Photo Credit: Sanda Rathamone
We had just reached twenty weeks, a huge milestone in our first pregnancy, at which time we learned that we were expecting a healthy baby boy. We were ecstatic!
Everything seemed normal, and we hadn't expected anything other than a continued and "uneventful" pregnancy. That is, until the unthinkable happened.
A few days after reaching twenty weeks, my water broke. We knew that the chances of survival were slim to none, but I held onto hope, praying for a miracle and that we could somehow make it to at least viability. I decided against termination, but within hours, my body had begun to prepare for preterm delivery. I had no choice but to induce labor to reduce the risk of infection. My baby boy had a heartbeat until the very last second. He died the moment he was born. He was tiny and weighed less than a pound. I had never cried with so much pain and sorrow until I realized that my baby boy was gone; that none of this was a dream, but real and that this had actually happened to us. Elijah turns 5 years old on June 16, 2021. He has a younger brother and sister now, but our family still feels incomplete. We love and miss him so much, and wish he were here.
Thank you Sanda Rathamone / @stillamama.sanda for sharing your story. Shared with permission.
Coping with the grief of pregnancy loss can feel impossible and isolating. Surviving the Unimaginable is a guide to surviving loss, told through the voices of loss parents with the help of a clinical psychologist.
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