Laugh, Cry, Live

36 years ago I gave birth to a wonderfully baby boy. Back then we didn't have access to the prenatal monitoring. In fact, I didn't know for the first 3 weeks that there was anything wrong with Matthew. His aorta was pinched, which caused his little heart to enlarge.

Matt lived to be 6 months, 3 weeks old. To this day, I can still remember holding him in my arms. I can still see him smile around my nipple with the milk dribbling out. I can still see the relief in his eyes when I would come to his crib. I can still hear his giggle. Nothing can take that away from me.

If you have an option to continue with your pregnancy, think it through. I hope you, too, get to enjoy your baby for as long as you can.

I should also mention that I have gone one to have two more children and loved every minute of motherhood, but Matt taught me what it meant to be a mother and I am so grateful for that lesson.

Thank you for writing about such an important subject matter...how I wish I was aware or my medical providers were aware of perinatal hospice. I notice the date that this article was posted. It was one year ago on Dec. 15, 2010 that my husband and I received the phone call on the results of the amnio we had undergone two days earlier...that our little girl Peyton had Trisomy 18 and was going to die. It was delivered over the phone by a genetic counselor and no access or support was given. I felt like I was dropped in a black hole, we were left on our own. We didn't have an appointment to see a doctor for another three weeks. It was 10 days before Christmas and we made it a goal to share all the holiday festivities with our little Peyton...from taking her to the Nutcracker, going to Christmas Eve mass, celebrating Christmas day with family to just enjoying everyday with her. We had no idea when her death would occur. Sadly when our appointment occurred three weeks from when we received the phone call, our beloved Peyton had died and we went through a traumatic labor and delivery. How I wished I had someone there to guide us with photography and to develop a plan for our remaining days with Peyton right from the get go. When we learned of Peyton's impending death, our world began to spin, and we needed to grasp onto something we could control. It is my wish to see other families who must endure the impending death of their much loved child have access to much more resources than we had available to us. Thank you again.

To all of you, I express my gratitude for sharing your thoughts and experiences as I sit here remembering my long night 9 years ago and wondering WHAT IF?? I know you can share in my grief knowing that I am remembering 9 years ago going in for a routine delivery of my first child, Abigail. Little did I know my life was about to change forever... My precious baby only lived 8 hours - but it was an 8 hour gift she gave me for a lifetime. What if I had known I'd only have those 8 hours, what would I have done differently? I can't change the amount of time I was to have with her, but the quality might have been changed by perinatal hospice. This is a gift to all of us to know all babies' lives are honored and cherished. To all my fellow bereaved families, Happy Holidays and My best wishes for a positively memorable 2012!

To all of you, I express my gratitude for sharing your thoughts and experiences as I sit here remembering my long night 9 years ago and wondering WHAT IF?? I know you can share in my grief knowing that I am remembering 9 years ago going in for a routine delivery of my first child, Abigail. Little did I know my life was about to change forever... My precious baby only lived 8 hours - but it was an 8 hour gift she gave me for a lifetime. What if I had known I'd only have those 8 hours, what would I have done differently? I can't change the amount of time I was to have with her, but the quality might have been changed by perinatal hospice. This is a gift to all of us to know all babies' lives are honored and cherished. To all my fellow bereaved families, Happy Holidays and My best wishes for a positively memorable 2012!

It has been exactly 14 weeks today that we found out our 37 week and 1 day child died.
For us, it was a great day. My husband had a surprise baby shower at work, we went to Target after he got home and bought our final things we needed for the arrival of our wonderful baby. It took us 2 years to get pregnant, 9 months of clomid, and a trip to our infertility doctor. We wanted our baby more than anything in this world. So that day I was in labor, we were excited. We got home that night around 7 pm, decided to go ahead and make it to the hospital because the contractions were not stopping. We got everything packed, diaper bag, carseat, snacks, all the things you need when you are going to have a healthy baby. We went over to the hospital, straight up to labor and delivery, right into a room. They went to put the heart monitor on... No heartbeat... Our world shattered at that moment. Everything we had known to be true was no longer. Our room turned dark and gray and horrible.
The next day this lovely lady, in this white lab coat came into our room. She took our hands, and took our kids, and explained to us how things would progress. She told us about their services and how she would help us through. She was truly a blessed angel that was there to keep us from going over the edge into the darkness. After 18 hours of labor, our beautiful perfect daughter, Jolene was born. 6 pounds, 3 ounces, over 20 inches long, perfect in every single way, except she tied a knot in her umbilical cord, and it killed her. Tammy Ruiz saved our family, and she saved my life. She helped us get through the most horrific and horrible day. She kept me from going completely to the darkness that surrounded me. She let us have an opportunity to be a family. We got to hold our baby, she had her first bath, we have beautiful pictures.
Now being 14 weeks later, I know there was no way I would still be here, had it not been for the support we received from our angel. I am hoping that by people hearing our story, that hopefully there will be more education about this topic. And I hope that the level of care we received will be pushed out to more hospitals. I wish the topic of perinatal loss would be published on shows such as Dr. Phil and the evening news. Our babies are our children. Jolene will be forever my daughter, and my children's sister. She was our baby. She was our hopes, our dreams, our life. And my wish would be that from her tragedy, that someone in the future will be able to also be saved. I wish people would stop believing that this topic is taboo. Its important. Each one of our child's lives are important. Each baby is important, each loss is a tragedy. Why is there not any research being done? Why is it that 1 out of 100 babies die each year, but yet there is no research into perinatal loss? Why do the baby books not tell parents "Hey, did you know your baby can die at 37 weeks"? But yet, the books instead tell you that if you can make it past that first trimester, well then your good... People need to be told that you can lose your healthy baby at the end of your pregnancy... Its a disservice to woman to not tell them that your baby can die at the end. You can do everything right, and your baby can still die... Please, please someone start talking about this subject... Someone please do research... Someone please educate families that this can happen so they can be better prepared and funding can ensure that programs such as the one that Tammy runs can be at every hospital that does deliveries...