He’d Be 17
March 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Told by: Dawn
On March 7 it will be 17 years that I lost my stillborn son, Patrick Nicholas.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him or how he would be today.
I have four children and one beloved angel in heaven, and he is loved just as much as his siblings and although he never got to breath even a breadth of life, he did not die in vain.
His short life will always be remembered and his legacy will always follow. God Bless my little boy!!!!
He Would Be 21
December 4, 2013 by 1 Comment
Told by: Valerie
My baby boy, Fraser, was stillborn, at term, on a rainy night, May 20th 1992.
We never dreamed this would be the terrible outcome of my 4th pregnancy. How was l going to tell his siblings…who were so excited for him to come home? We came home without him and l never thought l would recover but gradually life came back to me again…and my husband and our 3 children…we learned to live without our boy….he would have been 21 this year …he is safe in our hearts…how l would love to see him just one time…but l will someday, l know that…
We love and miss you every day Fraser, til we meet again, our precious boy…sleep well ♥♥♥♥♥♥
61 and 41 Years Later
September 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Told by: Joyce
I will never forget the nurse who saw me pacing the floor the night that I had my full-term stillborn son on Oct. 28th, 1972.
She took me to a room and started to cry and said “I had a stillborn child 20 years ago…”
I think I was stunned because I stopped crying. I thought, 20 years ago!
It is now 41 years later and I can fully understand her reaction. I happened upon this site through the book “I’ll love you forever“. Both of my adopted children have been read this book over and over. To this day I’ll sing off with I’ll love you forever…..
I truly know what that means after 41 years and 60 years of living. I know all of you on this site will understand.
Their Little Big Sisters
June 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Told by: Joni
We conceived triplets after just one round of fertility treatment.
We were completely shocked yet over the moon with excitement.
I only knew I was growing bigger than a barn, I am only 5’1″ tall, needless to say, I got rather big fast.
All we knew at the time was I had 3 babies and they were all in separate sacks; fraternal triplets. I went into labor at 20 weeks , two of the babies switched places causing their cords to entwine.
I gave birth to fraternal triplet girls on February 3, 1987. It was the most devastating thing we have ever endured in our lifetime.
We had a son in 1991 and another daughter in 1994, they are the best therapy we could have ever asked for, although we have had many challenges with our daughter who has many learning delays and moderate autism.
She graduated from high school last month with school honors.
It’s Time
September 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Maybe you’ve visited stillbirthday before.
Maybe you’ve clicked the share your story tab, and thought about finally releasing it – the tension, the years of shame, the decades of self-torture and silent grief.
You’ve read articles like our recent “In Twenty Minutes” and it opened up that scarred over scab, and dug a little deeper than you thought it would.
But then you read another story, a story from a bereaved mother, and you become filled with jealousy, shame and hesitation all over again:
She seems like such a better mother than me…
Your pain mounts and you prepare to flee, as you tell yourself that a place like stillbirthday is a place only for mothers with recent losses – not mothers like you.
It’s not for mothers like you, who flushed and walked away. Who allowed yourself to believe that the experience was nothing more than a period, or that your pregnancy loss was a “mess that cleaned itself up.”
It’s not for mothers like you, who were terrified at the prospect of raising a child…
…who were at least a little but probably enormously thankful that the decision was made for you, that the tiny baby was taken before you had to figure out what you were going to do.
…who haven’t seemed to care, until now.
You tell yourself defeatedly but confidently that stillbirthday is not a place for mothers who needed time before they could look at their grief, before they could feel their grief, before they could accept their grief.
To you, I say,
It’s Time.
It’s time to see that
- You are welcome here.
- Your feelings are valid.
- You are not bound by shame.
- You and your experiences are safe here.
- You are invited to embrace the healing that awaits you through the journey of exploring your grief.
- It is never too late to open up, to share, to explore your feelings, to be a part of our community.
- Your baby is safe.
- Your baby loves you.
- You are worthy of love and respect.
- You belong.
- A pregnancy loss is still a birthday – it doesn’t go away. It is a part of you. Because it is a part of you, you are invited to be a part of stillbirthday. You don’t have to face this alone.
- You are not alone.
Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! Isaiah 49:15
Even if my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will hold me close. Psalm 27:10
These passages are not in scripture to bring you shame and condemnation. They are there to bring you hope. They are there, because they happen. Parents do face experiences and situations in which, at the time, it seems like the only thing they can do is to push the reality of their parenthood away. These passages are in scripture to encourage you that the Lord has always embraced your child, and that you are always welcome to embrace the reality of your child as well.
Did you have a pregnancy loss years ago, and you’ve never talked about it? Have you begun to feel a stirring of emotions recently, as you reflect on that season in your life or that experience in particular?
One stillbirthday mother is celebrating her daughter Hannah’s tenth stillbirthday, by inviting others to perform an act of kindness. In so doing, she is proving that the reality of her child lives even if her child doesn’t, and that even ten years later, her child can impact the world in a positive, healing way. There is a Hannah in scripture who also mirrors this sentiment: she achingly and desperately wanted the experience of pregnancy and childbirth, and made an enormous bargain with God, just to have these experiences. Ten years later, that child, Samuel, didn’t legally belong to her, wasn’t considered her child any longer, but his birth alone changed her life and his positive impact was still a part of her.
Stillbirthday accepts the invitation to be a part of Hannah’s tenth stillbirthday, to discover that time doesn’t have to bind you in shame, but that time can bring with it the opportunity to find the freedom of sharing, of reaching out, and of healing that you deserve.
Stillbirthday extends the invitation to you:
It’s never too late for you to feel the positive impact your child has on you, and on others.
To help encourage you to see that your experience is not bound by shame or condemnation, stillbirthday invites you to share your story. From now until the end of September, all stories that are shared at stillbirthday from mothers or other loved ones who just needed time, will be entered to win the book Becoming a Woman of Freedom by Cynthia Heald, a book that further encourages you not to be bound by the shame and hesitation that rob us of opportunities to find healing.
Forever in Our Hearts
May 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Told by: Robin
I was walking through the cemetery near my home in Kentucky recently and saw the tombstone of a child who was born and died on the same day. There was a stuffed Valentine’s Day bear sitting beside the grave. I stopped walking and began to cry; imagining the pain and heartbreak of the parents of that baby. My own brother is also buried in that same cemetery. I walk by his tombstone day after day and I always look over at it; even though I try not to… The tombstone is a pinkish color so it’s hard to miss. Inscribed on the stone are the words ‘Forever in our Hearts’. My mother married at a very young age. She was only fifteen. She was only sixteen when she gave birth to her first baby; a boy she named after my father ‘Donald’. Anyway, when Donnie was only a few months old, my father came home from work to find my mother napping and my brother dead. My parents were told that their baby son died of SIDS. There was no other explanation. My mother put him down for his nap and he never woke up. I can’t even begin to imagine how my mother processed such a tragic loss; especially at such a young age. I can’t imagine waking up from a nap to find my baby dead. I can’t imagine… Sadly, my parents did not even have the money to bury their dead baby; my brother I never had the chance to meet and know. My Mammaw (mother’s mother) bought a burial plot so my parents were able to bury their baby properly. (My Mammaw is buried near him now. They are in Heaven together.) As I read through so many stories of loss on this site, I have been reminded of the loss of the brother I never knew. Back when this tragedy happened, there was no internet with loss web sites like this one. There was really no help at all; no place a mother or father could turn for help with their grief and heartbreak. My mother had to internalize her pain and find a way to go on. She does not talk about Donnie but I’m sure she thinks about him and ‘remembers’ on his birthday, death day and on Mother’s Day…
Now, my mammaw, she gave birth to five children but only two survived; my mom and her older brother (who passed away about six years ago). My mammaw miscarried one baby that was so tiny, she buried the baby in a large matchbox. The baby was buried on their farm. She also gave birth to another son and daughter; Russell and Sarah. Sarah was still- born and Russell died at 18 months. I did not realize that Russell was 18 months old when he died. I thought he was born dead like Sarah. My heart broke when mom told me he was one and a half when he died. He was walking and talking… he had the flu and the doctor gave him the wrong medicine. I can’t imagine… Sarah and Russell are buried near Donnie and Mammaw. They are all in Heaven together. Mammaw has been reunited with all of her children now except for my mom.
My mammaw lost her own mother when she was just a young girl. She raised her two brothers. Her life was so difficult but you would never have known it from the way she carried herself and reached out to others, always helping others when she was in need herself. She taught first and second grade up until I was in junior high school (the mid-seventies). She gave to others when she was in need herself. That was ‘normal’ to me and what I was taught we are to do. I can remember her always saying no matter how difficult any circumstance “God takes care of His own”. She was truly a woman of God. I’m so thankful for a godly heritage that came down through my precious mammaw. I learned so much from her about God, about life and about how to love others more than myself.
