What We Don't Imagine

I have a crazy imagination. When I was a little girl my mother's favorite thing to say to me was, "Michele, don't exaggerate."  I can take the most ordinary event on the most ordinary day and turn it into something fantastical, but never once did I imagine that after nine months of pregnancy my baby would die.  Never once did I imagine that I would deliver a baby that would never take a breath.  Never once did I imagine my husband and I would return to our new home with empty arms.  Never once did I imagine three days later I would be told my best friend's daughter Savannah had died the same day as our Ramona.  Never once did I imagine a term I had only seen in old-fashioned books, a term that seemed so dated, would apply to my daughter.  I imagined so many wonderful things about my daughter.  What she would look like, the adventures we'd have, the person she would become, but I never imagined she would die.  Never that.

The grim reality is about 1 in every 160 babies are stillborn each year in the United States alone.  That's three babies an hour, 72 babies a day, 26,000 babies a year.  Not worldwide, just in the United States.  A stillbirth is defined as any pregnancy ending after 20 weeks.  This means 26,000 women a year in the U.S. are forced to deliver a child they will never bring home.

Stillbirth :

• is ten times more likely to occur than SIDS.
• does not discriminate.  Socio-economic conditions, ethnicity, age, weight, previous births guarantee no immunity.
• can be caused by infection, birth/chromosomal defects, cord accidents, placental problems, chronic health conditions in the mother, poor fetal growth, yet...
• in one-third of stillbirths no known cause can be determined.

Our daughter Ramona is in the one-third.  We will never know why our baby died.  We will never understand why we are some of the unlucky ones.  Instead of writing this, I should be cuddling my almost-four month old.  Instead of posting fundraising links on Facebook, I should be posting adorable photos of our brown-haired, rosebud-lipped, perfect little girl like the rest of my friends and family.  Maybe one day I'll be able to do those things, but never with Ramona. 

Instead, Jessica and I would like to fuel our unending love for our daughters into something that helps other families experiencing the loss of their child.  This can be a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be.  The death of a child is sad, uncomfortable, unbearable, but if we stay silent so many families are left without support.  We want moms and dads of lost children to have resources at hand to get them through the pain, and we want those who love these moms and dads to have the resources to support them.   

We will never get over the loss of our children, but we will get through it.  We need to break the silence. 

Sources:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stillbirth-risk-factors/
http://www.hiringforhope.org/pregnancy-infant-loss-awareness.html
http://www.marchofdimes.com/loss/stillbirth.aspx#
http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancyloss/sbtryingtounderstand.html