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Journal Reporter Loses Child on Christmas Day

Laura Villmer
Of the Suburban Journals
Jefferson County Journal
Wednesday, May. 25 2005

Most parents spend their Christmas mornings watching as their children excitedly unwrap presents, throwing paper carelessly aside to find out what's
in the unmarked box.

I would have given anything to spend my last Christmas this way. Instead, I sat in a cold, sterile hospital room with my parents and my husband and several
boxes of Kleenex, trying to absorb what doctors had told me just hours ago.

"There is no heartbeat. Your baby has died."

There is nothing anyone can do to prepare for a time like this, and, indeed, most pregnancy and parenting books skim over the issue of stillbirth and
pregnancy loss.

We all insulate ourselves from the idea that tragedy could strike us or the ones we love. But the fact remains – one in every 115 deliveries in the United
States is a dead baby. Each day in America, 70 stillborn babies are delivered, a total of 26,000 each year.

It can't happen to you. But, as we found out on Christmas Day, the horrible things you think only happen to strangers can indeed happen to you.

My second pregnancy had gone along just as swimmingly as the first. No complications, no cause for concern, and lots of little baby kicks to keep me
smiling to myself.

Until Christmas Eve. My husband and I woke with our 21-month old daughter to find that the electricity had gone out, so we headed to De Soto to visit my
sister and take showers there.

At about 2 p.m., my mom patted my belly like she always did and asked how Madeline was doing today. "Actually," I said, "she's been really quiet." I
hadn't taken a moment to stop and wait for movement. After eight months of pregnancy, it becomes rote and part of your routine, so that you don't even
notice those kicks and rolls half the time.

By 5 p.m., I still had felt no movement, and I tried to do the things the books recommend – drink juice or something sweet and lie on your left side. Still,
nothing.

My family tried to reassure me all night. "She's just sleeping," they said. Or, "Surely she's moved and you just didn't notice." I convinced myself that they
were right.

When I went to bed I couldn't sleep. By 4 a.m. I was getting a little paranoid and called my ob-gyn, who said I should come into the hospital, they'd find the baby's heartbeat on a monitor and I'd "be back home in time for Christmas."

Still thinking nothing was wrong, my husband stayed with our daughter while my mom drove me to the hospital. I was hooked up to a monitor, then another, and another. Two nurses later, they recommended calling in my doctor. He listened for a minute, did an ultrasound and confirmed that sometime between the night of Dec. 23 and the morning of Dec. 24, my precious baby had left us.

Madeline Lucille was delivered at 1:20 p.m. on Christmas Day.

Most of the next couple days were a blur, but vivid images still haunt me. Crying on my mom's shoulder and asking her to call my husband and tell him,
because I couldn't possibly do it. Then seeing the look on his face when I told him we'd have to plan her funeral. Then silence in the room after she was
delivered and the cold feeling of her face against mine as I kissed her one last time.

I had so much support from my family and friends in the time following Madeline's death. My sister, who lives in Atlanta, took vacation and spent a
couple weeks with us. People were always calling to see how we were doing, and, invariably, everyone said the same thing, "I don't know what to say to you."

I knew no one who had gone through a stillbirth, or so I thought. At Madeline's funeral, my cousin's wife told me she knew how I felt because she'd once sat in the same chair I was in. Then the stories flowed in from everywhere. A friend's cousin had a stillbirth, a coworker's wife, a business contact's wife. It
seemed then that everyone I knew had been touched by the tragedy of losing a baby so near its due date.

Everyone knows about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In 2001, there were 2,181 SIDS deaths reported in the U.S. That same year, 26,000 stillbirths, or Sudden Antenatal Deaths, were reported, according to stillnomore.org. Technically, a stillbirth is the death of a baby in its mother's womb after 20 weeks
gestation. Prior to 20 weeks, it's considered a miscarriage.

Currently, there is no significant government-supported research into stillbirths at any level. The March of Dimes, a leading charitable research organization that claims to combat birth defects, doesn't even consider stillbirth as a birth defect.

What's worse is the fact that some hospitals don't even offer grief support for mothers who've suffered a stillbirth. I was offered no pamphlets on how to cope and no list of support groups from the hospital where Madeline was delivered. My physicians and nurses were wonderful in aiding us, but they can't offer the support that a mother who's been there can.

I have not recovered from losing my second baby. Most days are fine and normal, but sometimes I just lose myself in her memory. It is in those times that I
feel such a strong desire to help other women suffering as I am.

I read the obituaries now looking for newborn babies, and I pray for their families. I desperately want to reach out to these women as my cousin's wife
reached out to me. To say, "Hey, you're not alone in this." Instead of calling up each mother I see – and there have been several just in the six months since
Madeline's death – I hoped maybe reading my story might spawn others to action. Or, at least, bring comfort to those mothers who feel so alone in their grief.

I can be reached at (573) 760-3968, or missvil@yahoo.com.

Laura Villmer is a sports writer for the Jefferson County Journals. She is a resident of Washington County.