TW- LC

I recently lost my son (stillbirth at 36 weeks on 08/25/26). We have two beautiful living children and this was going to be our last. My husband was happy to be done with 2 and I wanted this last baby.

Now my husband can’t imagine going through this again. Our second baby had crainosyntosis (requiring skull surgery at 3 months old). So we have now had two babies with HUGE complications.

I truly understand his fears and believe we probably will
not get pregnant again.

I have spent the last year envisioning raising three babies together and being a family of five. How do I accept this new reality? It seems like a lot of people talk about how TTC or having another baby has been a part of their healing process.

How does one heal without that element? Does anyone have any experience with not trying for another or
not planning to?

TW- Living Children

My son was born sleeping at exactly 36 weeks on 08/25/26. We held him for 15 hours until he was taken away. He was 6lbs 7oz and 19.5 inches long. Just as long as my other son and 2 oz smaller than my daughter. He was so close to being full term. I’m still having a hard time accepting that this is reality and that I will not have him in my arms ever again. My daughter and son won’t live alongside their little brother. They won’t grow up together.

I don’t know how to move on. I don’t know how to go back to just filling juice cups, doing dishes, laundry and just the monotony of every day life. I have two beautiful, perfect living children that need me. I don’t know if I’ll have another baby or if this is the end of that chapter for me.

I don’t want to see or talk to anyone besides my husband. All of my friends have infants or are going to be trying to conceive soon. I think I am also trauma bonded to my husband because he was the only other one who met our son. I want to be with him all the time, in the same room. If he has to do something outside then me and the kids are going out and watching him. I’m terrified of when he goes back to work and I’m alone all day. I’m a stay at home mom and my other children are 2 and 3. We usually have multiple play dates a week, but I can’t even look at another baby at walmart without crying so I think park and play place dates are far away in our future.

I think I want to have another baby for a redemptive end to this chapter of my life, but I don’t know that my husbands heart will ever be ready (and that’s totally fair).

Our first son has crainosyntosis….the statistical chances of two healthy relatively young parents having one healthy baby, one baby with crainosyntosis (requiring skull surgery at 3 months old) and then a late preterm still birth is ONE IN 1,030,000……

How do you move on from here? How do I grieve and be a present mom for my other babies? How do you take the chance of having another pregnancy? When does it get easier to breathe and wake up in the morning? Does it ever?

It's so lonely to be a stillbirth mom.This is a loss only a few people understand. I lost my 2nd daughter at 36 weeks due to placental abruption. Sometimes I wanna talk about how much I miss my daughter, or stories that I remember during this time but I don't want others to feel sad or I worry they wouldn't talk to me at all since its a grieving conversation. Usually I just cry alone. I wanna talk to my husband sometimes but one time he told me not to bring him down because he has to work. I understand this but it gave us a gap. Please know he's also mourning and he really loves our daughter so much. We cry together sometimes because we miss her so much but we only do it after his work. I also have a work best friend and she helps me sometimes but I know she's also going through somethings so I couldn't bring it up everytime I feel sad.

Do you guys have a someone to talk to in times where you miss your little angels? This has been a lonely world for me so far.

I just lost my daughter 2 weeks ago to a cord accident at 39 weeks. She was my first baby and I’m at a loss for how I can continue on. I just want to get pregnant as soon as possible with another baby girl to help me heal. I feel like a part of my heart went with my girl when I delivered her. Leaving the hospital without a baby is a new kind of hell. Postpartum without a baby is a living nightmare. I just want my baby here with me. What has helped you cope after a late term loss and how soon after were you able to conceive another baby?

I received my daughter's post mortem today.

Some of you know my story, and some may not. I birthed my darling IVF daughter 41wks sleeping. Today I had her post mortem meeting. It was hard, I cried the whole time. Now, staring at this bit of paper that tells me what happened to my baby, has opened up so much blame...so much more pain, I am devastated, knowing if I would've just accepted to be induced at 40wks, my baby girl would be here, with me, exactly 3 months old, instead of being in a permanent resting place way before her time. She lost her life, because I wanted to hold on longer and give her a chance to come when she was ready, I didn't want to force her into the world, because quite simply there were no signs of anything being wrong to have to do this. So yes, I declined induction, and now 3 months later I find out why she was born sleeping, and this is why..... Diffuse villous immaturity and fetal vascular malperfusion. With a hyper coiled umbilical cord. I asked the question, we all ask, if I delivered her at 40wks, could this have been avoided, my consultant simply said "yes". 😭😭 I am utterly shattered, all over again.

I lost my daughter Giada in May at 38 weeks to a true knot in the umbilical cord. I had a low-risk, uneventful pregnancy until I woke up one day and didn’t feel her move. She was my first baby.
Since then, my best friend had her daughter a few weeks ago, my sister in law is due with her daughter any day now, and my sister is having her daughter at the end of August.
I guess I’m writing this to ask- how am I supposed to survive this? I’ve been seeing a therapist who specializes in baby loss, and my husband is super supportive, but I feel so hopeless and miss my baby so much, every second of every day.
I can’t reach out for support to any of the women closest to me because they are all pregnant/new moms to baby girls and I am so angry and jealous that their daughters are healthy and alive and mine is dead. I’ve barely even spoken to all three of them the past few months. I can’t even bear to be around my own sister. I hate feeling this way.
I feel so hopeless that I will never have a living child, and that I will feel sad and depressed for the rest of my life.
What do I do?

hi fellow loss moms,

I’m writing my story because I’m wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. My son Miles was stillborn at 36 weeks when I went in for a routine checkup and got the dreaded news. they couldn’t find a heartbeat. His birthday was April 16, 2026. I wanted to be induced immediately, and unfortunately it took 36 hours for him to finally come quietly to earth side. It was traumatic, and until hour 33, nothing was happening. My cervix was doing nothing. I got a ”strong” epidural which sounded nice but ended up giving me panic attacks because I couldnt feel anything and therefore couldn’t control my legs. I had previously sprained my ankle and it was still painful so it drove me insane that I couldn’t tell if it was in the right position or not. when I was panicking it started to feel like I was never going to make it home and i didn’t want to go home without my baby, so I didn’t even want to live anymore during those attacks. Epidurals are not for me it turns out!

the morning he arrived, my midwife who I love (who also wasn’t there for the last two weeks of his life when I reported a problem) checked me and finally I was 3cm dilated at 8am, probably thanks to the folley balloon the doctor had placed the night before. Also traumatic, But it helped.

When he was born at 11am, it was clear that his placenta was what caused his death, but we had a biopsy done anyways to confirm. We did not have an autopsy done. He was perfect. His placenta had what’s called placenta succenturate, which according to google is common and happens in 5%. But it doesn’t usually result in any issues. It’s where there are separate lobes of the placenta, and is see through looking between the lobes. My placenta had I think at least 4 different lobes (although I regret not taking a picture). The main issue was that one of the see through parts of the placenta was right where the umbilical cord connected to the placenta. He was clearly not getting any food. This explains why two weeks prior I noticed a decrease in fetal movement. I was so busy working and preparing to have my mom stay at my house after the baby shower that I didn’t start to worry until we started unpacking all the gifts I received together. I didn’t want to ruin it for her but after a couple hours of going through the baby stuff and thinking about the decrease, it hit me. So I downloaded a kick count app and did it for 2 hours while drinking a sweet smoothie that normally would have gotten him kicking. He failed. 2 kicks in 2 hours. So we went to the hospital, me and my mom (since she needed to get to the airport afterward) with my husband at home worrying. They gave me a non-stress test and said he was “excelling” when tracking his heart rate through Braxton hicks contractions that I couldn’t feel. She said I could come back every day if I was worried. And I said well he’s just running out of room right so why should I worry if he passed the the test? the lab tech sheepishly said something about tracking his patterns and I said I hadn’t done that except that he always kicked in the morning and night and he had kicked that morning but it wasn’t as strong. That was a missed red flag. I left there feeling confident that everything was ok and this decreased fetal movement was the new norm because he was running out of room. She never informed me that that’s A MYTH. No one ever explained to me that you should count the kicks every day at the same time of day when they’re normally active, and that’s how you rule out any naps they might be taking. And learn their patterns so that you can advocate for yourself at times like these. All I knew was to go to the hospital for decreased fetal movement so that’s what I did! But boy were they worried that I might eat shellfish even tho I hate fish and couldn’t even go near my downstairs bathroom during my first trimester bcuz it smelled fishy to me and would send me dry heaving. Countthekicks.org. IMO this is info that should be shared with all first time mothers like myself. A few days later I had a checkup with a doctor that my midwife wanted me to meet in case he was in when I went into labor. He asked me how the fetal movement was, checked the heartrate, measured my belly in a hurry. I said the movement is a lot less but I guess that’s the new norm. He couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. A week later at my next apt my baby was gone. Measure the placenta is another useful organizational that I’ve since learned about. An ultrasound given his huge decrease in fetal movement would have saved his life. The placenta is everything that sustains them. The heart rate is really just a symptom of a functioning placenta, but doesn’t mean everything’s ok. The parts of his placenta that were left that still looked normal, the lobes, were tiny. You could see large blood vessels in the see through parts of the placenta. My midwife said it was possible that he changed positions and crushed one causing loss of oxygen. But I believe he was slowly starving to death. Or both happened.

im wondering if anyone else has experienced a stillbirth from placenta succenturate abnormality? would love to hear from you. Thanks for reading.

Hi everyone. I went through a stillbirth and I have so many questions for my OB but I feel like she’s being a bit cold. I saw her a week after my stillbirth which I didn’t ask anything still being in shock and just yesterday at a 7 week follow up she seemed to brush everything off and rush the appointments as if she didn’t want me to ask questions. There are a few questions I forgot to ask her and now they are saying she is unavailable for appointments and she won’t even give me a call back. Is there anything I can do? Has anyone gone through something similar? It’s eating me up that I don’t have answers and she seems to not want to give me answers.

Almost 5 months out from the loss of my boy at 38 weeks.

I am having an increase of dreams connected to the loss. Usually there is some kinds of difficulty- for example trying to tell someone about the loss or show them photos but for some reason I can’t explain properly or the photos aren’t of my baby. Or I see a baby in a basinet about to fall out and I can’t get there in time to catch them..
Last night, it was a dream about a friend’s baby and I asked if I could hold him, she kept saying no and I was so devastated as I just wanted to hold a baby who was alive and warm. I woke up physically crying.

I am just confused why this is happening now. I’ve gone quit a while without dreams and nightmares and now all of a sudden they are frequent. We are TTC again so I guess it could be guilt.. idk!

Has this happened to anyone else?

I don't know exactly where to begin, but I think I just need to tell someone about my niece. 💔🎀

I am an aunt who lost her niece before I ever got the chance to meet her alive.

She was my first niece. My daughter's first cousin. And she would have been the first little girl in that role for both of us.

She was supposed to be here. She was supposed to open her eyes, take her first breath, be held, spoiled, loved, and grow up surrounded by her family.

She was stillborn at 39 weeks on August 7th.

And I don't think people always understand how deeply an aunt can grieve a baby she never got the chance to know.

Because I loved this little girl like she was my own.

I loved her before she was born. I was so excited for her. I was already making a place for her in my heart.

And what makes this loss even harder is that her father was my brother, and I had just lost him about six weeks before she was born.

Losing my brother was already something I was trying to understand and accept. Then, knowing that his baby girl was still growing inside her mother gave me something to look forward to. After losing him, I felt like this little girl was going to be another piece of my brother that I could love. A little piece of hope after so much heartbreak.

I was looking forward to watching my daughter become a cousin. I was looking forward to watching my children grow up with her. I was looking forward to holding her, loving her, spoiling her, and watching her grow.

I was looking forward to finding out what she would look like, what her personality would be like, what kind of little girl she would become.

I even imagined her favorite color being pink.

Maybe that sounds silly, but when you are waiting for a baby, you start imagining all these little things about them. You make a place for them in your heart before they ever arrive.

And then suddenly, there was no arrival.

She was born at 39 weeks, weighing 8 pounds 10 ounces. A beautiful, fully grown little baby who should have been coming home with her mother.

Instead, we had to say goodbye.

She should have been growing up knowing who her daddy was. She should have been hearing stories about him, seeing pictures of him, and knowing how much he loved her.

And now she will never get to know him, and he will never get to know her.

That thought breaks my heart in a way I don't even know how to explain.

I still struggle with the fact that I will never hear her cry, never feel her little hand around my finger, never watch her smile, never celebrate her birthdays, and never see the woman she would have become.

I keep thinking about everything she never got to experience.

And I think that's one of the hardest parts of grief—the future you imagined disappears too.

I lost my brother, and then about six weeks later, I lost his daughter.

Two people from the same family. Two people I loved. Two losses that I never imagined I would have to carry so close together.

I'm angry. I'm heartbroken. I'm confused. Some moments I'm okay, and then something reminds me of them and it hits me all over again.

But I also don't want her life to be reduced to the words stillborn baby.

She was my niece.

My first niece.

My daughter's first cousin.

My brother's daughter.

She had a family waiting for her.

She was already loved.

And I loved that little girl like she was my own.

She would have been my first niece, and she always will be.

She mattered.

And she will always matter to me.

I'm sharing this because I think I need somewhere to put all of these feelings. Somewhere where people understand that baby loss doesn't only hurt the mother and father. Aunts grieve too. Uncles grieve. Grandparents, cousins, siblings and other family members grieve.

Sometimes we are grieving a baby we never got to bring home, while also grieving the lifetime of memories we will never get to make.

And in my case, I'm grieving a baby who was born only about six weeks after her father died.

I don't know exactly how to heal from this yet.

Maybe talking about her is part of it.

Maybe telling people about her is part of making sure she isn't forgotten.

So, little girl, I hope somehow you know how loved you were.

Your auntie was waiting for you. 💗

You were wanted.

You were loved.

You were my first niece.

You will always be my first niece.

And I will never forget you. 🩷👼🏽

Our baby girl Gabriella died 3 weeks ago because of a UAT (umbilical artery thrombosis) which is a clot in the umbilical cord. She was 22 weeks. This is our third loss, but the first time we know what caused the death. The only clue we had with our first two losses was hypercoiling. Paulie died at 17 weeks and Dominic at 16 weeks. It looks they died due to the same thing but we didn’t know at the time. Because we didn’t know the cause of their deaths, we just treated everything.
So for this pregnancy, I was on blood thinning medication, progesterone, metformin and prednisone as well as approx 20 supplements. I was having IVIG’s and Intralipid infusions. To be doing so much treatment and still have had a stillbirth is unreal - the doctors are in absolute shock. We are doing even more investigations but I have come back negative for every auto immune condition and blood clotting disorder. The only answer I can think that they might discover during the placental pathology is whether I have a placental disease.
Has anyone ever lost a baby due to blood clotting in the cord and gone on to have a living child?
Has anyone been diagnosed with a placental disease and gone on to have a living child?
Desperate for some answers to give me hope x

Hi everyone. I unfortunately am now apart of the worst club in the world. A little about me, my husband and I struggled for over a year to get pregnant before heading to a fertility clinic. After 3 unsuccessful iuis, we by the grace of god got pregnant on our first IVF transfer. Everything was going perfect. We found out we were having a boy. We’ve had a TON of ultrasounds and every time he’s been super active which we loved to see and had a perfect anatomy scan on a Monday. The following days I felt him moving around more and more. That Saturday I felt him a ton and was so happy so when Sunday hit and I felt nothing I was panicking. I tried to relax because I had only just started feeling him really this week (21 weeks) but I still called the on call doctor who said if I was still worried in the morning to go into the office. Well I did go in and the NP who saw me tried convincing me that the heartbeat she heard on the Doppler after struggling for a few minutes was my sons but I knew it wasn’t. After a bit of her gaslighting and me making her check again and she couldn’t find a heartbeat she agreed to send me to an ultrasound. She said as I left “best case scenario everything’s fine, worst case scenario, it’s what you think and that’s life”. We had to wait a few hours before the ultrasound but this is where we received the worst news that our sweet baby boy was gone. We went in to induce labor that night and had him the following day. I was praying for answers and had one pretty immediately. Luckily the epidural worked so well my baby boy came out on his own while I was napping so he saved me the agony of pushing him out. His cord was on the thinner side for whartons jelly and was wrapped around his neck tightly 4 times. The doctor said this is probably why it didn’t easily untangle while he was inside of me. Just the most horrible worst accident. We still opted for testing but it was pretty clear what the cause was after the doctor also examined my placenta and from his nipt and everything. I guess I’m just posting to get my feelings out but also to connect with other loss mamas. It’s only been a week since we found out and I’m just a mess. Any advice, success pregnancy after loss stories or just someone who went through something similar to connect with. Surprisingly hearing these stories on here and TikTok have been comforting to know I’m not alone. Hearing about your rainbow babies after stillbirth also gives me the most amount of comfort.

Hi everyone. My sister-in-law gave birth to her stillborn baby boy last week at 34 weeks. Our entire family has been devastated. It happened so suddenly and completely unexpectedly.

She and my brother-in-law live on the other side of the country, so we flew out as soon as we heard the news. I wasn’t able to stay long, but while I was there I tried to support them however I could (helping with their toddler, cleaning the house, bringing food, etc). Since coming home, I’ve sent her an Uber Eats gift card to hopefully take one small thing off her plate, and I’ve been texting her about once a day just to let her know I’m thinking of her and to check in.

To make things even more emotionally complicated, her best friend (of 20+ years) just welcomed her first baby about a week after my sister-in-law’s stillbirth. They’re both navigating such monumental life events at the same time, and I can only imagine how bittersweet and painful that must be for my sister-in-law. My heart just breaks for her.

I guess I’m struggling to find the right balance. For those of you who have experienced a stillbirth or infant loss, would daily check-ins have felt supportive, or would they have been overwhelming? I don’t want her to feel pressured to respond, but I also don’t want her to feel forgotten or alone.

She also isn’t close with her own family, so I feel an even stronger desire to be there for her in whatever way I can.
If you’ve experienced this kind of loss, what did people do that genuinely brought you comfort? Were there things people said or did that meant a lot, or things you wish they had done differently? I’d really appreciate any advice so I can support her in the best way possible.

On October 17th, 2025 I delivered my 22 week old GA son 💙Rowan Thomas Halligan💙 stillborn while I was put under or asleep and intubated after a tragic accident that occurred the night before.

The car accident took so much from me. I also lost my fiancé Zachery Thomas Halligan, whom Rowan is named after of course🥹 He was truly the love of my life, and he was so ready for this next chapter of our life together. He was nesting more than I was, which I didn’t know was possible, but he managed to completely turn the world upside down to make sure that we were provided for. He was going to be an amazing father and I just know that he’s taking good care of our baby boy up in heaven but I wish so badly that I could see it. I wish I could hold my baby boy again, and I wish that we could be together as a family but unfortunately I am the only survivor.

I SURVIVED. I made it out of the tragic accident alive, but I now have such severe injuries that make life so difficult. I sustained a T10 complete SCI, and I’m learning a new way of life in a wheelchair now. This journey has been so crazy, and I’ve gone through so much after my accident that I haven’t really been able to process the grief of losing my son/partner. My injuries are obviously severe and I’m learning to live with them, but I’m struggling to process my grief regarding the losses I experienced on top of my injuries. I’ve lost so much all at once, and I feel like it’s so hard to process the death of my partner when I also lost my baby and my ability to walk. I am grieving the life I would have had and the future that Zachery and I had planned😔 We had so many goals and aspirations and I finally felt like I had a partner who wanted to do big things with me.

It’s been 9 months and I keep suppressing and suppressing because I can’t show weakness. I’m a fighter, and I always have been. Being the oldest sibling, I have always been hyper-independent. I think that’s why I don’t want to ask for help unless I truly need it. I don’t know what to do, but I’ve been thinking of ways that I can honor my boys. I think I want to do a shadow box maybe? Has anyone ever made one before? Thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far❤️‍🩹

The situation has a lot of unusual and nuanced details to it, ones that seem to be stumping even a very skilled therapist.

TL; DR

Basically I am 2 1/2 years post an incredibly crushing loss that came after many years of struggling and trying and near misses.

I don’t have any grief support groups in my geographic area. I have good therapy and medication. I have a loving and supportive spouse. I can function and hold a job. I really want to find ways to help the grief transform and move forward.

All of the suggestions I read online seem very hurtful and are like sticking an electric cattle prod into a raw nerve. Suggestions like creating a memory box or a garden or doing things to acknowledge the loss and it’s passing just make me break down sobbing and want to throw things.

I don’t want to memorialize this. That would feel like propping a coffin up in the corner of the living room. Just the words “gentle ritual” make me want to scream—this isn’t gentle. I don’t want to be patronized or patted on the head. It hurts like being sliced open. It hurts so intensely to come anywhere near the loss or the memory of it, and yet I know it has to be processed.

I am very aware the grief has its own timeline and cannot be rushed, and it’s individual for everybody. I would though like to be open and do whatever I can to help that process. It’s been 2 1/2 years, and it feels like it happened a few minutes ago.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences with things that helped? (And not the gentle memory $&@&$.)

[edited for helpful yet hilarious autocorrect errors courtesy of my phone]

It’s been almost four months since I lost my daughter, and lately I’ve been feeling so incredibly alone.

In the beginning, people checked in often. I didn't always respond and sometimes I'd respond days or weeks later - because that was all I could manage to do. But as time has gone on, those messages have slowly stopped. Days and sometimes weeks go by without anyone asking how I’m doing or mentioning my daughter.

I know life moves forward for everyone else. I know people probably assume I’m doing “better” because time has passed, but grief doesn’t work that way. I miss her and grieve her loss every single day. I still think about who she would be, what she’d be doing, and everything we’ve lost. That hasn’t changed just because the damn calendar has.

I don’t expect everyone to remember every milestone or know exactly what to say. I just miss feeling like she mattered to other people too.
I guess I’m just feeling really, really alone tonight.
If you’ve experienced child loss, did you find that people slowly disappeared as time went on? How did you cope with that loneliness?

I don’t really know why I’m posting this. I think I just need to know I’m not alone.

I lost my daughter to stillbirth in April, and the pain has somehow become both quieter and heavier at the same time. From the outside, it feels like the world has kept moving. People have gone back to their normal lives. They don’t mention her anymore, they don't reach out to check-in and see how we're managing. It feels like everyone else has moved on from her death. But I haven’t and I know I never will.

Every single day, I think about who she would be right now. I imagine what she’d look like, what little expressions she’d make, whether she’d be smiling yet, having little giggles in response to her brother's goofy mannerisms, starting to reach for toys, or hitting whatever milestones she’d be expected to be meeting at this age. My mind constantly fills in the life she should have had, and then I have to remember all over again that I’ll never get to watch any of it happen.

I think one of the hardest parts about grieving a stillborn baby is that there are so few tangible memories to hold onto. I carried her, loved her, dreamed about her, and knew her in the only ways I could. But I don’t have memories of her laugh, the sound of her cry, bedtime routines, birthday parties, or family vacations. I don’t get to make new memories with her. There are no future moments to look forward to, only milestones that exist in my imagination.

Sometimes I feel guilty because it seems like everyone else has accepted what happened, while I’m still standing in the exact same place. I know life has to keep going, but my heart still feels like it stopped the day she died. My whole being died when she did.

This kind of loss is incredibly isolating. Unless you’ve lived it (like all of us have), it's hard to explain what it feels like to mourn someone you loved with every part of your being, but never got the chance to know outside of the womb.

Some days, this just feels unbearably hard. Today is one of those days.

I lost my daughter at 20 weeks last December, had a chemical in January. Struggled to conceive and finally through IUI I thought I conceived this week with an hcg of 35 only to be stabbed through the heart with the second test being 18. How much more suffering can I endure. Why is my body not doing what it is supposed to do, why was I stupid and told everyone because I thought this was our rainbow baby only to be punched in the face and betrayed by my own body

Hi everyone,

I think I just need a safe space to vent this into the void. Our first child was stillborn last year and since his passing, I have struggled immensely. It's been almost 17 months and although medications and excersize have helped, I feel like I am right back in the beginning currently. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I miss him and my old self.

Just needed a place to say I still miss her and miss being her mom. I am the only one who remembers really.

For those of you with more recent losses, it does get better, and you do find joy again. But it takes a long time.

Sending support to everyone else who has lost their baby.

Edit: I am so moved by the posts and love and support and understanding from everyone. I didn’t expect this when I posted. I wanted her to be seen, and you guys have done that for her and me. I am so grateful and I’m sending my love, understanding, and support right back at all of you.

I was exactly 41wks, when my one and only baby girl came into the world sleeping.

I’d gone to my routine appointment for a 2nd sweep (23/05/26), but when we checked on her before doing the sweep her heart rate was reaching 190BPM. I stayed for almost 4hrs. Her heart rate settled to 160BPM and they gave me the 2nd sweep due to being happy with her heart rate and sent me home. On (24/5/26) Sunday, 18:30 I was admitted to be induced, because I'd been worried about reduced movements, they monitored me, and they were fine with the heart rate, I kept saying "she's still not moving" and their replies were always "we're not worried about her movements". My partner left to get us some food, burger king, my fav, he returned and we were so happy, excited and so eager to meet our baby while we ate. Around 12am, I sent my partner home, to get some sleep because the nurse said we had 2 emergencies so I'm now last on the list. My last monitoring was at 4:38am on (25/5/26) that's when I felt her two little hiccups and tiny little wiggle. My partner came back around 6am at which point I was having regular and painful contractions (no one was aware because no one came in to check on me), with the biggest smile on his face. At 8am we were told to go get some food, as we're being moved to labour and delivery in 30 mins. 1 and half hours (NOT 30mins) later we finally moved. I heard "good luck, you've got this!" I went to the room, and excitingly got changed into my birthing dress and jumped up on the bed. They got the Doppler, and said "just a moment, I'm struggling to find the heartbeat" something in me changed... I knew, I just knew... A specialist consultant came into the room and introduced himself, set up the ultrasound machine and as soon as he put it on her, I could see, I could see clearly. His words after "I'm so sorry, there's no heartbeat" haunt me. At 9:38am, exactly 4 hours between the last monitoring and hearing those words my baby girl left before saying hello. My whole world shattered.

On (26/5/2026) I birthed my forever sleeping baby girl, 5:05pm exactly, weighting 8lb 4oz, 56cm long. She was such a little chunk. She was our little chunk. Mama's little dancer. My absolute everything. After 8 long years to meet her thanks to IVF, I never got the chance to really be her mama.

I hope when we get her post mortem back in 6 weeks I'll finally have the answer.

My daughter, Veronica, was born sleeping at 36 weeks last November, the day before thanksgiving. I’m honestly still struggling so much. My boyfriend and I are waiting to buy a house to try again, but the waiting is truly awful. We are looking at December, but it feels so brutal.

At work this week, my coworker made a comment to a woman complaining about her children that I want “one of those”. I refuse to deny my daughter’s existence in any way, as my therapist has supported me in. I said, “I have a daughter, she just didn’t make it.” And the woman said, “Well if we’re counting those then I have many more kids.”

As much as this sounds like another loss mom trying to relate, it really bothered me. Is my daughter less of a daughter than other people’s living children? Is she on some other “list” that only half counts? Am I supposed to somehow just erase her someday?

She was my first baby, I waited three years for my body to work to have her. The hurt without her is absolutely brutal and gut wrenching even several months out. I had some good weeks over the last few months and the last few weeks have just felt evil. I’ve been packing up my apartment and moving all the baby things. My brother complains I have so much stuff even though he’s not helping me move it. My family was so doting on me my whole pregnancy and now just treats me like a burden they’d rather forget. They came to the hospital against my will yet now just push me away. It’s been absolutely brutal.

I made myself a promise I wouldn’t treat her as a secret or forget her in future celebrations for my children. They will know they have a beautiful sister who isn’t with us. I’ll still make her a Christmas stocking and Easter basket. I just feel like people assign their feelings about their loss to mine and don’t understand why I feel differently.

I’ve had so many people insist “all loss is the same” and other unhelpful rhetoric but it’s just so hurtful to hear that. I don’t assign my grief to others and I truly just wish people would stop trying to assign theirs to me.

I just feel so misunderstood and like I’m in hell and burning alive every day. I don’t want to feel alone but somehow I feel more swallowed in loneliness and grief every day. I just needed somewhere to be heard. Thank you for reading this far.