arms. I wanted Lydia so it’s not like I just wanted any baby. I really wanted Lydia, but at the same time I just want to have a baby here to hold. I just felt that so desperately.

    Danielle 4:54
    We talked about trying for another baby pretty soon after Lydia died. Another part of me was also just scared. Since she was our first baby, I’m like, are we ever going to have a living baby? Oh, I was so scared, it would never happen for us. So I wanted to hurry up and —

    Winter 5:11
    Make sure you can get–

    Danielle 5:13
    Like, are we gonna be able to have a baby to bring home? So we started trying. The doctor suggested we wait six months, but he said after three months is really the minimum. So we started trying about three months after Lydia passed away. It took like a few, three or four months, but then I did get pregnant. About six months, I guess it was I think we found out in April. So about six months after he had passed away that we were expecting another baby. So that was just absolutely terrifying experience. It was happy on one hand and terrified, on the other hand. About if something is going to go wrong with this pregnancy.

    Danielle 5:59
    Yeah.

    Danielle 6:00
    So that was just pregnancy after loss. It’s just a total own experience. I was terrified the whole time. From the very beginning. I was in and out. I had a wonderful doctor, and I found a new doctor. She was so understanding and let me come in all the time, even early on.

    Winter 6:19
    Great!

    Danielle 6:20
    I kept coming in and–

    Winter 6:22
    Just checking.

    Danielle 6:23
    Yeah, like, can you check my hormone levels? Can you check this? Let’s make sure everything’s good. I was a crazy person. And we did have a scare at 11 weeks. I was close to the end of the first trimester. My husband and I went to the airport with our first rainbow pregnancy. We were going to Virginia, and I went to the bathroom and I was bleeding heavily all of a sudden. And having cramps and we left the airport and went to the hospital, thinking for sure we had a miscarriage. But lo and behold, our baby was still there with a strong heartbeat. We both just cried and later learned it was a sub chorionic hematoma. A blood clot type thing that can cause bleeding. It can also cause lots of extra anxiety that after loss moms do not need to know.

    Winter 7:10
    Yeah, and it does happen. I mean we’ve had a couple people on and it’s concerning. It’s scary. Scary.

    Danielle 7:17
    Yeah, for sure. So that was the big scare with that baby. We found out it was a boy, our son Luke, who’s now five.

    Danielle 7:26
    How’d you feel about– Yeah, I was gonna say, how’d you feel about having a boy?

    Danielle 7:31
    Yeah, that if I’m completely honest, and I feel so bad saying it, especially because I love my son so much. I wouldn’t change him for the world.

    Winter 7:41
    Yeah of course!

    Danielle 7:42
    It was really hard for me to accept having a boy after Lydia died. I really, I think it was just kind of in my head. I don’t think I could fully take it all in. It was just really confusing and hard. It was only six months after my loss. And I was pregnant again. I’m still deeply grieving. Anxious and confused, like so much going on. And I’m yearning for Lydia. I also want another girl because Lydia was a girl, but I really want Lydia.

    Winter 8:13
    Yeah.

    Danielle 8:14
    But then it’s a boy. I was struggling with how to feel about that. On one hand, I was so grateful because it made the pregnancy more different.

    Winter 8:22
    Yes.

    Winter 8:23
    You know?

    Winter 8:24
    Yeah.

    Danielle 8:24
    This is making it– that made it a little bit easier. I feel like if it had been a girl I would have been even more terrified. If that’s even possible, though.

    Winter 8:24
    Yeah, yeah.

    Danielle 8:34
    I had a little bit of a hard time with that for a while. But ultimately, what was most important was just having a healthy living baby. So that pregnancy thankfully progressed, without any issues. Due to our stillbirth with Lydia, our team of doctors like I was seen by the OB and then the Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist.

    Winter 8:59
    Oh, great! Okay.

    Danielle 9:00
    Yeah, they monitored me very closely throughout that pregnancy, especially in the third trimester, twice a week. Biophysical profiles and on stress tests. So I felt pretty good about that. I felt good at the time that I was there for my monitoring. In the time in between, I was like, is everything still okay? But I was very, very good about counting my kicks in that pregnancy.

    Danielle 9:24
    In that time, after Lydia died, I actually had become an ambassador for count the kicks. Which is a nonprofit organization that educates expectant mothers about the importance of monitoring your baby’s movements during the third trimester of pregnancy and why that’s so important. How a change in your normal baby, or in your baby’s normal movement pattern in the third trimester can signal a problem. So I found that organization and I became involved with that organization. So I was a count the kicks ambassador and pregnant after loss. So I was using my count the kicks app all the time. I was fully educated on the importance of it and how to do it.

    Winter 10:10
    I think that I just want everybody to know that is a really if you can– if you are an expectant mother, this is something that you really should get on your phone. It doesn’t take very long to do. I think it’s 10 minutes, or basically until you get 10 movements. Is that right?

    Danielle 10:28
    Yeah, yeah. So basically, there’s an app, count the kicks app. And yeah. Once you’re in the third trimester, you pick around the same time each day when your baby’s typically active, and you just track how long it takes for your baby to do 10 movements. Like kicks, punches, jabs, rolls, anything like movement, not actual hiccups, but like movements. And you track how long that takes. Over time, you’ll see a normal pattern for your baby. And if your baby, if their normal time to reach those 10 movements changes significantly. If it’s a lot slower than normal, or even if it’s a whole lot faster, those can be warning signs. Those are definitely reasons to contact your provider and get monitoring. I mean, chances are everything could be fine, but it’s definitely better to be safe than sorry. By counting kicks, and using that app, you’ll get a chart of how long it takes, you’ll have that quantifiable data to show your doctor and then you won’t be guessing. Like his baby slower today?

    Winter 11:33
    Yeah.

    Danielle 11:34
    You’ll have your record of it.

    Winter 11:35
    Yeah. It’s a really nice little app. Yeah, I used it with this last pregnancy and–

    Danielle 11:41
    Oh, good!

    Winter 11:42
    With our son Felix and I, that was one thing that was actually really surprising. That’s why I’m glad you said this. But I was expecting, oh, if he has decreased movement, that’s what it was in my head. But it could be increased movement, too.

    Danielle 11:56
    Right!

    Winter 11:56
    Because you mentioned during the birth story that Lydia was going crazy, probably the day that she maybe got a little bit more tangled up in the umbilical cord, or something. I’m not totally sure, but that has been kind of the pattern in some of our interviews. Where they, the mom, felt a lot more movement like crazy movement that is not normal for that baby and the time of the day. So that was surprising for me to learn that when I was counting kicks this go around.

    Danielle 12:29
    Right! Yeah, most people would not expect that. But it does seem to be kind of a common theme. A lot of the stillbirth stories I’ve heard. I definitely wonder about that. Wonder that about Lydia since that night before we found out she passed. She was going crazy. And I’m like, yeah, so that was when she got tangled up?

    Winter 12:48
    Yeah.

    Danielle 12:50
    But anyway, yeah, the app really doesn’t take long to do. I mean it’s gonna be different for every baby depending on how long it takes for them to get to 10 movements on average. I know with my son, Luke, and then with my other daughter, Laila, my second rainbow pregnancy, I was usually able to get my 10 movements in like five or six minutes.

    Winter 13:07
    Yeah.

    Danielle 13:07
    It’s not like you’ve got to sit down for an hour.

    Winter 13:11
    No. Yeah.

    Danielle 13:13
    At least not typically, I wouldn’t think.

    Winter 13:16
    Yeah. I think that’s really cool that you became an ambassador and searched out more information to help you. Did that feel like that was a little bit of semblance of control, or trying to figure out what happened after she passed away?

    Danielle 13:30
    Yeah, yeah. So after Lydia died once I was kind of settling in back home, I took some leave from work. I was in no state to return back to work. I just spent time googling stillbirth. And I’m like, how does this happen? Because I had no idea. Perfect pregnancies with healthy mothers can suddenly result in stillbirth. I was baffled.

    Winter 13:57
    Right.

    Danielle 13:58
    I was shocked when I saw 1 in 160 pregnancies end in stillbirth. Anyway, through my research, I came across kick counting and somehow landed on the count the kicks.org page. I was reading about it and these five women in Iowa who have all lost babies, they started the organization together. Based on research that they had seen in Norway where the stillbirth rate decreased.

    Winter 14:22
    Yeah.

    Danielle 14:22
    So they brought it to the US. Then on the page I stumbled across, they were looking for volunteer ambassadors. So for me when Lydia died one thing that was so important for me and still is, is to continue to honor her in as many ways as I can carry her legacy on. That’s just something that is really, really big for me as her mom. This sounds scary to me to get involved in this, but this is a great way to honor Lydia and to help save babies because I don’t want this to happen to anybody else.

    Winter 14:22
    Yeah.

    Danielle 14:59
    I want everybody to know. I didn’t know. I truly, truly believe if I had been counting Lydia’s kicks, and knew that her movements were changing and her not moving that day was not normal. I could have gone to the hospital, possibly. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but she could have been saved. If I had gone in earlier Sunday was she still alive at that point? I don’t know.

    Danielle 15:24
    Anyway, I had reached out to that organization. They’re like, yeah, we’re looking for ambassadors. They were actually having a training in Iowa. Not long after that, like, six months after Lydia passed. I’d actually just found out I was pregnant with Luke, when I went. I traveled to Iowa, and went through the training to become an ambassador. I met these other ambassadors too. Most of them have lost babies themselves. Some have baby safe stories. I know we talked before about finding your tribe.

    Winter 15:55
    Yeah.

    Danielle 15:55
    I’m like, these people are my tribe. When you find other loss moms.

    Winter 16:02
    Yeah.

    Danielle 16:03
    You just connect so easily. It’s such a great support system. I just met all these women I never knew. It was just– I don’t know, I felt so supported being there. I knew I was in the right place and doing the right thing, so.

    Winter 16:20
    That’s cool.

    Danielle 16:21
    I was really glad to be involved in that. Then yeah, it was a big part of my pregnancy with Luke too, for sure.

    Winter 16:27
    Which is great. So when you went back, you took some time off from work right after? Did you take 12 weeks, or did you just end up kind of like, I’m gonna make sure Luke gets here okay or like hang out at home or whatever?

    Danielle 16:43
    Yeah. So after that, are you asking about after Lydia died? Or-

    Winter 16:48
    After Lydia died. Yeah.

    Danielle 16:49
    Yeah. After Lydia died. I took six weeks off of work. So-

    Winter 16:53
    Okay.

    Danielle 16:53
    I went back in December, I believe, or? I don’t know, like, right around the New Year.

    Winter 16:59
    Yeah.

    Danielle 16:59
    So I was already back at work before I even got pregnant with Luke.

    Winter 17:04
    How is that going back to where– did where people at work? Okay. Do they know?

    Danielle 17:08
    Well, yeah. So thankfully, I work with the most amazing people. They’re all super caring and supportive. I do work remotely. So I work from home, but I travel from time to time as well. Everyone was super supportive and told me if you need to take time in the middle of the day do it. Do what you need to do. So–

    Winter 17:30
    That’s great.

    Danielle 17:30
    That was helpful. Being able to work from home was helpful. At least I wasn’t having to be around people and lose it in the office. I could just walk down the hall and lose it privately.

    Winter 17:41
    Good.

    Danielle 17:43
    Yeah. So that, in a way, was good. But also I was just in my house all by myself every day. My quiet house, and it was kind of, I think it made me even more depressed. Just being there alone every day when I should have been having a baby.

    Winter 18:01
    Yeah.

    Danielle 18:02
    –To take care of. So it had its pros and cons. But yeah, I spent much of that time off just kind of researching and trying to actually, I should say, I was gonna say trying to understand what happened because I was doing that. But also, I had started blogging at the time. Writing letters to Lydia in a blog format. That was super helpful for me and my grief. There was a way for me to share about Lydia.

    Danielle 18:31
    I would share my blog on my Facebook page. I think it kind of opened a way for other people to not understand because nobody can understand fully without going through it. But I think it kind of helps people to know a little bit more about where I was at. And how I was feeling and that kind of thing. So the blog was helpful for me just writing. I felt so much better when I would write to her and felt so connected to her. But I also found it helpful to even share that.

    Danielle 19:02
    Everybody’s different. Some people are super private, and that’s totally okay. I wasn’t super private. I just, I thought it was helpful, because I felt people were really supportive of me, which I needed. I was hearing from people that I hadn’t heard from in years. People reaching out and offering their support. Our family was great, our siblings, parents and best friends. We had a lot of support. But I think through all of that as well, you also kind of noticed who’s not supporting you?

    Winter 19:34
    Oh, that’s interesting.

    Danielle 19:35
    You quickly figure that out as well.

    Winter 19:37
    Yeah.

    Danielle 19:39
    Overtime those people take more of a–

    Winter 19:41
    A backseat. It’s fine.

    Danielle 19:43
    A backseat in your life because they weren’t there when you really needed them.

    Winter 19:47
    Yeah.

    Danielle 19:47
    So I blogged a lot while I was off and the weather was really beautiful. During that time here in South Carolina it’s not really cold in the fall. It was just that nice cool beautiful pretty weather. So I would just– we had a hammock in the backyard and I would just lay there. And look up to the sky and think about Lydia and heaven. There would always be these yellow butterflies flying around. I don’t know. It’s just special. I’m like, oh, like tying everything to Lydia. Like Lydia’s up in heaven like dancing around. I don’t know the butterflies. Everything. Everything beautiful made me think of her.

    Winter 20:02
    That’s great.

    Danielle 20:02
    That’s how I spent my leave. I was just reflecting and crying.

    Danielle 20:11
    Yes, so much crying.

    Danielle 20:36
    Crying non stop. Feeling shocked and miserable, but also, really just trying. I don’t know, I feel like I noticed things a lot more after she died. I noticed the beauty and life too after she died. Just everything reminded me of her. Everything beautiful reminded me of her. So, that was kind of a nice part of it. If that’s even the right way to put it, anyway.

    Winter 21:05
    I know. It’s Yeah. Unfortunately, sometimes we need big things like this to happen for us to stop and notice stuff. Which is not the best way of putting it. But yeah, that’s kind of how I felt after Brandan passed away. Yeah, you just see things differently.

    Danielle 21:20
    Yes, for sure. Some things in a good way. And some things maybe not so much.

    Winter 21:25
    Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

    Danielle 21:28
    I know for me, and probably for you, too. It’s like there’s a before and after. I see pictures of me. I’m like that was before.

    Winter 21:34
    Yeah.

    Danielle 21:35
    Lydia died. I see pictures of me and that was like two different lives almost. Because your life just changes drastically. You’re so different.

    Winter 21:44
    Yeah, you’re so different after that. So you are six months after and you’re pregnant with Luke and you’re terrified.

    Danielle 21:55
    Yes.

    Winter 21:56
    So you guys went in quite a bit and got checked. It sounded like you had a great team that was really trying to take care of you and make sure you we’re good. How was his birth? Was that just something that was? It’s such a crazy experience, isn’t it?

    Danielle 22:14
    Yeah.

    Winter 22:15
    Birth after loss is like crazy.

    Danielle 22:17
    Yeah.

    Danielle 22:19
    Yeah, that was terrifying again. I was so scared, something was going to happen. They did induce me at 39 weeks. That was the earliest, they would induce me unless something else is significantly wrong. But they induced me at 39 weeks and everything went pretty smoothly.

    Danielle 22:37
    I do know when he first came out I felt like he didn’t cry right away. I was waiting. There was that second, and I was getting terrified. But then he just started screaming so loud.

    Winter 22:48
    And you’re like, Okay?

    Danielle 22:51
    He was an angry baby. He really was. He was so red. He was so mad when he was born. He did not want to get out of there. Like why are you taking me out of here? My husband says that the cord was around his neck. I didn’t see it.

    Winter 23:10
    Yeah.

    Danielle 23:11
    I guess they like unraveled it. So that was a little unnerving to hear. So I don’t know if that’s why it took him a second to cry or not. I mean, it wasn’t that long. It was long enough for somebody who’s been through loss to like–

    Winter 23:24
    Know, yeah.

    Danielle 23:26
    But he was healthy and everything went well. So yeah, it was just surreal to have a living, breathing baby in my arms. We saw so much of Lydia in him. That was really nice to see. We had her pictures there with us.

    Winter 23:45
    Oh, good.

    Danielle 23:45
    At the hospital and our Lydia bear.

    Danielle 23:48
    Yeah.

    Danielle 23:48
    Our weighted bear that Jonah’s cousin made for us. That weighs three pounds, eight ounces, like Lydia did. So, we felt like she was there with us. What’s really crazy is so Lydia was born on October 13th. Then Luke was born on December 13th.

    Winter 24:07
    Oh!

    Danielle 24:07
    So the same date. Then our rainbow baby after Luke, Laila. She was born on November 13th.

    Winter 24:15
    Whoa!

    Danielle 24:16
    Yeah. All of our 13th babies. I was like, this is like a sign from Lydia. I don’t know. I just always look for these little signs.

    Winter 24:28
    Me too! I totally do that too! Yes, yes, I think that’s cool!

    Danielle 24:36
    It’s really nice that they all kind of share that date in common. But yeah, I mean, bringing Luke home it was a wonderful thing. It was also really hard. It had only been just over a year since Lydia died and I was still like, I felt like being pregnant so soon after she died really made it hard for me to fully grieve. I was so distracted by my anxiety.

    Winter 25:02
    Yeah.

    Danielle 25:02
    You know?

    Winter 25:03
    Yes.

    Danielle 25:04
    So it’s like I hadn’t, I don’t know, it’s like a really great place to be honest to the outside world. You’re probably so happy you had this baby at home and I was, but I was really looking back. I know, I had postpartum depression, or even just depression and grief, with everything going on. I was in a really bad place for a while. I didn’t want to take anything. So I’m like, I’ll be fine. This is just grief. But looking back, I’m like, I should have probably tried to take something to help. I was just having a hard time but at the same time, Luke brought lots of joy to our life that we really needed.

    Winter 25:47
    Yeah.

    Danielle 25:47
    And gave us those sleepless nights that we so longed for with Lydia.

    Winter 25:53
    Right. Isn’t that funny?

    Danielle 25:54
    Yeah.

    Winter 25:54
    You long for those when you don’t have them?

    Danielle 25:57
    Yes, for sure.

    Winter 25:59
    We are experiencing the first three months of our parenting after loss.

    Danielle 26:05
    Yeah.

    Winter 26:05
    It really is. You are so excited. You’re so excited. You’re so happy and so joyful. But then yet there’s like, this layer of guilt too.

    Danielle 26:13
    Yes.

    Winter 26:14
    You’re just, like, how can I be so happy when I’m missing somebody in my little family. So yeah.

    Danielle 26:22
    Right! My family never feels complete. Then also just seeing the baby go through–

    Winter 26:27
    Yeah.

    Danielle 26:28
    –the milestones and things like that, that you never got to see.

    Winter 26:31
    Yeah.

    Danielle 26:32
    That was hard for us too. One reason we picked Luke as his name is that it means brings light. And I just think that’s so true for him. He brought, and still brings, so much light back into our lives that we really needed. We’ll always have our pain from Lydia not being here. But he has helped to heal. I always feel weird about seeing healed because like, to me healed is like when you’re completely better. And I’m like, we’ll never be completely better. But like, I feel like he’s brought a lot of healing.

    Winter 27:02
    Yeah.

    Danielle 27:03
    To our lives. And he’s an amazing boy, so.

    Danielle 27:06
    That’s great. After you lost Lydia, and you had become a count the kicks ambassador and you kind of found your tribe, found your people. Were you going to any other sort of grief support groups, any therapists, or anything too during that time?

    Danielle 27:23
    Yes, yes, I did try a couple of grief therapists and I did not have the best experiences. There was one I went to who I was talking about Lydia dying. Toward the end of the appointment, she gets out her wallet. And is like, oh, look at this picture of my new baby granddaughter. I’m like, did you not hear what I just talked about for the last hour. So that was just one experience. I don’t know, I just had a really hard time finding a good grief therapist at the time.

    Danielle 27:55
    I did have a really great support group. They have one down here through one of our hospitals in Charleston. I had gotten involved in that. That was super helpful. Again, being able to connect with other loss moms and dads, mostly moms, not a lot of dads really attended at the time. But that was very needed in my life at the time.

    Danielle 28:16
    So I always recommend support groups to other people who are going through loss. Some people like it, some people probably not so much. It was really helpful for me too. Not just to talk about all the grief and everything like that, but some of them were further out than me and had another baby. It was like glimmers of hope to see another loss parent.

    Winter 28:40
    Yeah.

    Danielle 28:41
    So that was really helpful. After Luke was born, I found another therapist who specialized in grief and talked to her. So that was like a year after Lydia died, but she was a lot more helpful than the prior.

    Winter 28:55
    You’ve got to shop around.

    Danielle 28:56
    Shop around for a while.

    Winter 28:56
    Yeah, I was gonna say you’ve got to try out those therapists and counselors.

    Danielle 29:00
    Yeah, for sure!

    Winter 29:01
    Not everybody’s a good match so.

    Danielle 29:03
    No, no. So now it’s been six and a half years. So I don’t do that support group as often anymore. I do try to hop in there sometimes. Just to connect, or offer support or advice. That’s how I met my friend Emily, who’s one of my best friends now. Who is also a loss mom.

    Danielle 29:22
    I feel like having those support groups is so vital because people understand what you’re feeling. You can have a deeper connection with them than you can with people who have not been through the experience.

    Winter 29:35
    Yeah.

    Danielle 29:36
    I also was in support groups on Facebook. They were stillbirth support groups that was my lifeline.

    Winter 29:44
    Yeah.

    Danielle 29:45
    That first year after Lydia died. I connected with two girls in particular who were my best friends. Like my best virtual friends. I’d never met them. They were in other states. One was Kim and one more Holly and we messaged each other every day after we connected. We had lost our babies at the same time. We understood what each other was going through. Then we also went through pregnancy after loss at the same time.

    Winter 30:13
    Really?

    Danielle 30:14
    Yes. So we would always be so terrified. It’s like, Oh, me too! We were like–

    Winter 30:19
    You’re in it together.

    Danielle 30:22
    I am so grateful for that. Like, I don’t talk to them as often as I used to. But they are always going to have a special place in my heart.

    Winter 30:30
    Yeah.

    Danielle 30:31
    I even got to meet one, one day. One lived in Canada, and she came down to Myrtle Beach. We got to meet.

    Winter 30:35
    Oh, that’s great.

    Danielle 30:37
    Hopefully, I’ll get to meet Kim one day too. She’s up in Massachusetts. New Hampshire not Massachusetts. But yeah.

    Winter 30:44
    One day that might should happen.

    Danielle 30:47
    I know!

    Winter 30:48
    Yeah, that’s cool. I know, I was gonna say there are– I feel like there’s a lot of resources. I think one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that a lot of these grief support groups are online. They’re all virtual nowadays.

    Danielle 31:01
    Yeah!

    Winter 31:01
    Right now. And it is– you can jump on to any of those. It seems like there’s a lot of resources, which is great.

    Danielle 31:09
    Yeah, for sure. I was so grateful to find it. I’ve just felt like I couldn’t survive without it. I needed people to talk to who could understand. So that was huge for me.

    Winter 31:20
    You mentioned Emily before. So Emily actually came on the podcast early on. So I will link to that in the show notes and in the description box, so that you can listen to that because you guys are in the same area. I think you guys met at one of the grief support groups, right?

    Danielle 31:37
    Yeah, yep. We met at the one through the hospital, actually, like a yoga instructor. I had taken yoga when I was pregnant with Luke, to try to help with my anxiety. Later Emily did yoga during pregnancy. So Emily went through it before she lost Margaret. So that yoga instructor reached out to me once Emily lost her baby. I’m pretty sure, I don’t remember if I had given the yoga instructor the grief group information to pass on to Emily or if she found it on her own. But regardless, she found the grief group and I ended up going to offer my support. Emily and I just started emailing and then that turned into texting. Now we text each other every day.

    Winter 32:23
    Yeah!

    Danielle 32:25
    She lost Margaret, almost two years ago, two years ago next month.

    Danielle 32:29
    Yeah.

    Danielle 32:29
    To stillbirth as well. They didn’t really have a conclusive reason, but she and I have really connected on that level.

    Danielle 32:38
    I appreciate those kinds of connections. You guys do the walk of remembrance for your hospital or your area, right?

    Danielle 32:40
    Yeah.

    Winter 32:40
    In October, usually.

    Danielle 32:40
    Yes. So shortly after Emily and I met, there used to be a walk of remembrance hosted by the hospital. Then they had to stop doing it. I guess they didn’t have anybody who was willing to, or who had the time or resources to continue. I was so sad. This is one of the only ways that we all get to come together each year and honor all of our babies.

    Danielle 33:10
    So I talked to Emily about it. I was like, I wonder if we could start looking at our own walk. She was so fresh in her grief, but she was like, yeah, let’s do it. She was willing to help me. So I was like, okay as long as I’m not doing it on my own. Let’s do this.

    Danielle 33:24
    So we started planning a walk of remembrance. We call it Walk of remembrance miles for Margaret, Lydia, and all babies gone too soon. We started that two years ago. We decided to do it also as a fundraiser for count the kicks.

    Winter 33:37
    Yeah. Which is great!

    Danielle 33:39
    Yeah, that organization is so important to us. So we’re like, we can honor all of our babies and we also raise money to help prevent stillbirth.

    Danielle 33:47
    We had a really successful turnout the first year and the second year was even more successful. Which is crazy, because that was during COVID and it was virtual. So we are planning to do that again this year. We don’t have a date yet. But, yeah we usually do it early fall. We like to do it in October because of pregnancy and infant loss Awareness Month. So it may be early October, however, I am pregnant again and due around that same time. Not a 100% Sure. Maybe September, or maybe the first weekend in October this year. We’ll definitely share the Facebook page and everything that people can follow.

    Winter 34:26
    Yeah, Yes, for sure.

    Danielle 34:28
    For updates. We do like an in person walk. We didn’t last year with COVID and I’m hoping we can do one this year. But we also always open it up to like anybody across the I mean anybody anywhere who wants to walk and honor their baby and put their baby’s name on the back of the shirt. Yeah, anywhere I can put Lydia’s name and like Sign me up. Yeah, we’d love to have anybody join us and help raise money for count the kicks with us as well.

    Winter 34:52
    Yeah, I will put links also for that in the show notes in the description box. Because I think it’s so cool what you guys have done. I just think that in general, like you said, anytime we get to talk and get together to talk about our babies it’s great. It’s a wonderful opportunity. Then what you’re doing for count the kicks, because I’m all about that too. I was like, oh, maybe I should become an ambassador for that, or something. Cause I’m all about it!

    Danielle 35:17
    I’ll recruite you.

    Winter 35:20
    Fine! Do it! Let’s do it!

    Danielle 35:21
    You’re in Utah, right?

    Winter 35:22
    Yes. I don’t think there’s anybody in Utah.

    Winter 35:24
    Yeah I don’t think they have anyone.

    Winter 35:25
    Oh, yeah, I don’t think so either.

    Danielle 35:26
    Signing you up!

    Winter 35:27
    My friend Lindsey, who we had on the podcast. Also, just became an ambassador for Idaho. So I’ve been paying attention to what she’s been posting. It’s kind of fun to see all that.

    Winter 35:38
    They are doing great work. So if you guys need a place to donate money or to We can we can save some of these little babies. So yeah, using that education.

    Danielle 35:50
    Exactly.

    Winter 35:51
    So I do have a couple of things that I’d like to ask you. I know that loss can be so taxing on a marriage, and other relationships in general, right.

    Danielle 36:05
    Yeah.

    Winter 36:05
    With friendships and other things. I’m wondering how you and Jonah have done with the loss? Like how is that? How has that been for you guys?

    Danielle 36:14
    Yeah, it was really hard. I mean, I don’t feel like or I guess I’m trying to think of how to answer it. I feel like we did get closer in a way afterward, just because we went through such a traumatic experience together. We were both just so devastated. So it’s like, in a way we drew closer to each other. But we also grieved very differently. My husband is a very hands on kind of guy like wanting to be in the garage and stuff. I know, after Lydia died he’s building shelves in the garage. It’s kind of like, that was how he–

    Danielle 36:48
    Oh!

    Danielle 36:48
    Like kind of working on things or things to keep him busy.

    Danielle 36:54
    I was more the one who just needed to sit and cry and stuff. But he was always and he still is always very supportive of me. He always wants to know if I’m having a hard time, or if I’m struggling. So he can be there to support me, which I appreciate. I will say I’m not the best at always letting him know. Sometimes I’m just very private about when I’m feeling down. I don’t like to share it. But he always wants to know, because he wants to be there for me. He’s always been super supportive of the count the kicks stuff I do. Like the walk and wanting to help and support me and honor Lydia in that way. So that’s been really nice.

    Danielle 37:38
    But yeah, I feel like we do grieve in different ways. But we’re very supportive of each other. And yeah, I guess that’s kind of how I put it. I mean, I feel like over time, I think I struggle with things more now than maybe he does like in terms of like maybe I have those like fresh grief moments more than he does at this point. But again, he’s still very supportive and wants to honor Lydia just like I do. So. That’s been really helpful.

    Winter 38:07
    Yeah, that is super helpful. And just even acknowledging that we’re different people, right. And that’s how, how he handles things and how you’ve handled things, or it’s just different. So it’s not wrong. It’s just different.

    Danielle 38:20
    Yeah, exactly.

    Winter 38:22
    Yeah. This is the part that I kind of enjoy actually quite a bit. I was gonna say, was there anything that anybody did or said to you, that really stuck out to you as being super helpful? That you appreciated? They said that or helps you kind of move through a part that was difficult during your grief?

    Danielle 38:41
    Yeah, there were people who just said I’m here for you and just showed up. Our small group that I talked about last episode, from church, they would just bring stuff over. Like food or just jump into help. Some neighbors did that as well without asking. Like, what do you need, but then another person that was super helpful for me was my best friend Nancy. She wouldn’t say the cliche things to try to make you feel better. She just always let me know that she’s there. She went above and beyond to help me honor Lydia and she still does.

    Danielle 39:19
    Lydia was due in December. We lost her in October. When Lydia’s due date approached, she completely surprised me. She reached out somehow to our family and friends and arranged so that people started sending us anything with angels on it.

    Winter 39:36
    Oh!

    Danielle 39:36
    With Lydia’s due date. Yeah, like I kept checking the mail. Every day we’d get a new like a willow tree Angel sculpture, or the most beautiful things. People were having their kids draw Angel bars, and it was just the sweetest thing and I’m so grateful. She did that. I’m so grateful for everybody who participated in that. I now have a whole Curio cabinet with angels that people have sent us back then on her due date. And over the years, just to show us that they were thinking of Lydia and thinking of us.

    Danielle 40:15
    So that’s really just been the most helpful, just her, or anybody like our family members or our close friends. Just saying I thought of Lydia today, or I saw this and it made me think of Lydia. That’s what’s most important for me is just knowing that she is remembered. She is important to other people, too. That her life, her legacy carries on that’s, that’s what’s been biggest for me and most helpful for me.

    Winter 40:40
    Yeah, just remember them. Yeah, remember them and say their name, say her name.

    Danielle 40:46
    Yeah, just say Lydia.

    Winter 40:48
    Yeah!

    Danielle 40:49
    I don’t know. I was at the doctor recently. They’re like, you know, in my new pregnancy, and they brought up something about Lydia. They’re like, I’m so sorry, I keep bringing this up. And it’s like–

    Winter 40:58
    No! don’t say sorry.

    Danielle 41:00
    Don’t be sorry. This is something that I think about all the time. So it’s not like you’re just suddenly reminding me of something. I am happy to talk about Lydia anytime you want. You know?

    Winter 41:12
    Yeah.

    Danielle 41:12
    It’s not.. They have such a different perspective.

    Winter 41:15
    Yeah. I think they’re just worried everybody’s always just a little bit worried that they’re going to say something wrong. And yeah, bring it all up again. And you’re just like, this is? Yeah, I’m living with this. This is who I am now. So yeah, for sure. And on the flip side, is there anything that you would recommend not saying? Yeah, maybe a loss mom or loss dad. And that can be when it’s still very fresh. And also, later, now that it’s been a little bit longer if there’s anything that you would recommend people not say? Yes, as time has passed on.

    Danielle 41:47
    I mean, that’s just this thing. Like people said to me early on, like, oh, like, I remember, I went to get a manicure with my mom. And I told the lady doing my nails. What happened? She’s like, Oh, well, something may have happened later that now she’s been saved from that. Maybe she would have gotten really sick. Like, what? Like, things like that. They’re trying to make it like, Oh, well, it’s a good thing that happened, because something worse could have happened. I don’t know. It was so bizarre and horrible. Just things like that really downplay it, or were other people. They’re trying to make themselves feel better. I think those things are not helpful.

    Danielle 42:27
    There was something else I was gonna mention. Oh, like, you can have another baby.

    Winter 42:31
    Oh, yeah.

    Danielle 42:31
    It is a common one. Yeah, I want to have another baby, but, and I do have Luke, and Lailay, and my rainbow babies and another one on the way. These babies are never going to replace Lydia. Lydia was her own person, just like Luke and Laila are their own people. So that’s just not helpful. It’s almost more of a stab in the heart than it is helpful.

    Winter 42:58
    Yeah.

    Danielle 42:59
    So things like that. I Try to be as understanding as possible when people say things like that, just like they’re trying to help. So I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But those things are not helpful. So yeah.

    Winter 43:15
    Yeah. You just did, like, okay, whatever. You just move on, right? Sometimes, like, yeah. should just say I’m sorry. That’s always good.

    Unknown Speaker 43:24
    Yeah. Yeah. Just say you’re sorry. And that you’re there or just show up and yeah, bring things and send things like and yeah, say the baby’s name or send something with the baby’s name on it. Those things are the most powerful for sure. Yeah,

    Winter 43:40
    exactly. Danielle, this has been so fun to talk to you and fun. I yeah, yeah, it has been fun. I know. It’s one of those things where we’re like, we’re talking about a really difficult topic. But it’s been really delightful talking to you, actually. And so nice talking to you, too. I really appreciate you coming on. And I actually wanted to ask you if you had any last little bit of advice, or anything that you would like to share with anybody about Lydia too.

    Danielle 44:06
    Yeah, I mean, in terms of advice, I would just say even though your babies are no longer physically here you can still keep them very active in your life. That’s something we’ve done in our family. Whether it’s including her in a picture with a Lydia bear, or doing things to honor her like the walk or raising money. I think we can still very much parent or babies even though they’re not with us, it’s just in a much different way and not in the way that we would like to but I just encourage other loss parents to find ways that work for them to do that. I mean, it may be something more private. Not everybody is open to different things, but find what works for you. Ways that you can continue to keep that baby’s spirit alive in your family.

    Danielle 44:55
    Then the other thing I would say is just try not to compare yourself too much to other parents. Which is something I’m still working on.

    Winter 45:02
    We all do.

    Danielle 45:03
    I’m connected with a lot of loss parents now through online and grief groups. Some of them are doing things all the time. I’m like, Oh, I’m not doing enough to honor my baby. So just know we’re all different. We all love our babies. Like you do you?

    Winter 45:22
    Yeah, yeah, you do you. You figure out what you’re doing

    Danielle 45:25
    Just because you’re one doing more than me. Or you feel like somebody is doing more than you or just try not to get too caught up on that. Do what works for you and your family. And yeah, what makes you feel connected to your baby.

    Danielle 45:41
    Then the thing I’d share about Lydia would just say that I’m just so grateful to be her mom. I wouldn’t trade it in the world for anything in the world. Even though she’s not with us, and I wish she was. I’m just so so grateful to be a mom to her. I really think she’s a special little girl and it’s just an honor to share her little legacy with other people. Yeah, I love my Lydia. My Lydia Jaelle.

    Winter 46:08
    I love it. Thank you so much, Danielle. Once again. Thank you so much.

    Danielle 46:13
    Thank you.

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

    Filed Under: advice, late term stillbirth, podcast episode, stillbirth

    Baby Lydia’s Birth story | Stillborn at 30 Weeks

    February 17, 2022 by Winter

    Mom Danielle recounts the stillbirth story of her first pregnancy with baby Lydia and how incredibly excited she and her husband Jonah were to have her. Near 30 weeks, she noticed that Lydia wasn’t moving around as much one day, and were concerned enough to go in to be checked out. They didn’t find a heartbeat, and Danielle later delivered Lydia, who was born sleeping.

    Watch here (YouTube):

    Listen here (podcast):


    Time Stamps:

    00:00 Lydia Jaelle
    01:23 Introduction of Danielle and Jonah
    04:17 Pregnancy
    11:20 Lydia’s name
    17:08 Less movement and going to the hospital
    27:45 Silent, silent, silent
    31:12 Birth
    38:02 After birth
    45:42 Pictures
    47:35 Arrangements and Lydia’s service

    You might appreciate these other episodes:

    • Watch/listen to Danielle‘s advice episode of daughter Lydia: Click here
    • Watch/listen to Jonah‘s birth episode of daughter Lydia: Click here

    Wanna help?

    • DONATE! Consider giving a one-time or recurring donation to help with production and hosting costs: Go here for more information.
    • SUBSCRIBE! Head over here to subscribe to our YouTube channel and our podcasts.
    • SHARE! Spread the word to a loss mom or dad, or those who may be supporting a bereaved parent. Send them a link to this post. Pin one of our graphics on Pinterest.
    Baby Lydia dressed in a tiny gown

    Full Transcription:

    Danielle 0:00
    Lydia Jaelle.

    Danielle 0:08
    She was absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way. She had curly brown hair. She had my chin and her daddy’s feet, the cutest button nose. And she was just absolutely adorable at three pounds eight ounces.

    Winter 0:26
    Welcome to Still A Part of Us a place where moms and dads share the story of their child who was stillborn or who died in infancy. I’m Winter.

    Lee 0:32
    And I’m Lee. We are grateful you joined us today. Please note that this is a story of loss and has triggers thanks to our loss parents who are willing to be vulnerable and share their children with us. If you’re listening to this podcast, just know that on our YouTube channel, there are pictures and videos that are related to the stories that are being shared.

    Winter 0:39
    Subscribe and share it with a friend that might need it and tell them to subscribe. Why? Because people need to know that even though our babies are no longer with us. They’re Still A Part of Us.

    Winter 0:43
    Danielle, thank you so much for coming and talking with us today on Still A Part of Us. I have heard about you for so long. And now it’s just a privilege to meet you. And have you on today to talk about your sweet Lydia. So welcome. Welcome, welcome.

    Danielle 1:05
    Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

    Winter 1:07
    Yeah, we’re excited for you to be here. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Tell us about who you are, kind of what you do. Right right now? And then can you tell us a little bit how your family looked? When Lydia was born?

    Danielle 1:16
    Absolutely. So I live in South Carolina and the Charleston area with my husband and two living children, Luke and Lyla. I work full time for a large Senior Living company doing leadership development for our team members. I’ve been in this role now for almost 10 years. I’m actually working remotely from here for that company. So I work full time. My husband, Jonah, and I, we’ve been married for almost nine years. So yeah, we moved here to South Carolina, about eight. I guess it was almost eight years ago, I always get so thrown off by it. So this is not our original home.

    Winter 2:28
    Oh Okay.

    Danielle 2:28
    We just wanted to come south.

    Winter 2:31
    Why not?

    Danielle 2:32
    My husband had found a job here. So we kind of made our way here. But yeah, that’s a little bit about us. Just staying busy with work and with my five year old son and three year old daughter.

    Winter 2:46
    I’m sure that they do keep you busy. Do you guys like to do you guys have any things that you guys like to do as a family or any personal hobbies?

    Danielle 2:55
    Yeah, um, we really love the outdoors, we like doing anything outside, whether it’s going on a hike, or even just hanging out in our backyard or going to the park or the beach. We’re not too far from the beach. So we love doing outdoor stuff. I also really enjoy shopping. More antique kind of shopping, like people are really cute antique shops down here. So I really like going to those and looking for unique home decor or furniture or things like that. And my husband’s pretty into that kind of stuff as well. So that’s kind of a non kid related thing that I like to do. And then I spend too much time shopping for my daughter as well.

    Winter 3:42
    Little girls are super easy to shop for. I’m just saying. Boys. Boys are just the clothes are just not as cute. Exactly. Oh, that’s awesome. Okay, well, and as a little bit of just background, how long ago at the time of this recording was Lydia born?

    Danielle 4:06
    She was born almost six and a half years ago. So it’s been a good while now. It was October 13, 2014.

    Winter 4:17
    Yeah. So it’s been a few years now. So I’m grateful that you’ve come on, because I think this will lend a little bit of a different perspective, having a little bit of time. Since your loss. So thank you again, for coming on.

    Danielle 4:31
    Of course. Yeah.

    Winter 4:32
    Um, so I understand that Lydia was your first child. Is that right?

    Danielle 4:38
    Yes. Yep. She was our first baby.

    Winter 4:40
    Were you guys planning on getting pregnant with her? Was that something that was a little bit more of a surprise, or did you guys have fertility issues, I think kind of runs the gambit. Right?

    Danielle 4:51
    Yeah, I laugh a little bit because we weren’t exactly trying. But there’s a little bit of a story to it. So we had started to talk about trying, and my husband didn’t really quite feel ready at the time. But I had been on birth control for many years before that. Once I stopped my cycles were so out of whack. Really long, and I was worried about it. I’m like, oh, gosh, am I gonna have trouble conceiving, and I went to my doctor and talked to him about it. He’s like, well, it’s possible, you’re not ovulating. He had given me some tips on tracking it.

    Danielle 5:27
    So in the meantime I had started researching, and I came across this herbal tea called fertility. I had read that it could help get your cycles on track. Like, oh, let me try this because I love to drink tea.

    Winter 5:41
    Yeah.

    Danielle 5:42
    I was not intending to get pregnant quickly on it, I was really only taking it just to get my cycles to be regular. So that we’d be ready when it was time to try. So I started drinking the tea. I don’t know how long it was like, probably a month later. I noticed like, I don’t know, I started getting these weird symptoms. I’m like, Huh could I possibly be pregnant? I didn’t exactly miss a cycle because I had such long cycles, but I ended up taking a test. Surprisingly enough, I was pregnant within a month of starting that tea and I’m like, What?

    Winter 6:22
    That was not the intention.

    Danielle 6:22
    Like I did not really know it was gonna happen so fast.

    Winter 6:28
    So you were kind of planning, but not necessarily planning it either.

    Danielle 6:32
    Yeah, I’d say buying that tea kind of pushed things along, but we were both super excited over the moon. Yeah, we were just really, really thrilled. So it was the best surprise. Yeah, it was a little bit of a surprise.

    Winter 6:47
    Yeah. Had you guys been– You’d been married for a few years by that time?

    Danielle 6:54
    Yeah, we had been married. Gosh, I guess it was. I want to say a year and a half. It was either a half or two and a half years. I get so confused thinking about the timing of all that.

    Winter 7:05
    Yeah.

    Danielle 7:06
    But we had just, I guess it was a year and a half because it was July 2012. When we got married , we had just moved to South Carolina. The summer prior.

    Winter 7:17
    Oh Okay.

    Danielle 7:18
    The spring got right after we had moved and I found out I was pregnant. So we’re in this new place.

    Winter 7:25
    Yeah.

    Danielle 7:26
    New job. No family around.

    Winter 7:28
    Yeah.

    Danielle 7:29
    Yeah. And now we’re gonna have a baby. So it was a crazy, but exciting time for sure. .

    Winter 7:35
    Yeah. Sounds so yeah. Always crazy. It happens that way. So how was your pregnancy? It sounds like you were a little on the sick side. Or had weird-

    Danielle 7:45
    Yeah.

    Winter 7:45
    –symptoms.

    Danielle 7:47
    My pregnancy really wasn’t too bad. I did have some nausea with her. That was the worst of it in terms of symptoms. It really was not that bad. The nausea was on and off. Just in the first trimester. We were really nervous when we found out. We were afraid to tell people because we do know people who’ve had miscarriages. We knew that that was really common. So we waited until we had our first ultrasound before we really started telling too many people, but then the pregnancy itself went really well.

    Danielle 8:24
    Again, I didn’t have any issues. I felt great after the first trimester. Yeah, I was just super happy. I felt really good. Everything was just going perfectly.

    Winter 8:36
    Yeah.

    Danielle 8:37
    Really and she looked great. Every time we went to the doctor to have our appointments, everything always looked perfect with her. So we really didn’t have any concerns, especially after we passed the first trimester. Because at that time, I was under the mindset that once you get through that point and your anatomy scan. If everything looks good with those two things, then you’re fine. I guess I was one of those people who thought, oh, we’re gonna bring home our baby, everything’s going so well. So yeah, I really didn’t have any, any big issues or, or concerns or anything like that throughout the day. And it was, it was a blessing to feel so good.

    Winter 9:19
    Yeah. Oh, yeah. It is totally because some people are just sick the entire time. And you’re like, yes. Yeah. And at her anatomy scan, were you guys planning on finding out the gender?

    Danielle 9:30
    Yes. So I am rather impatient. So actually, I booked one of those little boutique ultrasound. I don’t remember if it was 14 or 16 weeks. Whenever it is that you can book those and find out the gender. So we went to one of those places to do that. And we did it in a little bit of a unique way. My husband found out the gender but I did not and then he surprised me and captured it on video. So we went to the store and picked out a boy outfit and a girl outfit. He was supposed to wrap up the outfit in the bag and then watch me open it and record me opening it just to capture the surprise on camera. The ultrasound person told him the gender and then we went to this little Greek restaurant and sat outside and we have a really nice video where I opened it up and Oh no, the little pink outfit.

    Danielle 10:34
    I was really shocked to be honest, for some reason I always had in my mind that I would only have boys. I don’t know why, oh. I always wanted a girl but I just always was like, I’m never gonna have a girl. I know I’m only gonna have boys. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with having boys. But I just always had that in my mind that I would only have boys. So I was really surprised. Super happy. My husband was surprised too. And yeah, that’s how we found out that she was a girl.

    Winter 11:09
    Awesome. And did you guys choose the name Lydia for? I guess I guess when did you guys choose the name? Did you kind of start formulating when you found out that she was going to be a girl?

    Danielle 11:20
    Yeah, we started thinking about it pretty early on and debated for a while. And then we picked the name Lydia. Probably sometime when I was in the second trimester, so not too long before she was born. But yeah, we decided on the name Lydia, my husband really wanted it to be a bit biblical name. So I was kind of going through all the female names in the Bible. I really liked Lydia. I liked that it’s somewhat unique as well. Just a pretty name.

    Winter 11:52
    Yeah.

    Danielle 11:52
    So that’s how we picked Lydia. Her middle name is actually pretty unique as well. Again, it’s Jaelle. J-a-e-l-l-e. My husband had read about a name and the Bible, which I think is your L is JL it’s like a heroine in the Bible. I don’t know, I was familiar with it.

    Winter 12:13
    Okay.

    Danielle 12:14
    And I was like, Well, if we spell it j-a-e-l. People are gonna think it’s jail. We gotta change it. I was not really feeling it. So we had not actually decided on her middle name. But then when we were at the hospital after I gave birth to her, I thought that it was the best name because I knew my husband really liked it. It was unique and, and on. Another cool part about it is the e-l-l-e it’s kind of like my name, Danielle.

    Winter 12:45
    Yeah.

    Danielle 12:46
    There’s a little bit of tie.

    Winter 12:47
    Yeah.

    Danielle 12:48
    That it has that feature. So that’s how we picked her name.

    Winter 12:50
    Yeah, very cool. Very cool. Okay. Well I always like to know how the names come about. So. Yeah. So everything is looking great. You’re feeling good. And tell us what happens? What? Yeah. So when do you find out?

    Danielle 13:08
    Yeah, everything again, was going really well. Actually, at that point in our life. We had rented a place when we first moved here to South Carolina, and there are at least came up. So we ended up house hunting, and bought a new house in August. Then again, Lydia was born in October. So we had just moved into a new house. Every house we went into we were imagining this is where we’re gonna raise our baby.

    Danielle 13:36
    So anyway, we had moved into this new house, everything in life just felt like it was going so good. We were approaching the end of the pregnancy, or at least I was getting to the third trimester. So I had a baby shower. We had started painting her new room in our new house, and getting the crib set up and everything like that. Everything was just going perfectly fine.

    Danielle 14:02
    I even remember at one point I just felt so guilty. I kept thanking God every day that we were being I just felt like we were so blessed. We had this beautiful new house. We lived in this new location. We’re having a baby. I don’t know why. I just felt like things were going so good. I just had this weird worry in my mind that something was gonna happen. I don’t even know how to explain it. I just remember having that feeling. Now looking back on it, I’m like, oh, I don’t know. It just always stands out to me that I kind of had that feeling before anything that actually happened.

    Winter 14:38
    Yeah.

    Danielle 14:40
    Anyway, yeah. So everything had been going well for about a week or I guess it was two or three weeks before. We had the baby shower and everything. And so it was then a weekend when everything kind of happened. I had been a little bit sick the week before. With sore throats and I can’t remember if I had a little bit of a fever or not. So I had been a little bit sick the week prior. Then by the time the weekend rolled around, I started feeling much better. So I was just excited to be feeling better and doing a lot of stuff. It was a beautiful weekend, we were running errands and going to lunch, and I was washing the mountain of baby clothes that we had for Lydia. We had tons of stuff, not just from our baby shower and gifts that we were given like hand me downs.

    Winter 15:35
    Oh yeah.

    Danielle 15:35
    When we were in Virginia for my baby shower we stumbled upon a yard sale that had tons of the cutest baby stuff really lined up all the way up to 18 months.

    Danielle 15:49
    So anyway, I was doing all this laundry and folding the baby clothes, and I just have this vivid memory from that weekend, standing in my laundry room looking at the little bitty socks and just smiling to myself thinking about how excited I was to be become a mom and how close we were getting to her being born. Again, just feeling so grateful and excited. Because nothing was wrong at that point.

    Danielle 16:20
    So that was that was Saturday and then also into Sunday, I was still kind of doing doing the laundry. Sunday morning, we actually let me backup. So that Saturday, I went to chick-fil-a for dinner, and picked up food and I picked up a strawberry milkshake because that was one of the things I always craved with Lydia.

    Winter 16:43
    Really?

    Danielle 16:44
    Strawberries and ice cream. So I treated myself to a strawberry milkshake that night and came home. I remember saying to my husband, oh, Lydia is dancing around like crazy. Tonight, like she was going nuts in my belly. And I thought it was so cute. Like, Oh, she loved that strawberry milkshake.

    Winter 17:04
    Was she fairly active generally, or like,

    Danielle 17:08
    It was on and off. So at that point in my pregnancy, I was 30 weeks. So once you get to 28 weeks, their movements should be pretty predictable, which I had no idea at the time. But I have since learned that. But yeah, her movements would kind of be on and off. So even the weekend prior to that, and the weekend before that there would be times where I’m like, is she moving enough? And I wasn’t really sure.

    Danielle 17:35
    I had expressed it to my husband and I even mentioned it to the nurse at my last doctor’s visit, which was two weeks prior to the time we lost her. I said is it normal for her to be quiet sometimes and not move as much? And she’s just like, Well if that happens, just drink some juice, lay down, or eat something cold, some ice cream. And that should get her going again. So she really kind of just made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe she just needs something to wake her up. So I had that in the back of my mind. And I’d even I guess mentioned, I don’t remember this specifically, but my husband remembers me asking the doctor at that visit. Should I be counting kicks? Because he asked me Are you feeling the baby move? That’s all the doctor asked.

    Winter 18:25
    Yeah.

    Danielle 18:25
    I was like, Well, yeah… What is strange? I don’t know. That’s a strange question to me. Because that’s a yes or no.

    Winter 18:32
    Yeah, yeah.

    Danielle 18:33
    A question. And yes. Like, that’s not really going to tell him much. And then No, it’s like, that would be a horrible thing.

    Winter 18:40
    Yeah.

    Danielle 18:40
    Just here.

    Winter 18:42
    But you basically asked him, you specifically asked him if you should be counting kicks?

    Danielle 18:48
    Yes. So you didn’t even remember it till my husband brought it up. Then once he mentioned that, I do kind of remember asking him that, like, do I need to count the movements because I wasn’t really sure what you were supposed to do.

    Winter 19:00
    Okay. Okay.

    Danielle 19:01
    And my doctor was a much older doctor. So he’d been practicing for many years. I kind of feel like he had that old school mindset. I would ask him different things. I even asked him Can I sleep on my back? Because I had read that you should not sleep on your back during pregnancy, and I was having trouble getting comfortable. He told me Oh, that’s fine. It’s an old wives tale, do what you need to do to get comfortable. So, I’m like, okay, so looking back on it, I’m like, oh, I loved him as a person. He was a great man. But as a doctor, I’m like, gosh, I really, really wish I had gone to somebody who was more focused on the latest research.

    Winter 19:44
    Right.

    Danielle 19:44
    Really telling me what I need to do to keep my baby safe.

    Winter 19:48
    Yeah.

    Danielle 19:48
    Versus thinking these things are old wives tales. So anyway she again, she was somewhat active I guess, but I just wasn’t. I was not aware that I really needed to pay attention to her movements that like. It wouldn’t be normal for her to slow down sometimes.

    Danielle 20:07
    Yeah.

    Danielle 20:09
    I was in one of those due date groups on Facebook. I don’t know if you’re familiar with those, but

    Winter 20:15
    Yep.

    Danielle 20:15
    It’s the December due date group for all babies.

    Winter 20:19
    Yep. Yeah.

    Danielle 20:20
    We’re all women who were pregnant with babies during December. So I was in one of those. I remember sometimes I’d see people post about their baby not moving much. Then everyone’s like, oh, they’re probably just sleepy. Like, my baby did that too, when they woke up. So I remembered reading posts like that. So I just assumed that sometimes babies get sleepy and they slow down.

    Winter 20:40
    Yeah.

    Danielle 20:41
    So that’s all I knew about movement. So anyway, that Saturday night again, she was moving around like crazy. Then my husband and I watched a movie. It was super late that night. I went to bed, and I was wiped out that night. I remember laying down in bed. I do remember thinking at the time Oh, she’s not kicking around. Usually when I’d lay in bed, she’d give me some kicks once I lay down, but I was like, Oh, I’m up later than normal. I’m so tired. I’m sure she’s tired.

    Danielle 21:13
    So I went to bed and I swear, I slept on my back that night, because I was so tired. Again, my doctor, I remember thinking I probably shouldn’t, but I’m like, well, he said, it was okay.

    Winter 21:24
    Yeah.

    Danielle 21:24
    I’m so tired. I just need to get comfortable. So I slept that way that night. Then the next morning, it was a Sunday. So we got up and went to church. Like we normally do on a Sunday morning. After church, we went to lunch, and we finally decided, like, yeah, let’s get maternity photos. I was gonna book those. Then we went out shopping for rugs. It was just a totally normal day.

    Winter 21:55
    Yeah.

    Danielle 21:57
    Then we got back home. And I started doing more of that laundry that I was talking about earlier. At one point that day it was probably mid afternoon. I was just sitting on the floor, in the room going through that laundry, and my sweet dog was there with me. I remember I was sitting on the floor, and she came in and rested her head by my belly. I just thought it was the sweetest thing. Like she wanted to be close to the baby or something.

    Winter 22:24
    Yeah.

    Danielle 22:24
    At that moment, I remember I just started crying. It was so weird. I just felt really emotional out of the blue. Now when I look back on it, I’m like, did I subconsciously know, something was going on? Did my dog know something was going on? At the time, mentally I didn’t think anything was wrong, but I was super emotional. My dog was being all cuddly.

    Danielle 22:49
    Then soon after that, I was like, gosh, I’m really not feeling Lydia move much today. So I went downstairs and told my husband, he was outside on our screen and porch. I told him, I was feeling a little bit worried because she really wasn’t moving much. We talked about it for a few minutes. But he’s like, Well you’ve felt that way last weekend, too. Which was true the weekend prior I was like, is she moving enough? So we talked about what we’re like, Yeah, that’s true. She’s probably just sleepy. So we decided there’s really nothing to be worried about, and carried on about the day

    Danielle 23:29
    that I remember, I took my dog for a walk and the day kind of went on.

    Danielle 23:34
    Then that evening, like I mentioned being emotional before , I wasn’t in a horrible mood. I just wanted to cry about everything. Again, it was so weird. I didn’t want to cook dinner, like we had nothing to cook. I remember we drove to Walmart, just to go get something to cook up really quick. And I just wanted to get out of there cause again, I was so emotional for whatever reason, and then came home and cooked dinner.

    Danielle 23:34
    We sat down on the couch after dinner. At the time, we were really into this show The Walking Dead, which is not something I would typically be into zombies, but my husband was totally into it. And I got into it. So we sat down to watch the walking dead. And gosh, she’s not moving and that was really concerning to me. Because after dinner at night when I sat on the couch that was her guaranteed movement is now. So since she still wasn’t moving, and I had already been worried earlier in the day, I was like okay, this is freaking me out a little bit, but I didn’t actually say anything to my husband yet. I didn’t want to overwhelm him.

    Danielle 24:42
    So I got up and I made a bowl of ice cream. I was doing everything that the nurse told me to do. I got ice cream. Then I drank orange juice right after. It was a really disgusting mix. I’m like all the sugar.

    Winter 24:55
    I know I’m like you’re all sugared up now.

    Danielle 24:57
    Yeah, like oh, I was doing anything I could to get her to move and poking my belly.

    Winter 25:04
    Yeah, yeah.

    Danielle 25:05
    And nothing was going on. And so in my head, I’m really starting to worry, but trying just to stay calm. And then I started texting my best friend Nancy. She’s had a baby before or had a baby before at the time. So I was just telling her what was going on. I’m not really feeling the baby move. I don’t know what to do. And she was like you probably should call your on-call doctor, just to let them know.

    Danielle 25:34
    At that point, it was a Sunday night. So I’m like, should I really call or should I just wait till tomorrow? I was like, Yeah, she’s right. So I called. And they said, Yeah, why don’t you come on down to labor and delivery, and we’ll hook you up to the monitor and check things out, just to be safe. And that has always kind of stuck in my mind that she said, just to be safe. Um, so I was like, okay, so I went back downstairs, told my husband everything that was going on. At that point, I hadn’t even told him I was calling because I just didn’t want to know. And he was totally supportive. You know, all right. Well, let’s go.

    Danielle 26:15
    So we went and started getting ready. We almost didn’t even take our dog out to go potty cause I was thinking we’re gonna go, we’ll be back in a couple hours. But we decided just to let her out real quick. So we took her out. Then I changed my clothes. Again I lost it in the bathroom. I just started bawling. I didn’t really think that something terrible had happened to our baby. The last thing on my mind was that she had died. But I was just so worried and like, what’s going on? Are we going to have a baby tonight? I’m not ready yet.

    Winter 26:49
    Yeah.

    Danielle 26:51
    Because again, I was 30 weeks at the time. So I just was like, What is going on? So we made our way to the hospital, which was about 30-35 minutes from our house. Yeah, I vividly remember that drive. My husband held my hand the whole way.I just had my hand on my belly. In my head praying and praying and talking to Lydia in my head, like, come on, just kick me just do something. And I felt one time I thought maybe she did kick but I wasn’t really sure. Um, so we got to the hospital. And we had to go in through the emergency room, because of the time of day, it was late at night. I don’t know, 10 o’clock by that point. I even remember, I was like, I’m sorry to my husband, cause he had to work at five the next morning. I’m like, you’re going to be so tired. I was just worried about all these random things.

    Winter 27:44
    Yeah.

    Danielle 27:45
    So anyway, we got to the hospital. And then this nurse from labor and delivery, named Susie, she was super sweet, super cheery and upbeat. She came in and greeted us. We were just making small talk walking down to the labor and delivery and we got to a room, she had me change into a gown. I did that and I remember changing into the gown and feeling like okay, we’re finally gonna make sure everything’s fine.

    Danielle 28:15
    So I got into the hospital bed, and Susie got the Doppler out to try to find Lydia’s heartbeat. And yeah, at that point it was, I know, a lot of people saw this. And it really was the loudest silence I’ve ever heard. It was just pure seeing if she’s moving all over my belly. And usually right away, they pick it up at that point.

    Winter 28:39
    Yeah.

    Danielle 28:40
    It was just silent, silent, silent. But then a few times, they would pick up my heartbeat. I didn’t know that it was mine or hers. But I’m like we found it! Oh, there it is, but it was just mine. So that was going on for what felt like forever, but I don’t know how long that was. She went and got another nurse to come and help her. So she came in, they were scrambling around. I’m just thinking in my head what in the world is going on? My husband’s next to me holding my hand still. Then they’re like, Okay, let’s go, we have to go get the doctor to do an ultrasound. So I’m like, okay finally please bring the ultrasound in here. Let’s see that everything’s fine. I was getting really kind of frustrated in my head at that point, because I just wanted to know that everything was fine.

    Danielle 29:34
    So this doctor came in who we had never seen or met before, and rolled in this little ultrasound machine and pulled it up on my left side. I looked over and first thing I saw was Lydia’s perfect little profile with her little button nose and then he moved the wand and it was right over her heart. And he said, I’m very Sorry, I can’t remember his exact words. It was like, I think at first he said I think there’s no heartbeat. But then he’s like, I mean, I know there’s no heartbeat. She’s gone. I was just in complete shock. I couldn’t look at him, I couldn’t look at my husband, I was just sitting or laying there in the bed, and looking at this wall in front of me staring at this wall in complete shock, trying to understand what he just said.

    Danielle 30:35
    It was just the worst, worst possible thing to have to hear. As a mother that was really, really hard to take in. Immediately I started thinking what did I do? How could this happen? You know? Did I? Was it something from me being sick last week, the nurse told me I could take a Tylenol should I have not taken the Tylenol? Like, did I eat lunch and not microwave it long enough?

    Winter 31:09
    Yeah.

    Danielle 31:10
    Every-

    Winter 31:11
    Every possible thing.

    Danielle 31:12
    I was totally blaming myself. What did I do? Because I am her mother. And it was my job I felt to protect her. I was just completely shocked and we had known that at that point that she was healthy. So it didn’t seem like something else happened. But we weren’t really sure at that point. But anyway, I was just laying there in shock. And my sweet husband dropped down to the floor and started praying, which was very sweet and needed at the time. Then, after the doctor left the room I don’t even remember the conversation my husband and I had, we were both just completely shocked, and trying to understand what happened.

    Danielle 31:59
    Then they had the doctor on call come in the one who I had called, and she came in soon after, and started talking about the plan. Obviously, she said, She’s very sorry, she was very caring and everything like that. But then it’s like we need to talk about next steps. You need to be induced. I hadn’t even thought about that yet.

    Winter 32:21
    Right.

    Danielle 32:22
    Like, wait a minute I just found out my baby died. I guess my mind hadn’t gone yet to what happens next., Obviously, she’s not just going to disappear. Um, so she started talking about that. And I had already been like, I don’t know why I was so terrified about the whole process of giving birth, even to a live baby. So I was way even more terrified of having to do that with my baby who died. So I’m like can’t we do a C-section? Is there anything else? At that point my mind’s not really even working the way that it should? I just wanted wanted it? I don’t know, I don’t know.

    Winter 33:07
    Yeah.

    Danielle 33:07
    It’s like, is a C-section an option? She said that it was but that they wouldn’t recommend it, the recovery is longer. Then also that would make it more difficult for having another baby or like, we’d have to wait longer, we wanted to have another baby. I thought about it some more. It was so late that night, they weren’t going to start anything till the next morning. So I did think about it more and decided to move ahead with the induction versus doing a C-section. But they did end up rolling us to another room where that would be a little bit more private, because we’re in labor and delivery. There’s all these moms giving birth to living children, lots of crying, lots of baby noises going on. So they moved me down to another room. That would be a little bit more private.

    Danielle 34:02
    At that point my husband, I asked him to let a few people know. I think my best friend Nancy had been checking in on me since I had been texting with her and he called my dad and at some point called my mom too, and I don’t know, I just couldn’t bear to talk to anybody. I couldn’t bear to text anybody. I just could not bear to be the one to get the words out to anybody to let them know that our daughter had died. So thankfully, my husband found the strength to make those phone calls and, and do those things.

    Danielle 34:56
    So anyway, we stayed at the hospital that night. I guess somehow I slept. I think they’d given me some Ambien. So I slept for a little bit. Then the next morning, early in the morning, they put in the site attack and started the induction process. By then, my dad had driven down from Virginia. I think he drove down. Yeah, I think he drove down. He was in New York and flew back to Virginia and drove down to be with us and my mom and stepdad, they were living nearby at the time, they had just moved down here as well. So they came to the hospital and visited with us.

    Danielle 35:42
    But anyway, early that morning, they started the induction process, and that kind of went on throughout the day. I did have an epidural. That was recommended to me and I was just like, so nervous about the pain and stuff. I was like, okay, so I did the epidural.

    Danielle 35:56
    Then throughout the day things were progressing slowly, they weren’t, weren’t really moving along that fast. I even remember early evening, I wasn’t that far along. I don’t remember how dilated I was, but it really wasn’t that much. So I was okay, but then all of a sudden not very long after the doctor checked me. I started feeling a lot of pressure and had to get them to come in and check.

    Danielle 36:10
    All of a sudden I was ready to go. They’re like, you need to start pushing now. I was like no. I don’t know, at that point. I guess waiting up to it I was obviously very upset throughout the day. But I was hanging in there. But then once I found out it was time to push I was so upset. I guess I just didn’t want– I felt like I was approaching the end, I guess. Once she goes out this is really going to be over. I didn’t feel ready, but I don’t think I ever would have felt ready.

    Danielle 35:56
    So anyway, I started pushing and it really wasn’t anything too bad. I don’t know exactly how long I pushed, but throughout the whole thing, I just kept praying for a miracle. Like, please God, let them be wrong. Please, let us hear her cry. This is all still thinking in my head. There can be some kind of miracle. They could be wrong. But she was born and that. I know. I said earlier that not hearing the heartbeat was the loudest silence, but I guess truly once she was born, and we heard the silence that was really the loudest silence I’ve ever heard.

    Danielle 37:40
    I knew she was out and I wasn’t hearing anything. They had asked me like, did I want her to be cleaned up before they handed it to me? Or did I want them to just hand her to me and I was just so scared. I didn’t know what she was gonna look like. So I’d ask them to clean her up.

    Winter 37:58
    Nobody had talked to you and none of the nurses or doctors had?

    Danielle 38:01
    Well..

    Winter 38:02
    Talk to you?

    Danielle 38:02
    That is a good question. They did. The nurses there were amazing. They were so sweet. and supportive. Yeah, before I gave birth throughout that day, they talked to me some. Do you want to hold her and I was like, Oh, I don’t know. I was so scared and didn’t know what to do, but they really encouraged me to do that. I’m so– I can’t imagine if I hadn’t held her.

    Danielle 38:29
    Then they also talked about Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep photography. They asked if we wanted pictures. Again at that time I’m like pictures? It’s not something I ever thought about, but I’m so grateful that we said yes and opted to do that. But yeah, they did say I could have cleaned up, or put on me. They didn’t really know how she would look. I guess it’s kind of hard to say cause they don’t know how long she has been– Yeah, how long she’d been gone and that kind of thing.

    Danielle 38:59
    So I had them clean her up, but I could see them taking her over to the warmer thing to get her cleaned up and I remember it was so sad. I’m like I just want her now. That’s what I was thinking of, like give me my baby. But they cleaned her up and handed her to me and she was just absolutely beautiful. I was truly amazed because I didn’t know what to expect especially since she had passed away, but she just looked perfect. She looks like a perfect beautiful baby. She had these cute little lips and again, I was shocked by her hair. I couldn’t believe she had dark hair. The little waves in it were so cute. She was just precious and so beautiful. I held her in my arms and did not want to let her go ever.

    Danielle 39:58
    We did learn that the umbilical cord was very tight around her neck and her right ankle both. It was so tight that there were indentations on her neck and her ankle. So they were fairly certain that is what happened to cause her to pass away, unfortunately. It was 7:56pm. Okay, and that is so weird. I literally just said that and the clock on my laptop is 7:56pm.

    Winter 40:33
    Yeah, I was about to say I was like, Oh, yeah, that is so.

    Danielle 40:37
    Um, so she was born at 7:56pm. We held her that night for as long as we could. Again, my dad was there, and my mom and stepdad, they all got to meet her. At the time again, we were new to South Carolina, we didn’t have many friends here or much of a support system. But we had been in a small group at church and had some friends through that.

    Danielle 41:07
    They were just the biggest blessing throughout all of this. They came to the church to or I’m sorry, to the hospital too. A couple of them got to meet Lydia at some point. We were just so grateful. I was proud to show her off. It is kind of weird. You know it was so horrible what had happened. But to me, she’s this beautiful, perfect baby. I wanted everybody to see her and know her. I wanted as many people to know her as we could.

    Danielle 41:39
    So anyway, late that night, the nurses did suggest that she go to the morgue. I don’t think they actually said it that way. I wasn’t even really thinking about it. But they really encouraged me to try to rest. They would bring her back in the morning. So I reluctantly agreed to it. They had to give me Ambien to get me to sleep again. But I did sleep a little bit.

    Danielle 42:07
    Every time I woke up, I’m just like, Where’s my baby? I want my baby back. So as soon as I woke up that morning, I was trying to page the nurse to bring her back to me as quickly as possible. Because it was terrible to be without her. I just wanted her there. I wish I could have held her all night like I wanted to. But I was afraid that I dropped her or something because I really was getting so tired. And they brought her back that morning. And then we spent some time with her for several hours that day, the day after she was born.

    Danielle 42:45
    We didn’t have a cuddle cot or anything like that. So I just held her in my arms, and my husband held her some. But I will say I do feel kind of guilty that I didn’t really let anybody else hold her other than my husband. I never let my mom or my dad hold her. I really wish I could have given them that experience. My husband’s parents did come down too, but it was later that day. So they didn’t actually get to hold her or anything either. It makes me sad now that nobody else got to know what it was like to hold her except for me and my husband. But selfishly, I was like, this is the only time I’m going to get to hold my baby. I want to do it for as long as I can.

    Danielle 43:33
    So we had talked to the doctor about whether or not to do an autopsy. The doctor that we had seen at the time did recommend it just to make sure there were no other issues. It was pretty obvious that it was the cord accident. But with that being our first baby, they said it’s probably good just to rule other things out. So we did agree to do the autopsy.

    Danielle 44:00
    So throughout that morning, the nurse kept talking to me about how they have to start the autopsy within a certain amount of time. That we’d have to move ahead with that fairly soon. Throughout that day, Lydia was changing a lot. Her color was changing her skin, it started peeling some and that was really devastating to see. In my mind it wasn’t gonna. I was gonna hold her forever. Nobody was gonna take my baby from me, but the nurse kept telling me. Then my husband, he’s like, It probably is going to be time soon just because of how she was changing so.

    Winter 44:43
    Did your hospital have a policy on how long you could actually keep her? Or was they didn’t tell you and there was nothing in particular?

    Danielle 44:51
    Yeah, they didn’t really say anything like that there was any sort of policy but yeah, let’s just like that next morning after we had are they Were pretty, like, I felt like the one nurse. Like she was trying to be nice, but I felt like she was getting a little pushy like with, we have to, it’s time to take her. I don’t know exactly what time it was, but it was probably around 12 or one that day that I handed her over to the nurse, which was really hard to have to hand her over kind of for the last time. So

    Winter 45:24
    Yeah, that’s the worst thing ever.

    Danielle 45:27
    It really is. Yeah. So that was our time spent with Lydia at the hospital. Sorry if that was a super long story.

    Winter 45:37
    I actually wanted to ask you so you got your picture. At least you got pictures, say and with. So I lay me down to sleep. And were you guys able to get handprints or footprints or molds or anything like that while you were there?

    Danielle 45:52
    Yes. Yeah, the now I leave me down to sleep photographer. She was amazing. She got beautiful pictures that I’m forever grateful for. They did get Lydia’s handprints and footprints, which I’m so thankful for as well. I do wish I had been given more guidance in terms of how to make the most of our time with her because I just felt so scared. I just had her wrapped up in that blanket and her gown for so long.

    Danielle 46:22
    I was scared to really look at her all over. I didn’t think that I could give her a bath. None of these things crossed my mind, or brush your hair. Things that I’ve heard other parents have done when their babies are stillborn. I wish somebody had told me I could do those things. Because, again, they didn’t cross my mind. I was just too scared to even think about it. I was too scared to lift up her gown and see all of her because I didn’t know what she would look like?

    Winter 47:00
    Yeah.

    Danielle 47:00
    So, I’m very grateful for what they did to give us just those things. I wish we could have done– I wish there was some kind of guide book for somebody who’s lost a baby. Which I’ve actually thought about making one to give to the hospital to give to parents going through loss. Just things for them to consider because nobody goes in there prepared for that, or knowing what to do.

    Winter 47:27
    No, you don’t have any clue what you’re doing.

    Danielle 47:31
    Yeah.

    Winter 47:32
    You have no clue. It just blindsides you.

    Danielle 47:35
    Yeah. Also in the hospital they’re asking us what we plan to do. Do we want to have her cremated or buried? That was an awful decision to have to make, we had no idea what to do. It felt like they kept coming in asking have you made your decision? Have you picked your funeral home yet? I’m like, No, like, I don’t even know anything about a funeral home. What ones there are.

    Danielle 48:05
    Eventually, we just picked one that was somewhat close to home. For me I could not let my mind think about cremation as an option at the time. I guess it was just too much for me to understand. That she would just suddenly like, I don’t know, I felt like her body would just suddenly disappear. I just couldn’t for myself. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

    Danielle 48:30
    I remember some people trying to encourage me to do that because then she could technically be with us wherever in our home. Again, we were new to this state. So we don’t know where we’ll be buried one day. We did not have her cremated. So what we did is we found a cemetery that has a mausoleum.

    Winter 48:49
    Oh okay.

    Danielle 48:51
    She’s in a mausoleum so she could easily we could take her casket out and move her at some point. But I have mixed feelings about that now too looking back. When she first passed away we would, I could not go to sleep without going to the cemetery and telling her goodnight. I just felt so terrible leaving her there all by herself.

    Danielle 49:18
    Even now six and a half years later, every time I visit her, I’m just like, I’m so sorry. I hate leaving, even though I know she’s not actually there. Personally, I believe she’s in heaven. But just remembering her little cast it in her body going in there is really hard and leaving her there, but that was kind of what I guess was best. At the time when we had to make that decision that that was all I could get myself to do.

    Danielle 49:50
    We did have a memorial service for her. It was a smaller service. My best friends came down for it and some of Jonah’s family up in Virginia and West Virginia came down. We did a service for her a few days later.

    Danielle 50:11
    We had opted, even for an open casket, because again I just felt so proud of her and wanted people to meet her and see her. That was really hard. I wasn’t expecting her to look so different. In the casket I felt like she didn’t look like the Lydia that I held a few days before. So that was really hard. I kept holding, or putting her hand around my finger, and her hand was so stiff. That was just really, really hard for me. But I was really grateful to see her again, though, and give her that service. That service was really difficult for me. I can hardly remember anything about it other than actually seeing her and touching her. I don’t remember anything that anybody said, or anything like that. I was just still in too much shock.

    Danielle 51:11
    I do remember my brother asked if I wanted him to take any pictures at the service, which I think was really nice of him to ask. He and my sister in law had come down a couple days prior to that to be there for us. I was like, No. I don’t know, I was just so angry to be at a funeral service for my daughter. I told him no, but looking back, I really wish I had said yes, because I don’t remember a lot about it. I was not in a good place at the time. But I really wish I could have had some memories of that service to look back on.

    Winter 51:52
    Yeah.

    Danielle 51:54
    Then when we got to the cemetery. That part was nicer. They had taken us in one of those small limos, my husband and I. It was just such a surreal experience. We were in the backseat, me, then our daughter’s casket and my husband. I remember driving there and like, this is not real. This is not happening.

    Winter 52:13
    Oh.

    Danielle 52:14
    It was so bizarre. Then we got to the cemetery. My best friends had gone and picked up my dog, which was so sweet. So she could be there. We had balloons, so we did a balloon release and laid her to rest there. So that part of it was beautiful. I do remember that. It’s just the actual service itself was really hard for me. I wanted to hide from everybody. I actually did go in this back room for a while just to hide because I couldn’t face everybody. Everybody was so sad. Obviously I was so sad too. But at that point, I couldn’t even cry anymore, because I was in this weird shock phase. I was like, I just want to be alone. I just don’t want to be here.

    Danielle 53:01
    Yeah.

    Winter 53:02
    Yeah. Yeah.

    Danielle 53:04
    So yeah, that’s kind of how we, how we honored her life at the time and laid her to rest. Which is still so bizarre to say and think about that.

    Winter 53:21
    I’m so sorry. I really appreciate you telling that story. I

    Danielle 53:27
    Thank you for listening.

    Winter 53:29
    Yeah. I just, there were quite a few things that you said that brought back some memories and some emotions and Yeah, kind of a little bit of regret, actually. Because of Yeah, I wish I would have done this or so. But thank you so much for sharing. About Lydia. I think that’s

    Danielle 53:50
    Yeah, anyway the story is. I love any opportunity I have to share about her and just let people know how loved she was and how precious and important she was to us. The event itself is sad. The fact that she died is sad, but she herself. She’s an amazing little girl. So I just don’t know, I love sharing about her any chance I can.

    Winter 54:18
    Because you’re a proud mom. So I think that’s great. That’s wonderful. Thank you so much again, Danielle. Thank you.

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

    Filed Under: birth story, late term stillbirth, podcast episode, stillbirth Tagged With: stillbirth

    Angel Mom Miranda Gives Advice On What To Say (And NOT Say) To A Loss Mom | After George’s Stillbirth

    February 17, 2022 by Winter

    Mom Miranda talks about how the grief journey has looked like for her and her husband Graham, after she gave birth to her son George who was stillborn at 39 weeks due to growth restriction, during the COVID-19 pandemic. She shares how having a support network, that includes a grief midwife, a grief doula, therapist, and support groups, has helped her process her loss, and shares advice on what to say and what not to say to a mom who has lost a baby. She also talks about how she remembers George with tangible things like necklaces, tattoos, and his memorial bench along the river.

    Watch here (YouTube):

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    Time Stamps:

    00:00 Welcome
    01:34 Not going home after George was stillborn
    06:50 Miranda’s sanctuary
    11:43 Her new full-time job
    20:22 Grief support groups
    23:43 Running
    30:33 Her husband Graham
    35:43 Physical reminders of George
    41:41 Things that were helpful and things that were NOT helpful

    You might appreciate these other episodes:

    • Watch/listen to Miranda‘s birth episode of son George: Click here
    • Watch/listen to Tiffany‘s birth episode of daughter Khyana’s: Click here

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    George’s memorial bench along the river

    Full Transcription:

    Winter 0:00
    Welcome, everybody, this is Still A Part of Us. It’s a place where moms and dads get to talk about their kids that have died either in stillbirth or an infant loss.

    Winter 0:08
    We are so grateful to be back here with Miranda, she told the story of her son George. We’re going to talk to her a little bit more today about some things that she’s experienced as she has grieved his loss.

    Winter 0:19
    Once again, I am Winter and I want to just do a really quick warning of that we are going to be talking about stillbirth today and it is full of triggers. So please just be healthy and be safe. If you need to not listen to this episode, please do not listen to this episode. We just want everybody to be safe. So and if you are joining us as a lost mom or lost dad, welcome, we’re sorry that you’re part of this club that nobody wants to be a part of. If you feel the desire to subscribe to help others find other stories then hit the subscribe button. We can help each other out and support each other.

    Winter 0:54
    So Miranda, thank you again, so much for coming on today. I really enjoyed hearing about George and your experience in the UK. As having lost him about 10 months ago, 11 months ago, right at the time of this recording?

    Miranda Markham 0:55
    Thank you so much for having me. It’s been good to talk about him.

    Winter 1:14
    Yeah. Good. I’m glad. Just for a little bit of context. So it was about 11 months ago. What happened to George, how far along were you when he passed away?

    Miranda Markham 1:23
    Yeah, so I found out that George had no heartbeat when I was 39 weeks and one day pregnant. So I was ready to meet him. We were in the homestretch. It was my very first day of maternity leave, when we got the devastating news that his heart had just unexpectedly stopped.

    Winter 1:44
    Yeah. Please go listen to her birth, the birth episode of George because I just can think of all these terrible things that were I mean, all these terrible things that happen to Miranda, but it was also compounded with the COVID pandemic, and all of those wonderful things that come along with it right, it’s worth it’s worth a listen. So if you can jump over there, please do.

    Winter 2:07
    So Miranda, I know that you mentioned before, in your other episode that after George passed away, you and your husband Graham, basically escaped a little bit, you guys didn’t go back to your flat in the UK, in London, and you just ended up going to, you stayed in a hotel for a few days. Then you were in Edinburgh for a couple months and you made a point to say that Graham basically took care of you.

    Miranda Markham 2:32
    That’s true. I sometimes joke that I became the infant. I was waking up at night crying. I needed to be fed my breakfast. Who told when to? When to have a nap. I was afraid of the dark. I really turned a bit child like myself, and he really did take care of me. I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have got out of bed, I wouldn’t have fed myself properly. I don’t know how long it would have been until I did. But he really, I mean, he saved me in a way. Not only did he make sure I took care of myself, but he did things and arranged things to make sure that we were taking care of our mental health and I think escaping was probably one of the best things we did.

    Miranda Markham 3:19
    Although it was lonely, there was a certain comfort in being anonymous, or we were and one of the things that we did. I don’t know if anyone who’s listening has been to Scotland or to Edinburgh, but it was summertime. So arguably the best time to be there. We just did beautiful walks in nature. We climbed mountains as my physical recovery started getting better. We picked big mountains to climb. Full day hikes and I think that everything else in your life feels like a complete failure. There was something really uplifting about doing something that felt like an accomplishment.

    Winter 3:55
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 3:57
    Honestly, if it wasn’t for Graham, finding those mountains to climb and finding the direction driving us there planning at all. There’s no way I would have done any of it and honestly, I owe him such gratitude for just not giving up on me during that time. He was the only thing that kept me going.

    Winter 4:19
    Yeah, it’s amazing, especially those out it’s just it’s so the pain is so acute in those early days and you just you really don’t know how to function. I just Yeah, I remember thinking like I was pretty proud of myself when we got out of bed and had something nutritious to eat like in the morning.

    Miranda Markham 4:36
    It really does feel like a big accomplishment.

    Winter 4:39
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 4:40
    Simply having a shower, I blow drying my hair, you’re putting on actual clothes. I really felt like wow really an accomplished person and you step back and think of that what I was doing prior to George was comical and suddenly felt like a big deal in my life but it was baby steps. To rebuild the tiny, tiny stuff.

    Winter 5:03
    Yeah, I really, because you do feel there’s just that. Yeah, that first bit of grief is just so intense. Just yeah, it just takes over. I think so. Then how did you guys came back? After those two months, you came back from Edinburgh? What? What was that transition? Going back to your flat? Did you have an entire nursery all put up? What did you guys do about that?

    Miranda Markham 5:30
    That was hard because I knew it was there lurking and the thing that we had to deal with on our return. We had very kind friends that asked if we wanted them to talk everything out for us while we were gone and take it away. It was really nice of them to offer. But it was something I really wanted to do myself, I felt quite passionate that I wanted to put away his things the way I wanted to put them away. Even though he had never seen them or interacted with any of the things they were very much in my mind George’s things.

    Winter 6:04
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 6:05
    I remember very early, we entertained selling some of them. I just thought Absolutely not. George didn’t get to use these, no one will.

    Winter 6:11
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 6:12
    So I decided we would get a nearby storage room. I would pack everything up in neat, tidy labeled boxes. We’d bring them to this nearby storage room where I could visit his things when I wanted, which I continue to do to this day. I didn’t know the sort of ceremony after his funeral, I just put everything away. I think I was really adamant that I didn’t want the door to his room to just be permanently shut and be this sort of awful place that no one ever went in anymore. It was really important to me to turn his room into something like a nice space where we’d want to go.

    Miranda Markham 6:50
    So I kind of tore apart our living room and that room. I rearranged all the furniture and I turned it into this sort of budget, I called it a bit of a sanctuary. I put a bookshelf and loads of plants. A little desk where my computer is now and I spend a great deal of time in that room. There’s a little area on top of the dresser, where his ashes are and some of his things that I think are quite special. I don’t know, I just sort of feel like I’m there with him. I bought this beautiful light. It’s kind of like a bonsai tree with sort of pearlescent bulbs on the end, and I turn it on at night because I just don’t like that the room is dark at night. Oh, I’d like there to be a bit of ambient light in there. It just feels like there’s a presence in there. It probably all sounds a bit unnecessary. But it just makes that room feel very sort of alive and special. Not the kind of terrible tomb that we just shut away forever.

    Winter 7:46
    Yeah, no, I think that’s actually a great idea, too. Because, yeah, it could feel very, so sad. It sounds like you’re trying to give it a little bit of a different take a reframing of what that room is in. And it sounds like you’re in your home office kind of also, where you work right now.

    Miranda Markham 8:03
    Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. So I spend a great deal of time there. It has memory boxes there, behind me on all my calls, and tonight sort of feels like I can be there with him. I I know people might find that hard to imagine, but I don’t know, it makes me feel close to him. I can think of him while I’m in there and just feel like his presence is there somehow.

    Winter 8:25
    Yeah. It sounds very, like a calming place for you. As you’ve gotten a little bit farther out, how were those days looking like? Because I think by then you were maybe are, how long was your maternity leave? Like how long were you able to take? Still on maternity? Oh, awesome yay! Okay.

    Miranda Markham 8:47
    Yeah. So it’s Yes, unlike the United States, we very kindly got a year as a maximum. So take a year off. I think there was some conversation with my employer that maybe I’d like to come back sooner, obviously. But I think it was working in the world of PR, which is in client service. I just simply don’t have the energy or the enthusiasm for that kind of work right now. I hold myself to very high standards professionally. I know that I can’t be reliable. I wouldn’t do that to clients, or to my team.

    Miranda Markham 9:23
    So we’ve worked out a different arrangement where I’m now the editor of a fitness website. Which is much more part time in terms of hours. It’s something I do on my own terms of my own time. If I need to disappear for a day because it’s a bad day, I’m not letting anyone down. I think that works really well for me right now. Because I think while I’m worlds away from where I was last June, there are still good days and bad days. If I was having one of those bad days and we had a client that needed something, there is a 0% chance I could be there for them. For that reason, I’m still sort of hanging on to this not leave for as long as I can.

    Winter 10:05
    Yeah, you might as well. I mean if you have the opportunity, that’s great. Was that easy to? I guess being at home is, obviously you guys are home because of COVID. Then Also being on maternity leave that did that. Did that give you the lux– Well, I’m not saying the luxury, but did that give you the time to process everything that had happened? Because this is the one thing that I’ve learned is that stillbirth is this big, huge shock, because you’re like, everything’s going great. Then everything is not going great and you have to do all of these things. It’s just a whirlwind of things that are just sad, terribly, and horrible. Then all of a sudden, you stop and you’re done. You’re like, What just happened? I always felt like I was in shock. So I’m wondering, was that time good to sit and think. How did you– have you gone about trying to process that grief? What happened?

    Miranda Markham 10:57
    I think it’s a really, really good question. I’m really grateful for being able to have this time. I think at first it was really difficult, because I’m quite a high energy person. My job was a huge part of my life. Fitness and running was a big part of my life. I wrote a blog. I scarcely had any free time, I was always on the move doing something. Generally, I don’t deal with aimlessness very well. So to have just shut off, everything in my life that contributed to my identity was massively shocking. It just completely rocked your sense of self. It took me months to try to rebuild, the only thing I could think to do was to basically make self care my new full time job.

    Miranda Markham 11:49
    So I was broken, and I needed to fix myself. I needed to do everything I could to get myself in the best shape I could mentally and physically. I had the time. So I’ve been doing things like meditating. I might have squeezed in like a 10 minute morning meditation in the past, I can spend one hour doing a deep meditation now. I read books voraciously. I indulged in old hobbies that I’ve long forgotten. I just went on long walks. Anything I could, that just felt like it was good and soothing for the soul.

    Miranda Markham 12:27
    He sort of was able to do it unapologetically. Because there was nobody demanding my time anymore. It took me a long time to stop feeling like I was wasting my time, and started reframing that as this is what I need to do to get better. I guess on top of that, also, working with a therapist as well has been helpful, I think, started working with trauma therapists pretty much the week after George died, and I think that was extremely helpful. I know that therapy is not for everyone. But I think in managing extreme grief and shock, having an expert in your corner, at least for me, was extremely helpful.

    Miranda Markham 13:04
    I often maintain that everyone should have a therapist regardless of whether you think you have problems or not. I mean, I think it’s just from a self development perspective, I think it is really helpful. But in the course, in dealing with trauma, I think it has been particularly useful. So being able to schedule those calls in the middle of the afternoon without worrying about work obligations, I think, has also been really helpful in terms of my recovery.

    Winter 13:28
    Yeah, and you had a trauma therapist. That’s very, I wish everybody just has a counselor, a therapist, and this person actually specializes in trauma that’s so interesting. Is there anything that has been pivotal or kind of aha moment type things that your therapist has brought up or helped you with?

    Miranda Markham 13:53
    Yeah, so I think, also good questions. I think there’s lots of different types of therapy out there. I would encourage people to do research if they are looking for a therapist. I think the most common type is CBD. So cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a sort of a talking therapy, very useful. What my trauma therapist does specifically as a technique called EMDR.

    Winter 14:14
    Oh, yeah.

    Miranda Markham 14:15
    Which you may have heard of, yeah. Which sounds completely wonky. It’s basically rapid eye movements, while you recount traumatic experiences. Even saying that it sounds truly awful. I’m not going to pretend that it’s not painful. We usually start the session by talking about what the most painful memory is, and sort of getting sucked in with that.

    Miranda Markham 14:38
    It’s hard. It’s hard work. But I think perhaps like many people, I was extremely skeptical at first. I just thought this is completely bonkers, like, how can this work and especially how can it work through zoom? Or through video conference? Is it even going to be effective through a screen? It’s one of those things where scientifically even though there’s enough research to show that it works. Scientists aren’t really in agreement about why it works. Which is interesting to me, the theories around it. It has to do with the way that the mind processes information similar to rapid eye movement, sleep. But as far as this kind of therapy goes, it’s a bit inconclusive as to why it works. All they know is that it does work.

    Miranda Markham 15:22
    So I thought, I mean, I’ll give it a try. If it’s completely nonsense, then I will try something else. The very first session after I had, we processed George’s that, basically his death and then birth. It was the most exhausting second to the actual event itself, in terms of in terms of it being chaotic. I was so tired after I slept for like three hours after the call.

    Miranda Markham 15:51
    Then the next day, we were speaking to a bereavement doula, another person in my support network. She asked me to describe what had happened. This was many weeks following George’s death. I remember it was the first time that I was able to talk about what had happened without being a blubbering mess. I didn’t cry, I finally could, I could talk about it without sort of almost a bit of space from it, it was still very sad, very emotional. But it was like, there was just a bit of space between the events and how I felt. I remember thinking straight away, like, that’s really interesting. That, to me, seems like a direct result of the therapy we just did.

    Winter 16:38
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 16:39
    I think I’ve seen that trend over and over again, as we’ve worked together. Where things that feel really intensely emotional, whether it’s grief, or sadness or anger, they’re just so debilitating almost in their intensity, after our sessions. That feeling is still there. But it’s not quite as explosive or all consuming, though, I can sort of engage with it if I want to, or not, I sometimes describe it as it’s like, as if it’s in a glass box. I can see it and say sort of hello there anger, to shut the door if I want. But I can also open it and go be with it if I want to. It’s probably a really difficult thing to explain, I think. But if you’re open to it, and you have, you have the option to have a therapist who practices EMDR, I would highly recommend that for people who have suffered the shock of stillbirth for sure.

    Winter 17:36
    My husband Lee actually has done EMDR off of it. Another friend recommended it when she had experienced quite a traumatic experience in her life. He has found it extremely helpful as well. So I will second your recommendation there.

    Miranda Markham 17:54
    I’m glad I don’t sound like a crazy person.

    Winter 17:56
    He came back and he’s like, I am so tired. I remember him specifically. He would just be like I’m exhausted, because you just repeat things over and over again. Just to kind of that’s how he explained it to me. So it was interesting, but he felt like it was extremely, very, it was very good for him. So yeah, so I second that recommendation.

    Miranda Markham 18:14
    Good!

    Winter 18:15
    Did you so it sounds like you have a great little team that has helped you through all this. No, seriously like and I was like, I don’t think people realize that they need to kind of create a team to get past these. Such a traumatic event, I think. It sounds like you have a bereavement doula, up Abreu, you have your therapist, um, any other people that have have that seem to be a part of your, your quote unquote, team and because I would encourage people to create a team like that, I think that is a great way to put it is like you need help to get out of this, where you’re at right now.

    Miranda Markham 18:54
    I would agree 100% I know. I mean, even in the earliest days, if you had told me go find different elements of support. I would still be in a very much in a state of I’m a victim and everything was hopeless. It’s okay to be there for a little bit, but not forever. But as soon as I started taking a bit of control, I guess, or feeling like I needed to be able to sort of collect all these experts in my network to help me. I sort of created this little army of people to assist me, who all have different areas of expertise.

    Miranda Markham 19:31
    So you mentioned obviously the doula and my therapist. Another one was the bereavement midwife who was assigned to us at the hospital. I mean, we didn’t have a choice about who that was. So I think we maybe just got quite lucky because she’s turned out to be a huge source of support, even almost 11 months on, we’re still in touch. I don’t know if that’s ordinary for her or not, but she’s, she’s been amazing. Any question I have about quite literally anything. She is just an email. From Calaway, which has been nice to have a person like that in your life, I also investigated quite a few support groups or maybe lost, which, due to COVID, any of the in person support groups were canceled. So again, much like my therapy, I was skeptical to be digital version with VHS.

    Winter 20:20
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 20:22
    But I think I was pleasantly surprised to find it, at least in the early days, there’s a baby loss charity called sans, that held a monthly meeting on zoom, that I joined for the first couple of months after George’s death. They were hugely helpful, because I think they ‘re run by people, mostly women who have lost babies, but they’re many, many years on from that loss. Many have gone on to have at least one or several other children. The one woman who led most of the calls lost a baby something like 22 years ago. So I mean, she’s quite a long way on that journey.

    Winter 20:59
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 21:00
    I think I found speaking to those people extremely helpful, and hopeful. Because I think what I found with some of the online forums and Facebook pages is that it’s too many people who are in the midst of their own grief, people who have lost babies yesterday or a week ago, or a month ago, and it was just stories of tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. While there is some sort of camaraderie in that, and it’s an element where he sort of doesn’t feel as alone, it also feels your anxiety because it feels like this happens all the time.

    Winter 21:35
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 21:37
    It’s like, I suddenly know 1000 ways the baby can die. I thought this was a rare occurrence. It’s like, every possible disaster that could happen, has happened. I don’t think that those forums had anything to offer me because it’s not anyone supporting each other, if it’s everyone talking about their own grief.

    Miranda Markham 21:54
    So, for me, the best thing was the groups where people were much further on in that journey, and could talk to me from a more hopeful future place. In doing that, I eventually connected with one of the women from the charity who lives nearby who lost a baby boy in a similar situation to George, but eight years ago, and she’s gone on to have two boys since then. We’ve gone for walks. We talk on whatsapp. I asked him lots of questions about what did you do about this? When this happened, how did you react? I know, there’s no rulebook for how to deal with the death of your child, but I think to just have somebody who, when they say, I get it that they really sincerely do. To tell you what they did, I think is there’s been a huge source of comfort,

    Winter 22:41
    That is great. I have found that I’ve, we’ve gravitated towards the people that are a little farther out, especially at the very beginning, because you’re like, I just don’t think I’m going to be okay. And you look okay. It’s like, you look okay, okay, we might be able to do this. So

    Miranda Markham 23:00
    I think that was it. It’s like, you seem like a normal functioning.

    Winter 23:03
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 23:03
    You have two healthy kids. You’re so sad about your baby. I see that because I met this particular woman, the place where we decided to meet the first time was at her son’s Memorial tree. Oh, so we looked at it. She’s a runner. So she ran there. I ran there. Yeah, we met well, but I wish this was all very, felt very appropriate. I get quite tickled when people say comments to me, like, Oh, I know how you feel. It’s like you may have an idea of what grief is like, but you don’t have this particular feeling. Unless you are, of course, this woman who I’ve connected with who has very much been in my situation. Where she says stuff like that, I think you do actually know and I believe you. You’ve come out the other side and seem to be a functioning contributing member of society who actually appears happy. I find that quite helpful.

    Winter 23:54
    Yeah, yes, it is very hopeful. We need that at the very beginning. I think we need that. You have, you were a very big runner, a very big you’re in the fitness industry. It sounded like the running had kind of petered off for you for a while there.

    Miranda Markham 24:14
    It did. I think I have a very complicated relationship with exercise these days. When I was pregnant with George, I had a real chip on my shoulder. I think about not letting the pregnancy impact my very sort of rigid and high intensity fitness routine for as long as possible. I wasn’t determined to do anything unsafe, of course, but I was very adamant that I was going to continue being as fit and active as I could be. Maintaining that same level of activity for as long as I felt I could. I ran a half marathon when I was six weeks pregnant. I continued going to orange theory classes until I was shut down from COVID. But until I was 20 weeks pregnant in hindsight, I think those things were too much.

    Miranda Markham 25:03
    There is an element of me that believes that level of intensity, especially in the early days, contributed to George’s death. I know practically, that that’s not true. I’ve asked multiple medical professionals if excessive exercise can cause death, which was growth restriction. They all say no, that wouldn’t have been the cause at all. Even when I wanted to run that half marathon, I remember asking my GP if it was okay. The rule of thumb was essentially that if you were fit before, and you were training for this before you got pregnant and you feel okay, carry on.

    Miranda Markham 25:39
    But I think I know, in my heart, there were many, many times where I pushed it when I didn’t feel okay. Because I felt like I had a point to prove. So after everything, I think there was a period where I was almost sort of using exercise to punish myself a little bit like, forcing myself to try and get back into this fitness routine, both because I needed to get back to where I was as quickly as possible. But also, because my body was a reminder of loss. I think all through pregnancy, people tell you, and they certainly told me, that when you are pregnant, that all the changes to your body is worth it. That, yes, you might gain weight, and you’ll be a little softer. You might not be physically where you were, but it’ll all be worth it. I think that’s really only true if you get to take your baby home with you. Because when you don’t, your body is this reminder of how much it failed you and how it just kind of strategically let you down. I hated myself for it. I hated it. I hated looking at myself, every time I did, it was just a reminder of how I failed.

    Miranda Markham 26:57
    So I started exercising a lot to try and just get back to where I was. So I didn’t have to constantly remind myself, every time I looked in the mirror, I think I’m past that in a much healthier place now. But running is still hard for me. Because I mean, it’s a high intensity activity, and I just never kind of fell in love with it. Again, I’m not as possessed by it as I once was. It’s hard because it was such a big part of my identity. I ran because I was a runner. That’s who I was. When you don’t do that anymore, it’s really Who are you? So I’m reevaluating, I’m trying to find different ways of staying active, that are more about feeling good and feeling healthy. Then they are about beating myself in the gym. Which I think was perhaps maybe where I was bordering on before was just like it was always like, harder, faster, heavier. Otherwise, it wasn’t good enough, it was a waste of time. I think I really need to reframe that meaning is sometimes actually just like a walk outside is, is fine. Also exercise

    Winter 28:06
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 28:06
    You don’t need to be dripping in sweat and on the verge of vomiting for it to count. So it’s hard work. This is a hard area of my life. It probably sounds trivial to some people who might be listening to this compared to everything else. But it’s, I’m really working on my relationship with it.

    Winter 28:24
    Yeah, I understand where, where you’re coming from just because like, when you do feel like, well, there’s a couple things. What do you feel like your body has betrayed you. Taking care of your child. Right, like that, that in itself is one issue that I’ve dealt with myself. Then the other issues that there was the winter before and then there’s the winter after right? Like it’s the Miranda before and the Miranda after. It feels like now that you’re I feel like I’m a new person. Like I’m a different person. Something’s different about me because of this, this little event, that little big event that happened in my life. I’m just I don’t know, like, I always feel like, Can I go back to that person that was kind of innocent? Did all these things that you did, there’s like associations with that old self that sometimes are like, Oh, that’s that’s not who I am anymore. So just interesting. I,

    Miranda Markham 29:23
    I understand that I feel like I often now divide my life into before George and after. I look at photos sometimes of myself from several years ago, and I think I don’t even know that person.

    Winter 29:37
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 29:37
    Who is that? Sometimes that makes me really sad. I get quite nostalgic for that sort of easy ignorance. So I kind of lived my life with this very privileged life where I’ve never really experienced anything that bad and just assumed that I never would. It’s hard now to imagine a life where part of my life maybe doesn’t include the word runner. It includes the words of bereaved parents. That’s not really what I wanted to add to the list of words that describe me. But it’s part of my identity now. So it’s a work in progress.

    Winter 30:16
    Yeah,we all are works in progress. It’s, ah, yeah, it’s frustrating when you’re like, Oh, this is not what I planned it to be. Or this is not what I envisioned my life to be like, and so, but this happens. It is what it is. I know that. It sounds like Graham has been a huge support to you. I’m wondering if you saw a difference between how you guys grieved, the loss of George, in this last year?

    Miranda Markham 30:46
    Yeah, definitely. I think, Well, I mean, anyone that has been through this or done any research or looked up anything related to grief. I mean, I think it’s a very common understanding that men and women grieve very differently by first hand experience. So that is extremely true. I think in the early days, Graham basically fell into a kind of autopilot mode, he realized that I couldn’t handle basically anything. He took it on himself to manage all of the practicalities and the administrative stuff around George’s death. I often don’t realize that there are actually a lot of admins associated with the death of someone. You have to register the death with the council, and you’ve got to fill out all this paperwork.

    Miranda Markham 31:37
    On the more personal side there were loads of family members that had to be informed and communicated with and they knew not to contact me, because Graham told them not to, and also my phone was off for weeks.

    Winter 31:50
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 31:51
    But I think it was quite troubling for people to not be able to see or speak to me in those early days, or at least I’ve heard from others that they were quiet, because I just disappeared, they didn’t know how I was. So Graham took on the role of Chief communications officer he then managed every incoming communication from family and friends. Regardless of what the questions were.

    Miranda Markham 32:14
    It was a full time job, it was a lot of work. He shielded me from a lot of stuff. I mean, and terribly around the same time, many of our close friends were also expecting babies. He very carefully kind of managed the details around that. Making sure that I wouldn’t see anything or hear anything as much as he could. It still happened, of course, but trying his best, you’re trying to do it in the most sensitive way possible. I think when, when the bulk of that was done, which arguably took many, many months, I think it was only then that he started realizing that he hadn’t really actually processed anything around George’s death. He’s sort of. He had his nightmares, it was very unusual for him. His job was quite stressful at the time. He just was, he was a bit burnt out. But he’s a problem solver. He’s extremely resourceful. So I think he recognized that this was a problem. Also he is self aware enough to know that he needed something he needed help with some kind of. So he also found a therapist who he worked with. Certainly not as long as I’ve been, but for, I think six weeks or so sessions. I think he found that really useful.

    Winter 33:34
    That’s good.

    Miranda Markham 33:36
    I think in all of it, I think we just stayed really close in terms of communicating with each other, which I know is quite hard for some couples. Maybe if communication wasn’t the strong point in the relationship before. Throwing a crisis into the next doesn’t usually help.

    Winter 33:51
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 33:52
    So I’m very grateful that we were probably already decent communicators in the first place. I think that helps. He’s also just relentlessly optimistic. Like to a ridiculous point where sometimes I’m like, I just want you to say things suck. Agree for five seconds. He’s constantly looking on the bright side. Sometimes it’s infuriating. You feel like the world is just closing in on you. You just want somebody to just sit with you and just tell you like, Yes, it is. It is all bad. But like, most times, it was what I needed to hear. He never gave up on me. I think it would have been really easy to give up on me because I wasn’t a good version of myself for a long time. So he just had no he just kept he kept he just kept on being supportive and his amazingly optimistic self. He was always positive for our future, which I think helps both him and I both passionate about sort of self development as well. Encouraging us to do things together like meditate, or do self improvement. Normally in courses stuff that we could do together like that, where that was both good for him and good for me. So, if I could summarize it, it’s probably that his grieving process is very kind of practical. Very, or the problem that I resolved.

    Winter 35:14
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 35:15
    I think that’s very ordinary, or common, I should say, for men to assume that role. I think, from what I read, and what I hear it sounds like losses, men do that. But it does often mean that they don’t process their emotions. They do bubble up down the road. That may still happen. I think he’s very aware of that. That may still happen. But my hope is that if it does, I will be in a place where I can support him.

    Winter 35:40
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 35:41
    I owe him.

    Winter 35:43
    Yeah, we all owe our spouses big time. Yeah, exactly. He sounds like you guys sound like you have done very well, trying to stay close together and to support each other when the other person may not be at their best.

    Miranda Markham 35:58
    Yeah. I hope though, I think if there’s any silver lining, if anything, I think that it’s our relationship that has remained good. It’s certainly not been without its challenges. But sure, I know that in lots of situations where babies died, it often brings couples to the end of their relationship. That’s just another layer of tragedy on top of an already very trying situation. I’m very thankful that it wasn’t the case for us.

    Winter 36:28
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 36:29
    I sincerely don’t know how I could have managed if things went a different way.

    Winter 36:34
    Yeah. I want to jump over and just talk about anything that you do specifically to remember George, I know you have your office, that is kind of a space that you get to remember him and his remains are there as well. Are there any other physical things that you have that remind you of him, or you try to bring into your life so that you can, you’re reminded of him.

    Miranda Markham 36:58
    There are lots of things. I’m quite like a sentimental person, I like physical things to sort of look out or like touch and feel. In the absence of a lifetime of memories with a person, it’s really hard to do that for a baby that you didn’t get a chance to get to know. But one of the big things and I was very convinced by this very early on that I wanted it, we had a memorial bench installed on the river outside her house in London, which is, sort of kilometer long, maybe mile long River. I’d spend endless hours walking on that river when I was pregnant. I imagined one day walking on it with George and feeding ducks with him. Spending a sunny summer day sitting in the grass and having really fond memories and walking there. I always look at the memorial benches that are already there. I like reading them and thinking of the people that have died in my memory. I thought, well, we have to get a bunch for George because I think having him cremated means we don’t have a gravestone or somewhere to go and visit. So the bench now becomes a place for you where if I’m feeling like I want to go and be with him, I can sit on his bench and think of him. Maybe fortunately, or unfortunately, I picked what I perceive to be the best spot on the river for the bench. So the bench is almost always occupied. Oh, of course. Especially when it’s sunny. So every time I think I’m going to go sit on jargons it’s usually someone there, that also puts a smile on my face.

    Winter 38:30
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 38:30
    That means that somebody has read his name, and they’re thinking of him. Next year, I eventually also had a tree planted. Because I really liked the idea that he can’t grow big and strong, then the tree can for him. The Tree of the maple tree, which sort of a Canadian nod to his parents. It’s a sort of, I think it’s just a nice sort of thing every time I leave this button like, I can see it there.

    Miranda Markham 38:58
    People often said if you move away from London, will you be sad, but I just thought no, because I think it’s this thing that will stay there forever. Anyone that passes by will see this beautiful tree with a beautiful bench and they’ll read his name. They’ll think of him and in terms of keeping his memory alive. I think that’s felt very important to me. So it took a long time in many emails with the local council to get that sorted but it was finally installed in November of– Oh, wonderful. Not the best time in London for an outdoor bench. It was basically a mud pit for three months.

    Winter 39:36
    But it’s been done so I think that’s so that’s so sweet. I yeah, any other things you want to share.

    Miranda Markham 39:44
    A few other things I don’t know with any of my friends or family will listen to this. So that might come as a surprise to them. But both Graham and I got tattoos. Surprise. We didn’t tell anyone. I mean they’re not certainly a sort of crazy fullback tattoo. Mine is on my wrist, it’s the little lowercase letter G, where the tail leads up into a heart that looks like a balloon. Graham’s has the same as on an on forearm instead of his wrist. I don’t know, I just looked at it all the time. Sometimes the sleeve of my shirt just shows a little balloon poking out. Every time I look at it, it just makes me think of him. The little g was because well, we were sometimes referring to him as little G. Graham was the big G and George was

    Winter 40:33
    Oh, that’s so sweet.

    Miranda Markham 40:36
    It’s small and it’s subtle. For me, it was important, because I wanted something visible on my body that people might ask me about, because then it gives me a reason to talk about him.

    Winter 40:47
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 40:48
    Especially to people who may not have ever even known he existed. This was something we came up with in the days in early June following his death. We’re both very convinced that we would do this with St. Paul again, as soon as COVID allowed tattoo Pro. So we snuck in there in November, just.

    Winter 41:08
    Oh, yeah.

    Miranda Markham 41:10
    I mean, the tattoo is so simple. It took all of the gods 30 seconds to put on my body. I mean, for anyone that knows me, I was very not not opposed to tattoos, but I was very much the person that was never ever going to get one. I could never possibly think of anything important enough to put on my body forever. This seemed like the thing, the most

    Winter 41:30
    important enough there. So I want to look into his eyes. One of my favorite parts of this part of the interview is that I like to know what people have done and said that were so helpful to you that you’re like, if you’re going to say something to somebody that has lost a baby, then this is something that you might want to consider. Let’s just talk about some of those things that people did or said that felt extremely helpful for you.

    Miranda Markham 42:01
    Yeah, sure. I think I said this to friends and family at the beginning. One of the things they often said was what can we do? They wanted us to come up with the things that they could do to support us. That was really hard, because we had no idea. We didn’t have any idea for a long, long time. But I think the thing that helped the most was just to check in with us regularly. Instead of asking let me know what I can do to help you, the people that said things like, I’m going to call you on Tuesday next week and check in with you. Or let’s have a call every Thursday morning, and just chat. That was so I know, it sounds like the simplest thing on earth. But having someone else make the executive decision on that was helpful at a time where I was incapable of basically even feeding myself.

    Miranda Markham 42:57
    The other thing was that there was an appointment to keep me accountable for it was something to look forward to when everything else in my life had evaporated. Because the worst thing was feeling like everyone has forgotten about us. Or that they’ve sent their obligatory ‘ ‘I’m so sorry” message and disappeared. The people that stayed close and connected to us. Long after the initial days and weeks following George’s death were invaluable to me. They didn’t have to do much. I mean, I think there was this real sort of sense with people that they had to have to say the perfect thing or say something that takes away the pain. It’s a fool’s errand because it’s impossible. Yes, there was nothing that could have made me feel better. But the single best thing people did was just to, just to check in. When they asked how I was, I said I was terrible, to just be okay with listening to how terrible I really was. Do not try to sugarcoat it or make it sound better or look for a silver lining. Either No, try to just take away that pain, just to allow me to be sad. I think that was really nice. On a more practical note, I think some people sent food, which I think can be really nice. But I think I said this to you before, there’s like so many frozen lasagna as a girl. It was very helpful to have things kind of out there ready that you could make, especially in the early days when I couldn’t cook anything and I didn’t want obviously the lion’s share of the work to falter Graham. That was helpful. I would just say maybe check in with the rest of your friends and family. Make sure you’re not overloading the poor person.

    I think the other thing was when people actually asked me about George. People were so afraid to talk about him. Even say his name and for the very brave friends and families that tried. I’m really thankful to them. Because one thing I think people don’t necessarily realize is that the mother of the baby that died still had a baby. I think there was a part of me that still really wanted to talk about him. Nobody asks you all the normal questions, they asked somebody when they had a baby. Nobody asked me what the birth was like, or why we picked the name we did. For the few people that did bravely venture into that territory, I will be forever thankful for them. I think for anyone listening, if you’re worried about asking those questions to a friend or family member that lost the baby, maybe to start by asking if it’s okay, if you ask a question. Some people said things like, Is it okay, if I asked you, about George? Or would you like to tell me about George’s birth? And I think being able to make that decision myself? And either say, yes, I do want to tell you about this or no, I don’t, was really helpful. It was certainly much more helpful than people just saying, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you feel. Good luck with your grief. I’ll talk to you when you’re better.

    Winter 46:17
    Right? Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 46:20
    I don’t mean to us, or I don’t mean to trivialize those sorts of messages, I think people, they were doing the best they could with the words they had available to them. I definitely don’t expect people to know the right thing to say, it is really hard. I wouldn’t have known the right thing to say to me either. In fact, I probably would have used a lot of those phrases, for lack of even any experience with grief myself before George’s death. But

    Miranda Markham 46:47
    I think if I can say anything that was helpful is to not be afraid to mention the baby’s name, and to allow the family to talk about that baby without being visibly uncomfortable or, or trying to shut it down. Because it’s too sad.

    Winter 47:05
    Yeah.We just want to talk about our kids. Right? I think that there’s a sense of pride in being able to say that I birthed that, you know, I gave birth My child, that is like a big deal. You’re right. People don’t ask about the details. I remember, a good friend of mine was dropping off some food after we lost our son. She’s like can I ask you a question? Can you tell me about the birth? I was like, Yeah I want to talk about that. Because it’s a big, in itself a big accomplishment to have given birth. That was your first time too?

    Miranda Markham 47:39
    Exactly, exactly. People don’t know if they should, because they’re so afraid of upsetting the grieving person. I get that I do. Because the worst thing someone would feel as if they just cause you more pain and upset you more. But I think I don’t want to speak for everyone. But I think for me, the thing that was most painful was feeling like I couldn’t talk about it.

    Winter 48:02
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 48:02
    I was having to pretend that George never existed because it was too uncomfortable for other people. That’s just another layer of just insult to injury with the loss of a baby is that not only are you grieving, and going through shock. Dealing with this tremendous tragedy, you feel like you have to do it alone, because it’s too horrifying for anyone else to engage with.

    Winter 48:24
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 48:25
    For those brave friends that allowed me to talk to them about something that was truly their worst nightmare. I will be very thankful to them forever. Because those moments were really important to me. For the ones that are just out to the normal questions about giving birth and having a baby. They didn’t make me feel like I was invalidated from being a mom. I think that’s really important.

    Winter 48:50
    Yeah, that is so so important. I want to bring up one thing that you mentioned, we’ve talked about your friend before, and she was the one that actually referred you to us. You said something about what she did. I want you to repeat it again. Because she because I think that it was really great. She did something that was kind of out of the ordinary, right? She found a podcast and said, Hey, I’m just trying to understand where you’re coming from. She did something that was a little different. I’m not saying like, join our community if you want to, but she did something that was just trying to understand what you’re experiencing. That is huge. I think.

    Miranda Markham 49:32
    I think I had a couple friends who I think displayed an extremely evolved level of emotional intelligence. That Sakina sort of realizes that they have no idea what I might be going through. In an effort to try and help me find podcasts like yours, or read books about baby loss. So that they were better equipped to have those conversations. I mean, that That, to me, is kind of the next level. level of grief support that I wouldn’t expect most people are capable of doing. But this particular friend found was basically looking for ways to understand something that she has no, no ability to understand or know, sort of anything in her life that was similar. For that reason, she was able to just so much more easily talk to me about things because she suddenly realized what was okay to ask and not ask. Just felt a bit empowered to be able to even talk to me at all. Her and her husband were hugely supportive in the early days. It was making sure that they mentioned George and remembered his milestones. Every second of the month by sending a message saying they were thinking of him and lighting a candle for him. I mean, people don’t have to do that. That’s above and beyond, but for the ones that did in the world to me.

    Winter 50:53
    Yeah. I think that, I just think, Oh, you’re so lucky to have good friends. You know, like, yeah,

    Miranda Markham 51:00
    It’s wonderful. Having I think it was, I mean, in the absence of also being able to see anyone in person because of the lockdown, which was seemingly endless. That was also a huge help, because I think it was very easy to be in Greece, to isolate yourself, and obviously very easy to isolate yourself in a lockdown. I think it’s quite easy to be forgotten, in the midst of everyone else struggling and suffering to a degree. It’s easy to get caught up in your own world as well. So for those that kind of put their own troubles aside, and remember to send me a text message or, took the time to listen to a podcast or read a book. I mean, I really, I can’t say enough about how much that meant to me. So people are listening and you have something you feel capable of doing. I really would encourage it as hard as it is, this is a hard topic. It’s heavy, it’s not easy. But if you can do that, and allow it to educate yourself to be better for your friends, or your family, they will notice.

    Winter 52:04
    Yes, they will notice. There’s so few people that do that above and beyond those things. On the flip side, are there some things that you would probably recommend not saying and or doing that were maybe that graded on you, or kind of made you mad or anything like that? Because those are the things that I think people want to try and avoid? Yeah, let’s hear that and anything that in particular that–

    Miranda Markham 52:34
    There are a few things and I think there I may offer subtle adjustments.

    Winter 52:40
    Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah we always like those.

    Miranda Markham 52:42
    I think it will help people. I mentioned this before, but I think one of the most common phrases that we heard, which was the sign off to virtually every text, message, and email that we received was, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I hate that phrase. I know that phrase comes from a place of good. And please, if any friends and family are listening, and you said this, to me, this is not me saying you did the wrong thing. But I think it was impossible for me to ever let what you could do to help because I had no idea. Even if I had the capacity to come up with something, I already felt so vulnerable. The last thing I was going to do was to reach out to somebody and say, Please, can you do this for me? Right? I just simply wouldn’t have done it.

    Miranda Markham 53:32
    I think for the friends and family who instead just took the executive decision and said, Hey, I’m going to do this thing. You tell me if this is helpful or not exponentially more helpful. So even small things like I’m going to call you next Tuesday, or we’re going to send you a food bundle that’s going to arrive on this day. We’ve, I don’t know, booked you an appointment for something at this place. It doesn’t really matter what it is.

    Miranda Markham 53:32
    Obviously, it depends on the person that you’re speaking to. I mean, you would know your grieving person best, but I think allow them to tell you yes or no, instead of putting the onus on them to come up with the solution for you. Yes. That was hard for me, because it felt like sort of a throwaway comment where it was just like, Alright, well, I’ve put the offer out there. And if I don’t hear from them, I guess I don’t need to do anything now. I know a lot of situations that were lost I have heard from people.

    Miranda Markham 54:27
    Again, this is not to say that they’ve done the wrong thing. But I think for those that tried and just made an effort to come up with a solution was a lot more helpful in the early days. I think now I’m much better at saying what it is I want or don’t want. That’s only with the benefit of 11 months of even understanding my own triggers in my own my own heart really. So I think that’s one thing. Yes. The other one is a very sensitive one. But one of the things that happens really frequently and continues to happen is a lot of friends, or women in my network, shared stories of their own loss mostly earlier or early, maybe early or late miscarriages, or something like that.

    Miranda Markham 55:20
    On the one hand I know that people share those stories as a way to relate and kind of help me feel less alone. To show that they have some experience with loss in a way. But I think I would just caution people to be a bit careful about the way they share those stories with somebody who’s experienced a stillbirth. I might suggest instead that you ask if they want to hear about your story first, before you just unload your story on them. For example, say Would it be okay if I told you about my own baby loss story? Or would you like to hear about my experience with miscarriage? Because I think there was a time where I did want to hear those stories, and I was receptive to them. But there were also a lot of times, I definitely was not, and to be blindsided with those stories is just a message in your inbox, or a method of Facebook Messenger message from someone you hadn’t spoken to in many years. It was really, it’s tough, because then I feel like I need to then offer empathy and support when I don’t have a lot to give right now on that front. Equally, I don’t have any experience of miscarriage. So I don’t want to pretend like my situation is the same. Similar to the way I would hope that they wouldn’t necessarily think that theirs is the same.

    Miranda Markham 56:36
    Comments that really prickled me were when people had experienced an early miscarriage who said things like, I know exactly how you feel, or I’ve been there. I thought to myself, and being there it’ll hold is not the same thing at all. While there are elements of shared grief there, there are some similarities and that stories are our stories.

    Miranda Markham 56:59
    I often try to use the analogy sometimes with people that it’s like, it’s like telling someone in a wheelchair that you understand what it’s like to be paralyzed because you broke your leg once. Like, you might understand what it’s like to be inconvenienced by crutches but you most certainly don’t know what it’s like to be paralyzed. Maybe that’s a crude analogy, but I feel like it’s similar in a way and that any loss, of course, is tragic. There are similarities in the grief that accompany it. But I think I would just caution, women who have experienced a miscarriage to just tread a bit carefully when you share those stories with someone who’s had a late term loss, because the experiences are quite different.

    Winter 57:41
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 57:42
    So just to maybe ask for us if they want to hear that story.

    Winter 57:45
    Yes. Yeah. That’s a good way to do it. Just letting people know. Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 57:52
    Yeah. Sorry. I think that was all I wanted.

    Winter 57:55
    Okay, perfect. Any other? It sounds like keep going, let’s hear it was, here’s some more things that you would perceive.

    Miranda Markham 58:04
    I do know one other thing that the last thing was I think, I think phrases along the lines of this happened for a reason, or it was God’s will. Or you will realize down the road why this happened, or it’ll make you a better person or any comment that seemed to suggest that there was a reason why George died, some grand design by the universe really rattled me.

    Winter 58:32
    Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 58:34
    It rattled me because it made me feel like if I don’t change my life radically, or do something grand. Like I don’t know, devote my life to placenta research or open the wing of a hospital named after George. I’ve somehow missed the point of his death. I suddenly felt this enormous pressure to do something grand that if I wasn’t then I was messing this up somehow. This notion that there’s this God that this is a sort of doling out punishment like this is, is not a helpful thing to say. Even though that may be your belief, and that’s perfectly within your right to have it. I think those might be better, but are kept to yourself. There’s no doubt that having a stillbirth or any sort of loss changes you in a way. Lots of people’s lives do change quite dramatically as a result. But that’s a symptom. That’s an outcome. That wasn’t a strategy by the university.

    Winter 59:34
    Yes, exactly. Yeah.

    Miranda Markham 59:36
    So I think I would just basically eliminate those phrases, from anything to get rid of it.

    Winter 59:46
    They’re just not helpful. They are not helpful at all. They just kind of make you feel the lost parent makes you. They just feel worse. Yeah. It’s just a lot of pressure.

    Miranda Markham 59:58
    I know that again, I do just want to say that I know that all of these things come from a place of good. Anyone that said things like this to me, I never, I didn’t get mad. I’m not mad. I just think they’re in hindsight. And with the benefit of experience and time to reflect on this, there are different things that would have been more helpful. So I think if this helps someone say better things, to someone who is grieving in the future, that makes me feel like George’s life hadn’t had impact.

    Winter 1:00:31
    Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Miranda, this has been such an enlightening conversation. I would like to ask you, though, one last thing, is there anything? Any last bit of advice that you would want to give to loss moms, loss dads, and maybe those who are supporting them or helping them?

    Miranda Markham 1:00:53
    I think for those that are supporting them, I think one thing I’d just like to leave people with is to just, if you can try to get a bit comfortable with sadness. I know that sounds weird. But we have the sort of cultural notion that sadness is bad, and that we have to make it go away. If there’s a sad person, we have to get away because it’s contagious, or something. But all that really does is make the grieving person feel more lonely.Like you have to just grieve in silence. All of these things happen in your mind while you’re alone. You feel like you can’t talk to anyone about it.

    Miranda Markham 1:01:34
    Then there’s a period of time that goes by where we’ve decided that’s the prerequisite time in which a grieving person can be grieving. But after that, we then close the door on that, and you’re normal, and you’re fine. And we never speak of it again. Honestly, I think that it will be damaging ways to treat grief. As a society, as a human race, we have to get better at this because everyone is going to experience some kind of loss in their life. No, it’s not going to be the loss of a baby. But a parent or grandparent or close friends.

    Miranda Markham 1:02:08
    There are similarities. I agree broadly how to say we are terrible at supporting people. So I don’t think you need to say the right thing, or be obsessed about saying the right thing. You didn’t even really need to say anything. I think it’s best to be okay. Being a sad person, and just allowing them to be sad in your presence, and not shy away from that. The way that we so routinely do because it’s uncomfortable. Because that’s the best thing you can do is to really just sit in sadness with them.

    Winter 1:02:45
    It’s so comforting. Yeah, when somebody is okay, just being there with you.

    Miranda Markham 1:02:48
    Yeah. I mean, for parents I don’t know that I have any nuggets of wisdom, necessarily. I still feel like I’m early in this journey myself. But I think the thing that everyone tells you in the beginning is that, even though it doesn’t feel possible, things will get better. I know that if you’re listening to this and you’re at the early stages, you probably don’t believe that. Maybe you do, but you think it’s an impossibly long future, or time ahead.

    Miranda Markham 1:03:18
    But it is true time does help. It never goes away. I think that maybe the thing is that you can’t get over grief. Or even get through it. I think you just find ways to live alongside it. Maybe that’s a grim prospect. But my hope is that I can think of George and remember him without that searing pain that accompanies so much of this. His life had a major impact. It’s not just on me, but people who know us and know of him. Simply keep his memory alive and that feels important.

    Winter 1:04:03
    Thank you so much, Miranda. It was so good to hear from you and to hear your words of advice because they were helpful to me too. But thank you so much.

    Miranda Markham 1:04:14
    You’re very welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

    Filed Under: advice, late term stillbirth, podcast episode, stillbirth Tagged With: stillbirth

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    We're Winter and Lee Redd. Because of our sweet son Brannan who was stillborn at 38 weeks, we created this place where other moms and dads can share the birth story of their baby that was stillborn or who died in infancy.

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