New Blogs Submitted This Week

A warm welcome to the following Bloggers:

1. Surviving My Loss
2. Knocked Up...Knocked Down (Still Standing after Multiple Miscarriages)
3. Thalia's fertility journey
4. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A MOODY PERSON
5. thomas woz 'ere
6. LifeCanBeAShit
7. The Impatient Patient

Action Medical Research News Release

New monitor to make pregnancy safer

A novel device for monitoring fetal heart rate will soon be reaching the unborn babies who need it most. It's the product of over fifteen years of pioneering work, supported by Action Medical Research, and will give doctors a unique insight into that is going on inside the womb. (continue)

Friday Blog Roundup - Why?

In those moments when I can't bear to be strong - when I just need to be honest and feel sad, scared and helpless - I let myself wonder why life dealt me the hand it did. I wonder, why us? Why did we lose our son? Why did I have two miscarriages before him? Why can't I get pregnant now? Why? Why? WHY?

Sometimes it feels like the most logical thing to do is stand on a mountaintop and scream obscenities into the wind, tear out my hair in great angry clumps and pound my fists into the ground. But instead, I simply carry on.

We all just carry on, living lives that are unspeakably difficult in so many ways, and being unable to answer that one simple question - why?.

Everyone has sorrow. Everyone suffers. Everyone struggles. But not like this. Losing babies is a special kind of hell. And it makes so many things so very, very difficult. It makes us work harder than we ever thought we could - until we're so tired we can barely see straight.

This week Caro, who has had two miscarriages, talks about a friend who asked her if she thought her husband would leave her because of their losses. Just asked it outright. Later in the week that same friend announced she was 15 weeks pregnant. Caro went home to cry.

Were it not for Caro's struggle - for the sorrow in her heart that she feels every moment of every day - the friend would never have questioned her marriage. And a pregnancy announcement wouldn't have made her cry.

Why?

Rosepetal, who lost her darling boy less than a year ago, is now facing the possibility of having to terminate her pregnancy at 17 weeks. They're in the midst of the agonizing wait for amnio results, and in the meantime they're trying to schedule life around the possibility of losing a second child. They're trying to figure out if they can get an oil change or if they'll need to be at the hospital that day instead.

The incomprehensible horror of this is beyond words.

Why?

In a heartbreaking post about fear, Mother in Mourning talks about what it was like being pregnant again after losing her daughter, Isabel. She was riddled with fear - fear that lasted long after her healthy baby boy was born safe and sound.

"I thanked God for allowing me to see him healthy and crying and I just knew he wouldn't make it through the night. When morning came and he was still fine I felt like I had just won the lottery. Now not only do I get to have him one more day but I didn't have to be whisked away and hidden from all the others new mothers so I didn't have to hear their babies cry. Again.

For about the first year of his life I just knew that every sound was him choking, every sigh his last breath and every goodnight kiss a final farewell."

As she says, it's never over, it's just better.

Why?

Why should any of us have to suffer like this? Why can't it be easy, as this waiting mother laments?

Why?

I don't know. I will never know. And for the rest of my life I will have days that I wish I could find that perfect mountaintop from which to vent my rage at the ungodly unfairness of it all.

But I do know this - we are stronger than we think, my friends. Stronger than the sorrow and anger and pain that makes our lives so different than we wanted - so different than we ever dreamed. And so very, very difficult.

The question may plague us until the day we die, but we have already proven - in so many ways - that somehow we can live without the answer.

MISS Foundation-Missing Angels Bill PSA

BBC News: 'I felt utterly devastated'

A report has revealed over one in 200 pregnancies ends in a stillbirth, a figure which has remained unchanged since the early 1990s.

Carolyn Bray's daughter Rebecca was stillborn in 2002.

She says: "It was my second pregnancy. I already had a son who was four at the time.

"I was full-term, just over 38 weeks pregnant, and I'd had a trouble-free pregnancy. (continue)

Thinking Bloggers

On behalf of all the contributors, I would like to thank Aurelia Cotta for nominating us for a Thinking Blogger Award. Because there are so many great Bloggers listed here, I would like to nominate a few people who I feel are representative of the depth and breadth of experiences we are sharing here.

~ delphi


Here are the rules:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

1. Beka over at Hanna's Prayer. Beka is open in discussing how her Christian faith is helping her deal with infertility and loss.
2. Cecily over at And I Wasted All That Birth Control. Her insights into the recent US Supreme Court ruling on abortion are definately worth reading.
3. Erin at Vegetarian Mom. Erin has been sharing beautiful photography of her beautiful baby Birdie and her emotional struggles are she begins the heart-wrenching path of her grief journey.
4. Lori at Losses and Gains. Lori shares with us the beautiful journey of parenting living children while mourning for her missing children.
5. Drummer and DrummerWife at baby on your six. For sharing their beautiful son with us as they blog as a father and mother team.

In Turnabout, Infant Deaths Climb in South

HOLLANDALE, Miss. - For decades, Mississippi and neighboring states with large black populations and expanses of enduring poverty made steady progress in reducing infant death. But, in what health experts call an ominous portent, progress has stalled and in recent years the death rate has risen in Mississippi and several other states. (continue)

New Virus Found in Stillborn Babies

OAKLAND, CA -- A new virus discovered in rodents may cause stillbirths and other diseases in humans, according to a report recently released by the science journal Birth Defects Research. (continue)

Listen to Concieve On Air

Many women struggle to conceive a subsequent pregnancy after loss. For conception related broadcasts, go to Conceive On Air, a Conceive Magazine production.

Friday blog roundup coming soon, but in the meantime...

It's a half an hour until Saturday and I haven't been around all day to write the Friday blog roundup. I will (it'll just be a day late, and I'm truly so sorry for the delay) but in the meantime, I thought we could all ponder something together...

Healing is different for everyone who grieves. The process I mean, and what you do to help yourself find the comfort, support, and validation you need to take those tiny steps forward into your new life as a grieving parent. Some people join support groups, some read books on loss, some seek counseling, some rely on friends, some volunteer, others write, knit, sing and craft their pain into something tangible that can be touched, heard or seen.

What did you do? What do you do? What has helped you find solace, peace or the strength you need to get out of bed each morning and function in a world that's so new, so difficult and sometimes so very sad?

Reading about the way you have chosen to confront and live with your pain may be just what another mother or father desperately needs to hear. So if you can, please tell us what has helped you survive your loss. If you have website or book references please include those too.

There really is strength in numbers.

New Blogs Submitted This Week

A warm welcome to the following Bloggers:

• The Journey From Here
• Karaoke Diva
• third time lucky?
• Infertility...I Wish I Could Quit You
• Diary of a Miscarriage
• I won't fear love

California: Certificates wanted for stillborn babies

Abel Maldonado is backing a proposal to issue special documents to parents

By Bob Cuddy

For Sunita and Jason Olazabal, the pregnancy had been “beautiful,” as Jason puts it. Thirty-eight weeks with no problems. But two weeks before the due date last year, the couple went in for a routine checkup. The doctor could not find a fetal heartbeat. The parents-tobe saw a second doctor: still no heartbeat. Doctors induced labor, and 24 hours later Soraya Carolina Olazabal was born— not breathing.

Thus, the Olazabals joined the 3,000 other California families each year who give birth to a stillborn child. There are 39,000 stillbirths annually nationwide — one in every 100 births. Until now, such parents have been issued a death certificate. But a nationwide movement to recognize their pain as well as acknowledge the child has reached the California Legislature, after prevailing in 18 states. However, it has become caught up in the politics of abortion.

The proposal is Senate Bill 850, known as the Missing Angels Act. It would allow parents whose children were stillborn to receive a “certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth.”The bill passed the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday after hours of negotiation. It would allow families to receive a “certificate of still birth.” The bill is expected to move forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee later this month.

Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, a chief sponsor, says he decided to carry the bill after hearing stories of women who have been affected. And as the father of four children, he says he understands how painful it would be to lose a pregnancy.

The bill’s proponents say it helps comfort the parents who are devastated by the loss of their child. Jason Olazabal, whose child was stillborn Nov. 3, says it is a shattering experience. Having nothing left but a death certificate is a bleak outcome, he says.

Recovering from the stillbirth, he says five months after the experience, is still “moment to moment.When we left the hospital, it was very tough. Early on, it was very somber; now the days are better.”

“Her life, as short as it was, was real,” he says of his child.Though waning, grief can be triggered unexpectedly, he says. “Walking down the street and seeing a baby carriage can trigger it,” he says. Going to a Dodgers game this spring brought up memories from a year ago, when he and his wife had planned to attend a game this year with their new baby, clad in pink.

The certificate won’t bring back their child, but it will acknowledge the child’s existence, he says. “It’s a little something else.” Therein, opponents say, lies the potential problem. “We want to be compassionate, and we totally empathize with women who have experienced this,” says Ana Sandoval, with the Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. “But any time you’re dealing with vital statistics, there can be unintended consequences.”

Opponents fear that the bill has the potential to change the legal definition of when a fetus becomes a person, which could lead to limits on a woman’s reproductive rights. Sandoval’s organization is working with Maldonado and other legislators to bridge this gap.To the Olazabals, the political discussion is academic. To them, this is about the pain of having a stillborn child. They have formed a support group in Santa Monica where they live, and have found other parents who have gone through the same heartbreak.

After Wednesday’s committee vote, Maldonado said in a written statement he was “frustrated that we had to concede to opposing groups so much.”

Staff writer AnnMarie Cornejo contributed to this report.

Friday Blog Roundup - Beauty

They would never admit it, but I imagine those on the outside of this sad little world sometimes find the things we say and do - the things we need to say and do - very strange indeed.

But it all seems so normal to me now that I barely notice that my life is very different than it once was. In fact I need to immerse myself in this world every so often simply because it feels so normal to me now. This place, and the blogs of other mothers and fathers who have lost their children, make me feel like a regular person in a world that doesn't often get me anymore.

And what makes me feel so buoyed - and what keeps me coming back - is that despite the undeniable agony emanating from the blogs listed to the right of this entry, there is so much beauty in them too.

Beauty in simple, ordinary things that aren't ordinary at all to people who haven't been touched by the greatest kind of loss imaginable.

There's Samantha over at Pieces Of Me who lovingly ponders what her little Makenzie would have looked like in her Easter dress this past weekend, her thick hair held back by a matching barrette, her eyes wide with wonder. Samantha calls these moments lost milesones, a heart-wrenching term that describes all the special moments we believed we'd have with our children, but somehow don't. It's agonizing to ponder these lost milestones, but it's also just something we do. It's a way to stay connected and to remember. Even though it hurts.

Easter was on the mind of Wannabe Mom this week too. She and her husband took two sweet little Easter basket full of treats to the cemetery for Cerina and Nadia. What might seem morbid to those on the outside is so very, very normal to us. And tender and sweet. Cerina and Nadia are part of this family and always will be. Finding ways to make them part of holidays and celebrations and special days shows the strength of the bond we have with our lost little ones. And being allowed to witness these little moments of intimacy and affection is unbelievably heart-warming and healing.

Kate is knitting for her unborn twins. The urge suddenly struck her and she bought some delicious yarn to make them each an outfit. As she says, "...if i can get off my duff and make them, the babies will have cashmere-and-silk coming-home outfits. Well, we'll call them that anyway. I mean, even if they die they need something to wear, right?". This struck me as sad and hopeful and beautiful all at the same time. It's sad that she has to wonder exactly how those little outfits will be used, but the love and hope - despite the sorrow of losing a son four years ago - that's fueling her desire to knit is so very life-affirming. And just so wonderful.

And speaking of love, reading love letters to a child from his mommy is one of the most powerful ways to witness it in action. In her Week 45 letter to Aaron, this mom demonstrates, in an intimate and tender way, that it's possible to forge a relationship with a child who is gone. Love doesn't die. Our children aren't forgotten. There is mother-child love that lives on despite the separation of death. There just is, even if people don't understand that or the way we deal with it. It's there just the same. And it's more beautiful than anything on earth.

Things are undeniably different after you've suffered the loss of a child, but if you look closely, you'll see that there is still a wellspring of beauty in the lives of those in mourning. There is sorrow and despair and anger and helplessness too, of course. But by some miracle there is also love and beauty - and people willing to let us see it each and every day.

Update: MISS Foundation

ABC's Carey Pena did a wonderful creative story on the MISS Foundation and the MISSing Angels Bill. It was poignant, moving, and authentic.

http://www.azfamily.com/video/localnews-index.html?nvid=135379&shu=1

San Fransisco Chronicle: Wrenching politics surround stillborns

Bereft moms want birth papers, but abortion complicates issue

Cherie Golant has three photos of her daughter Julia at birth. She has a lock of Julia's newborn hair, thick and dark. She has Julia's handprints, footprints and hospital wristbands.

She also has memories of 30 hours of grueling labor -- but no official record of Julia's birth.(continue)

Updates for the New Mexico MISSing Angels Bill

To find updates or to contact the initiators of the New Mexico MISSing Angels Bill, visit their blog at http://nmmissingangels.blogspot.com.

Press Release from the National Stillbirth Society and MISS Foundation

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson Stuns Tens-of Thousands of Bereaved Parents and Vetoes the MISSing Angels Bill

Parents nationwide outraged at indifference and ignorance!

Albuquerque, NM. (April 7, 2007)--- Just last month, the New Mexico MISSing Angels Bill (SB17), passed the New Mexico legislature with unanimous, bipartisan support. Yet, today, April 7, 2007, presidential hopeful and Governor Bill Richardson vetoed this important piece of legislation, making New Mexico the first of nearly 30 states to reject the will of its citizens and legislators regarding the way in which the birth of a stillborn baby is recognized and recorded.

The MISSing Angels Bill (SB17) was created to help provide much-needed comfort, dignity, and legal documentation to women and their families experiencing the death of a baby just prior to or during birth. Currently, New Mexico law requires reporting of stillbirth/fetal deaths and demands that families pay funeral costs for their deceased baby, yet provides no acknowledgement that the baby was born. “It’s an unthinkable tragedy,” says Carin Dhouadi, New Mexico resident and constituent. “I gave birth to a full term baby who died, and the state says I must bury her. But they won’t say she was born? How can you die if you never were?”

Joanne Cacciatore, CEO of the MISS Foundation and a PhD Candidate who studies stillbirth, passed the first bill in Arizona in 2001, and has worked to pass it in other states since. She says that families around the nation are outraged at Richardson’s move. “Richardson has just flippantly driven a stake through the heart of this legislation that addresses the ultimate woman’s issue…Women give birth. And their babies- about one in 100- are dying as a result of stillbirth. He’s perpetuating the ignorance,” she says.

The change might not seem significant to many. However, to those who have experienced the anguish of losing a baby – SB17 is an important step in allowing grieving parents the same respect given to the woman leaving the hospital with a healthy infant in her arms. “This bill had support from everyone, including pro-choice legislators like Representatives Gail Chasey and Mimi Stewart, who understand this as an important woman’s issue,” said Halo Golden, volunteer lobbyist for the NM bill and the mother of a stillborn baby. Richard Olsen of the National Stillbirth Society believes that this move was ‘political pandering’, stating that the “governor’s veto is an insensitive act that marginalizes women and ignores the interests of his own constituents in favor of his presidential aspirations.”

Cacciatore agrees, saying, “Richardson just vetoed a critical woman’s issue, for no sound reason, and with unilateral authority…Is this the type of person we can trust to represent women’s interests across America? Richardson won’t get the votes of hundreds of thousands of our grieving parents across the country…The vetoing of this bill is a ham handed misjudgment on the governor’s part.”

“He clearly doesn’t understand this bill, and didn’t take the time to inform himself. It’s shameful. He’s slapped grieving mothers and father in the face, not just in New Mexico, but across the country,” says Daryl Logullo, National Legislative Liaison for the MISS Foundation. “He owes them, and the people of the state, an immediate apology and a commitment to this important law that parents dearly want.”

Approximately 30,000 babies are stillborn each year in the United States. The cause of death for more than half the number of full-term (40-week) stillbirths is unknown, even after autopsy.

The MISS Foundation and the National Stillbirth Society are getting ready to launch an awareness campaign targeted at educating the governor so he wholly understands the issue. The organizations are also calling for the governor to request a special session to address it and issue an apology to bereaved parents whose babies were stillborn. For more information on the MISSing Angels Bill visit http://www.missingangelsbill.org/ or http://www.missfoundation.org/.

Please email and call Governor Bill Richardson and express your feelings!http://www.governor.state.nm.us/emailchoice.php?mm=6
http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/page/s/contact

Tell him he will NOT get your vote!

Then call his office (505) 476-2200 and tell him he's offended bereaved women and men and children across the nation. Tell him we stand against him until he calls a special session to sign this bill!

**UPDATE: Some members have reported not being able to get through on the number in the earlier notice. Try 505-982-2291. - Richard Olsen, National Stillbirth Society***

Friday Blog Roundup - Scars

I've been kind of obsessed with scars lately, both physical and emotional. I had laparoscopic surgery last week and I was quite shocked by the intensity of the repressed fears about hospitals, doctors and surgery that surfaced in the days leading up to the procedure. Fears that I clearly haven't dealt with since our son died. And afterwards, well, there were the new physical scars to deal with.

So I've been thinking about scars. A lot.

They're badges of honor - reminders of the physically painful events we have endured and survived. You can point to a scar and let it tell your remarkable story of hurt, healing and survival.

But those same proud marks can also be very painful reminders of a devastating event, like the sudden loss of a child born via c-section. Seeing the scar that marks your child's entrance into a world she didn't live to see is difficult. Touching the tiny sliver of a line that was your body's last contact with your child is devastating.

And sometimes strangely beautiful too. HE WAS HERE, it seems to say. And when there is no proof left but that scar, it can be a very beautiful reminder indeed.

Emotional scars are an even greater mystery. They are lonely scars, visible only to you. A month after a miscarriage you might look perfectly composed. You might function the way you used to - the way people expect you to. But on the inside, the wound in your heart is still open and raw. And no one can tell. It's the loneliest feeling in the world.

Everyone who has lost a child through miscarriage, stillbirth or perinatal death has scars. Blogging is one way to deal with them - to exorcise the demons - as is evident from the posts I read this week.

In a beautiful and heartbreaking entry by Vegetarian Mom, she shows pictures of her scar running in a large arc from the top of her tummy to the bottom. She shows them because she has to - because it connects her to her darling Birdie and because she has found a way to see the beauty in it.

It might be hard for some of you to see, I understand. But I feel I need to share this, after all it is where our Birdie was born from, it is a hard scar of a woman to have but it is also a reminder of the birth of our babies and so it somehow transforms and becomes beautiful. It is still very hard for me to look in the mirror and see my scar, it's still so recent. At the same time when I run my fingers over it I am connected to Birdie.

Niobe also wrote an evocative post about her c-section scar this week. She cringes at it - at the fact that is seems to smile at her. Right now it seems that there is no beauty in it for her, and maybe there never will be. This kind of loss is sorrow at its most devastating and raw. It is what it is. You feel what you feel. It's never wrong.

The scar from my c-section curves between my hip bones, pinkish, raised, and slightly off-center. Though, for the most part, I try to ignore it, occasionally I look down and cringe. It will fade, with time, to a thin pale line, a permanent memento of loss and failure. But what bothers me most is that it has the shape of a smile.

Michelle is pregnant again after the loss of her second daughter, but her scars still linger. A subsequent pregnancy doesn't erase the sorrow - it isn't a magic salve that heals the pain of losing a much loved and wanted child, even though people who don't understand might think it is - or should be.

In fact, a new pregnancy brings with it fears and challenges that we never had before, as Michelle is discovering...

I accidentally found myself looking at crib bedding yesterday and found the most adorable crib set that has sock monkeys on it. I totally love it. I cannot buy it.

Rosepetal knows this all too well too...

I can't bring myself to type (or say) b-a-b-y instead of foetus. I'm experiencing all the head vs heart stuff again. I know with my head that this foetus has no baggage to bring into the world, that s/he is not responsible for what happened in the past, that s/he is not Moksha.

It still doesn't mean that I'm spending more time thinking about what's actually happening, nor entertaining any possibility that this could end in a live baby. As I told the OB, the concept of a pregnancy of mine ending in a live baby has become completely alien to me.

Scars are markers of a moment when life changed irreversibly and when we changed with it. Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is that they never fully heal. By virtue of what they are, they are just always there - even if no one else but you can see them. They fade, soften and change along with our bodies and minds, but they are always there.

Both a blessing and a curse.

Email Recieved from Cailin’s Memories website

Cailin’s Memories is a not for profit, 501©3 tax-exempt corporation founded for the purpose of helping families who have lost their babies from miscarriage, prematurity, stillbirth, birth defects, or SIDS. We also will attempt to help and support families experiencing infertility. Our organization supplies hospitals education and resources to care for these families through our memory box/packet program.

Due to the nature of the types of babies that we care for, we have created two types of memorabilia for our families a memory box or a miscarriage packet. Both have been devised to validate the life of their child. Many of the items are in both the box and the packet because these items are tools for life after the loss of their little one. Some items included are: a poem journal with a book mark; Cailin’s Candle, a remembrance candle; a silk flower; a pregnancy and infant loss awareness support ribbon; a forget-me-not seed packet and an angel bear.

With the start and opening of our venture we dedicate this lifework to all babies and the importance of them in the family unit. All babies will be honored with our work; whether they are born alive or not; if they are born 5 weeks into a pregnancy or 40; if they live for 5 minutes in NICU or 5 months at home; weather they are born perfect or imperfect…

We concentrate mainly on our lost babies since this area in particularly is lacking in our society today. We will do our best to raise the awareness of our plight and to show the world that our babies deserve the same respect and honor as any other baby--and in fact we will accept no less. This starts with our memory making of our babies, thus validating there short lives. It continues with our remembrances of them and the honoring of them through special rituals. It is ongoing for the families lifetime in the respect of their wishes by the rest of society.

Mission Statement: Cailins Memories provides support to families experiencing perinatal loss. ‘Perinatal’ defined as preconception through the first year of life.

Our Vision: We will strive to reach the broadest population possible to improve and maintain optimal emotional and spiritual health and well being. We support families experiencing infertility, losses as experienced through the adoption process, all pregnancy related losses and infants born postnatal through other processes such as SIDS.

Our Values: The way Cailin's Memories will provide support is three-fold:

1. The physical making of memories via the 'memory box program' provided to bereaved families. We make physical momentoes of lost babies by way of picture taking, foot and hand printing, foot and hand molding, etc. All momentoes are wrapped in a 'Memory Box' for families to keep forever.

2. We will provide education to families via handouts, support information (list of groups, websites, etc.). We also provide education to doctors groups, hospital staff, and any ancillary staff caring for families experiencing a loss via inservices, conferences, and 24 hour available help.

3. Community advocacy and awareness will also be obtained through the above activities. We will also pioneer new campaigns to promote our mission.

Our organization is currently in 10 area hospitals, serving 13 different nursing floors.

Please feel free to contact us through our website http://www.cailinsmemories.org/ and please pass along the word about who we are.

Thank you for your time.

Jean Rowe RN and Lesley Gorny-Hornbeck RN
Founders of Cailin's Memories, Inc

Stillbirth Article: Sacramento Bee

Honoring a life and loss

Sacramento Bee Columnist (Sacramento, California)
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, April 4, 2007


When a child is stillborn, parents are left devastated, but in California, they depart the maternity ward with nothing but a death certificate.

"The government recognizes the death of our son," says Sari Edber, 27, who lives in Los Angeles. "And the government mandates final disposition of the remains.

"I want them to recognize that my son was born. He was real. It would be easy to forget."
In 17 other states, bereaved parents can choose to receive a certificate acknowledging the stillbirth. But not in California -- not yet.

Edber and other members of the Mothers in Sympathy and Support (MISS) Foundation, a group dedicated to aiding families after the death of a child, are determined to change that.

"I wish you could've sat in on some of the meetings we had with these women," says state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, who's introducing legislation to give grieving California parents the option of being issued a "Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth.""When they bring out their albums of pictures, with their hands holding their baby's tiny hand -- my Lord. It's just hard."

Stillbirth occurs an estimated 3,300 times each year in California -- across the country, up to 39,000 times. That's a surprising statistic in a country more accustomed to assuming that every wanted pregnancy has a happy outcome.

"I have four children," says Maldonado. "To see what these women have gone through is hard. They had a baby. They went through the whole process."

And they were left crushed by the loss.

When I wrote in January about a young woman named Catriona Harris -- whose son, Brady, was stillborn and who gave birth to a second child, a daughter named Reilly, last summer -- I heard from dozens of people whose lives, too, had been touched by stillbirth.

One was a man whose first child was stillborn in 1971. The hurt, it seems, never really vanishes, even when healthy babies come along later.

Sari Edber's son, Jacob, was stillborn July 20, 2006.

"He had my nose and my husband's features," says Edber, a teacher and volunteer lobbyist for MISS. "He was a perfect combination of us. He was our firstborn.

"Jacob's a part of our family. We'll have other children, but he'll always be their big brother."
In states where the certificate of stillbirth is already available, more than 70 percent of eligible parents elect to receive it, says Maldonado.

With the "MISSing Angels" bill, he says, "I don't want to say it will provide closure. These parents will never have closure. But there should be a recognition."

A validation, if you will, of their babies' brief existence.

Stillbirth is defined as unintentional fetal death after 20 weeks or more of gestation. The bill specifies that the new certificates aren't meant as proof of life.

"This isn't a pro-life, pro-choice issue," says Maldonado. "It's a personal issue that's important to women who've gone through this."As common as stillbirth is -- affecting as many as one in 100 American pregnancies -- it's amazing that we don't talk about it more. Maybe we'd rather not think about it. But some people don't have a choice."I could talk for hours about why this bill is important," says Edber. "This bill recognizes the fact that I had a son. I gave birth. He was born. He existed."

Under the bill's provisions, California parents who choose the certificate would pay a fee for it.
Catriona Harris would like one.

"Absolutely, it's something I'd want," says Harris, 28, a public relations executive who grew up in Folsom and now lives in Florida. "It's another way of saying our child had a life, even if he only lived inside the womb.

"Right now, we only have one legal document with his name on it. His death certificate."

About the writer:• Anita Creamer's column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in Scene. Reach her at (916) 321-1136 or acreamer@sacbee.com.
Back columns: www.sacbee.com/creamer.

New placenta screening for high-risk pregnancies

Noninvasive tests done early in pregnancy

Toronto, ON (April 2, 2007) -- For the first time ever, a team of Toronto researchers are using a combination of ultrasound and blood tests to screen high-risk pregnant mothers for placental damage. (continue)

People Interview with Reverend Run & Justine

Reverend Run (formerly of rap group Run-DMC) and his wife Justine spoke to People magazine about the loss of their daughter, Victoria Anne. The baby, who had been diagnosed in utero with severe birth defects, died hours after being born via C-section last September.

The March 31 article quotes Justine saying, "[Today] I can talk about it, but if I stop to literally revisit, I start crying so fast because I can go right there. Women need to know you only need to mourn quickly. Don't try to think of [the baby's] eyes. It doesn't sound nice, but it will help them in the long run. I wouldn’t have been able to help my kids get to school in the morning if my husband didn't say, 'We have to keep moving.'"

Reverend Run continues, "Diggy might have taken it the hardest, but I didn't let him. I had him out on the skateboard the first day. Basically we teach our kids thankfulness. We all cry, but not a long period of it. We don't have pictures [of Victoria Anne]. We don't look back. We don't want the walls of our house to start crying, and everything to just crumble around us."

I will refrain from editorializing here, but feel free to add your comments.

R&B Singer Mourns Loss of Baby

R&B artist Tameka "Tiny" Cottle and rapper T.I. sadly lost their baby on March 22. Baby Llayla Amour was born still at 6 months gestation. See CelebrityBabyBlog for more details.