Death Before Their First Breath

It's a story we have heard over and over again. A pregnancy has progressed just as planned. The nursery is all set up. Fresh paint on the walls. The crib assembled and ready. A changing table filled with diapers, wipes and baby powder. Excitement fills the air as a couple imagines what their new little boy or girl will look like.

Then the unimaginable happens. The baby is nearing their due date when mom realizes she has not felt her baby moving today. She knows that babies often get quieter prior to birth, but are they suppose to be this quiet in the womb? Forcing back panic mom heads to the doctor for an ultrasound to make sure everything's okay. But it's not. The familiar sounds of the babies heart aren't heard like on earlier ultrasounds. The technician leaves the room and comes back with a doctor. Once again the wand us placed on the abdomen, but their is no sound, nor movement. Silence fills the room as the doctor looks at mom and tells her what she doesn't want to hear, "I am so sorry, but it appears as though your child has died."

Emotions flood the mother and father. How is this possible? What did I/we do wrong? Maybe the ultrasound is wrong! Maybe the doctor is wrong? But she's not wrong. And now mom and dad have to go through a delivery knowing their child will be stillborn.

As you can imagine, these moments are filled with so many more questions then I've mentioned above. What can make this even more painful is that some people don't even view this death as the loss of an actual child. We have found many parents suffering alone because support for this kind of loss often doesn't match the support a family gets if a child has died later in life.

Judy and I want to encourage any of you who may know someone who has suffered the death of a stillborn child to move toward them today with words of encouragement and support. Trust us when we say, they need your support more than you know. God bless as you reach out to hurting parents.