Hearing the Words 'No Heartbeat' Felt Like Our World Ended

On January 21, 2025, my water broke at home. I was 18 weeks, 4 days pregnant, and my husband rushed me to the ER. Soon after, I was told our son had no heartbeat and that I was in active labor. Easton was born sleeping at 5:43 a.m.

It felt like our world ended.

We left the hospital with a memory box, and his hand and foot imprints instead of our baby. That will forever haunt us. I went through a full labor and delivery, and was left with the full postpartum experience, but with no baby. We were left with picking our sons ashes up from the funeral home.

We spent weeks trying to figure out how to go on. Trying to accept that just because our world has stopped, everyone around us continues to go on. The truth is, we still are months later. Until the people around you have been through this kind of loss, they will truly never understand it.

We were grieving while we had to fill out all the same paperwork and answer questions that parents of living babies fill out and answer. If, by the time I die, there is not a new process for loss situations, the world has miserably failed grieving parents.

Image courtesy of Kayla Patton

I had unknowingly been bleeding out for 6 weeks. I went to the ER and was told to go home and wait it out. Not even 24 hours later, I was back at the ER being told I was hemorrhaging and needed a D&C. Minutes later a nurse walked in and closed the door and told me, "We cannot do a D&C, you may bleed out and die or need an emergency hysterectomy. They found a rare blood vessel malformation in your uterus that needs emergency surgery, but nobody here is confident, so we are transporting you by ambulance to a large hospital."

The world around me was just spinning and I had no time to process.

Days later, back at home, I was postpartum without baby, and also recovering from a postpartum hemorrhage. But back to work I went. Back to reality we were.

We are sad everyday. We cry daily. We are not who we were. We avoid everyone in our life. I never want to leave the house. I avoid any social interactions I can. I struggle with postpartum depression. Life is hard and we struggle to get out of bed everyday. Our grief often consumes every part of us.

All that my husband and I have been through has made us feel so alone, but we have each other and that has to be enough. For now, we pray for our rainbow someday while we still process the loss of our Easton.

Pregnancy and infant loss can leave grieving parents feeling isolated and unsure how to navigate the heartbreaking circumstance of living without their precious baby. Find grief and loss support with resources available through March of Dimes and the book, Unexpecting, which delicately helps grieving parents navigate the complexities and heartache of life after loss.

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