The headstone shows Joshua Bush died far too young. He lived a mere five days.

James McGrew never lived outside his mother's womb, but the grief felt by his parents, Brian and Tanya McGrew of Belleville, is just as painful and real as that of anyone who has lost a family member.

Parents who lose their babies mourn them as though they had known and loved them for years, said infant loss grief counselor and chaplain Jean Hannes. The grief they feel isn't changed by the amount of time they knew, saw or held their child. It was still a child they loved and wanted.

"You lose more than a child, you lose all of your hopes and dreams for that child," Joshua's mother Valerie Bush said. "I have good days and bad days, and sometimes it just hits me that I'll never see my son again. There is a void there now."

Such a brief time

Joshua died April 6 and was the first, and only, child of Valerie and John Bush of Swansea. He suffered a variety of complications and brain damage after an emergency Caesarian section and died five days later. His breathing tube was removed on the advice of doctors.

"We were with him, and John held him when the tube was removed," Valerie Bush said. "We were there for him when he passed away."

The Bushes enjoyed their son's short life as best they could. They held him, bathed him, fed him and encouraged family members to get to know him before he died.

"To be able to spend time with him made it real for them," Valerie Bush said. "It isn't just our memories of Joshua; they have memories of him, too."

The couple wants another child, but she is afraid. She is worried about getting pregnant again.

"I have such a hard time seeing babies and pregnant women," she said. "It's so hard. My arms sometimes physically ache for my baby...."

James McGrew died when his mother was about 22 weeks pregnant. A routine ultrasound in September 2002 couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. Doctors induced labor and after several hours, James' 9-ounce, 9-inch-long body was delivered into Tanya McGrew's hands.

Before the 20th week of pregnancy, death of a baby is called a miscarriage. After the 20th week, death is considered a stillbirth.

Each year in the U.S., about 25,000 babies -- 68 babies every day -- are stillborn. That is about one stillbirth in every 115 births. Over half of stillbirths have no known cause. Some may be related to genetic problems, placenta complications, umbilical cord problems or maternal illness.

"We were the only ones who ever got to hold him," McGrew said. The couple's two-year old son, Clayton, knows he has a younger brother, and he visits James' grave with his parents. He says "hi" to his brother when they visit.

They have a memento box from the hospital. It contains a photograph of James, the ankle bracelet he would have worn, a crib card, newborn clothes and a blanket that would have been used had he lived. A card is inked with his tiny footprints and handprints.

McGrew is now eight months into what has been an emotionally difficult pregnancy after losing James last year.

She was terrified to have an ultrasound.

"I was just waiting to see the heartbeat," she said. "That's all I cared about, seeing that heartbeat."

When she first discovered she was pregnant, she didn't feel the excitement many women experience. Instead, she felt fear and a little regret.

"I felt bad, like I wasn't honoring James," she said. "This baby doesn't take his place. At first, it was really hard to bond with this baby because I was worried I would lose this one, too."

Sharing the pain

Years ago, miscarriage was something no one talked about.

Stillborn and miscarried babies immediately were taken away to the morgue. Parents didn't get to see, hold or name their babies, and the deaths weren't acknowledged. More recently, the babies are recognized and funerals are planned or bodies cremated and memorials held.

McGrew never had the chance to hold James. When he was buried, she wrapped his tiny body in a baby blanket.

"That was the only motherly thing I ever got to do for him," she said.

October is SIDS and Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Many organizations now exist to provide group support for parents who have lost a child, either before birth or shortly after birth. In Belleville, SHARE Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support Inc. meets at St. Elizabeth's Hospital and offers a place for grieving parents to talk and share feelings, fears, emotions and memories. Scrapbooks containing photos and mementos from the births and deaths of their children are shared.

"These babies are real," said Jean Hannes, a chaplain for the group. "You may not have seen them, there may be no picture of the baby, but this baby is loved and wanted. My goal is to bring people together who have had similar losses. It is normal grieve and to be counting the birth and death anniversaries. Society may not accept grief over the death of a newborn or a baby who died before birth, but it is normal to grieve.

McGrew said the group has helped her and her husband, Brian, grieve for James.

"It has helped so much to hear everybody else's stories," she said. "They love their baby as much as I love mine and I'm not alone in my feelings and grief."

People all grieve differently. Typically, people grieve the loss of a child for 18 months to two years.

"They come together and talk. They give each other hope," Hannes said.

Women mourn the loss of a baby emotionally and physically. Their bodies must recover from the pregnancy, C-sections must heal, and if the baby was born full-term and died after birth, breast milk develops. Some mothers fear they are going crazy because they dream about their babies, hear them crying in the middle of the night or feel their arms ache to hold them.

Attachment to the baby is different for fathers.

Men grieve emotionally and often experience regret over the hopes and dreams they had for their child: missing the first day of school, birthday parties, playing ball, learning to drive and missed holidays. After the death of a child, a man can experience an array of feelings ranging from relief to intense grief, while struggling to contain emotions in an effort to stay strong for his partner.

"I've lost a parent," John Bush said. "The stages of grief for losing a child are very different. Parents aren't supposed to bury their children. Children bury their parents."

Brian McGrew agreed.

"It's hard for husbands," he said. "What do we do? What can we do? You just have to be there for her. You have to be a listening ear for her. I tried to do everything for her, but I couldn't. I couldn't do everything for her."

After they lost James, Brian McGrew got angry. He is still angry. He is angry he lost his son. He is angry when he hears about parents leaving babies in Dumpsters, babies born addicted to drugs or parents who abuse and abandon their children.

"How can people do that to their children?" he said. "We wanted James, and he was taken from us. These people have children and they don't realize how lucky they are."

A private grief

Parents said the reactions they received from others after their babies died surprised them. Whether the baby died by miscarriage, stillbirth or shortly after birth, the parents were faced with people who didn't want to talk about their loss or, worse yet, told them they could always have another baby.

"People don't acknowledge these as real significant losses, particularly when it is a really early miscarriage." Hannes said. "People are made very uncomfortable by our pain and grief, and they discount it. But people are getting more educated that it is OK to grieve, that you can't just get over it and move on. There is often no public recognition that they've lost someone. There is no permission to grieve because there are often no funerals or gathering of family. It is important to help these families find a way to grieve and remember the life they have lost in a society where we are told to forget."

Lora and Peter Cronin of Belleville lost their daughter, Emily on April 5 when Lora Cronin was 20 weeks pregnant. Doctors determined Emily had died when they couldn't find a heartbeat during an ultrasound. Labor was induced and Cronin delivered the 7-ounce body of her daughter. Emily was cremated, and the couple keeps her remains in a little pink urn.

"People just don't understand," Cronin said. "Their response was 'Oh, she just miscarried.' I tell them, 'No, I didn't. I was in a labor and I had a baby.' I've actually had people say 'You named her?' Well, yeah, we named her. She's a baby. We show them pictures of a fully-formed baby and then they say, 'Wow, she is a baby.'"

Cronin has learned to hate the word miscarriage.

"That was the hardest part, it wasn't real to other people," she said. "In our mind she was a baby that we loved and wanted. To other people, she was just a miscarriage."

Sabrina Hughes' son was born at 21 weeks weighing 1 pound, 4 ounces. Most babies delivered before 25 weeks gestation are not expected to live, and life-saving measures usually are not taken. Ian Hughes defied the odds and lived for three weeks on life support. He died shortly after suffering a cardiac arrest. Hughes took him off the ventilator and held him for the first time. He died in her arms.

"My family told me to get over it," said Hughes, of Smithton said. "They want to run away from it and not talk about it. We need to talk about it. We want to talk about our children."

The other parents agreed.

"People try to change the subject or get really uncomfortable," Valerie Bush said. "There are a lot of people who don't want to talk about it, but I need to talk about it. I need to know that Joshua is remembered."