Parents Of Stillborn Child Celebrate Son's Birthday Every Year

Losing a child is a pain that most, thankfully, will never go through; having to remember their son's first words, their daughter's first steps, and wondering where they would be now.

Some parents, though, are robbed of even the briefest of memories, parents like Andy and Genevieve.

Seven years ago, the happy couple were expecting their first child, a boy, Simon. They had read all the books, painted the bedroom, had the car seat installed, and were just waiting for the day he would enter the world.

One that didn't come.

"A few days before the due date, my wife mentioned she hadn't felt Simon move much lately," Andy, from Arlington, Virginia, tells us.

"We Googled it and read that you should drink a sugary drink and lay on your side. She did, and Simon starts kicking away. 'New-parent fears' alleviated.

"That night, she woke me up - slight contractions had started. We were excited.

"But awhile later she realised she hadn't felt him move in a bit. The sugar-drink-laying-down trick didn't work. Concerned, she called the nurse hotline, and soon they call back: 'That's not normal, so we should probably come in for a check up'.

"We drove the hospital route that we had practice-driven a few times before. We held hands and sang a lullaby we'd been trying to memorise for him.

"I didn't especially note this at the time but in hindsight, I remember walking down this long hallway, and the nurses not making eye contact with us.

"We go to this room where a nurse does a sonogram. Nothing.

"'I'm not too good at this, let me bring in someone better'. Another nurse tries. Nothing."

Then the couple heard the words they had been dreading, 'I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat'.

Andy, 38, says: "I'm not sure I can describe the feeling. Just thinking about it - seven years later- my eyes are tearing up.

"It's just so huge, your brain can't handle it. How is my son dead? How is this happening? It's like your heart's turning to ash; it's like a hole is burnt through you, and you're just falling down into this endless blackness."

At first, Andy thought there must have been a mistake, surely there was something the doctors could do. Anything. But there wasn't.

Genevieve, 41, was then induced into labour, something that should have been a joyous occasion, something they had been looking forward to and preparing for for months.

It hit Andy when he went out to the car to grab the overnight bag.

"Right there in the back, ready to go, was that f***ing car seat," he says.

"This glaring symbol of our arrogance about how everything would turn out; this sign of what we no longer had.

"I unhooked it and put it in the trunk, and I just remember thinking how sad of a sight it must have been watching a grown man, sobbing and cursing, packing up that suddenly unneeded car seat near the maternity ward entrance."

At 2am the following morning, Simon was born. And a photographer from the charity 'Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep' came by to take some pictures of Andy and Genevieve holding their little boy.

"He looked a little bruised, but otherwise just like a full-sized newborn. It's quite possible that if contractions had started two days earlier, he would have been totally fine," Andy said.

"We started navigating uncharted territory. Are you supposed to kiss a dead baby? Is it wrong to take pictures? Looking back, I'm glad we did a lot of things--we did take pictures, we spent time with him, we held him and kissed him.

"And I regret so much about that time, too: we didn't unswaddle him or bathe him, didn't change him into the special outfit we'd brought, didn't take more pictures."

After telling their family the heartbreaking news, Andy and Genevieve then had to organise the funeral.

They were thrown into another world, something alien from the happy family of three they had been expecting.

Andy says: "You daydream about the hospital and the delivery, but nothing prepares you for this experience.

"You prepare for the questions they'd ask: Have you chosen a name? Do you want to do skin-to-skin after the baby's born? Not do you want your son to be cremated? Do you want an autopsy?

"I remember calling a funeral parlor, and choking up several times - 'What's your relationship to the deceased?' I remember being stumped: "Am I parent? Does this count?"

Simon's ashes were so small that Andy and Genevieve were offered an urn usually reserved for cats and dogs, with images of dog treats and collars on the side.

"I think it was actually the first time we laughed since he died--we just laughed out loud," Andy says.

"We walked outside sorta shaking our heads and joking about it, and then just totally broke down sobbing in the parking lot, like a switch had flipped.

"And that was sort of how it was for weeks and months, you feel like a crazy person, because these little things blindside you and just devastate you."

And while it's a tragedy that befalls millions of families every year, 2.6m globally, Andy says stillbirth remains a taboo subject.

"I don't know if this is unique to the US, but one reason why too few people talk about stillbirth is that it's a huge bummer - that's probably the biggest reason. It's a sad thing to think about," he says.

"I don't think one doctor ever mentioned to us that stillbirth was even a remote possibility, and definitely no one talked to us about 'some things to keep in mind if it did happen to you'."

Adding: "It seems to me that the feeling is, 'You can't do much to prevent stillbirth, so better to not worry - or talk - about it'."

So in the aftermath of Simon's death, Andy and Genevieve had to try and piece back together the life they had before. But with no one around them having experienced the pain they were suffering, unable to understand their grief, they were alone. Cut adrift.

Andy says: "One of the hardest parts of this experience is that this isn't like when a parent or grandparent dies. People sort of know what's expected of them, as a friend, in those situations; they sort of have an idea of what to say or do.

"When a child dies, and especially with a stillbirth, most folks just aren't sure what to do.

"And you don't really hear about it in popular culture much, so people don't have many cues to follow to know if they're being helpful or putting their foot in their mouth. So they want to help, but there's just not much guidance out there.

"It's just very isolating, especially after a bit of time passes. The baby bump is gone, and the flowers and letters stop coming. You're still deep in grief, but you look sort of fine.

"I don't blame them, but it's easy to forget about the child who died, and the grief of the parents."

This changed when he and Genevieve found a group called Miscarriage, Infant Death and Stillbirth (MIS), a community of grieving parents.

Andy says: "The best part of the MIS group was that everyone in that room knows what it's like. They know how hard it is. They've been in the business meeting where the client asks in front of everyone, 'So, how many kids do you have?' They know how validating it feels when Grandma lists your kid in the litany of grandchildren names.

"I remember this woman sitting across from us at our first meeting, three weeks after Simon died: She's telling her story and she's sobbing. And then, at the end, she says that it's been six months. And I remember thinking, "Six months! I'm going to be feeling that sad six months from now?!"

"And then one of the facilitators told the story of her son who died 17 years ago, and she was tearing up.

"We started to realise that this isn't something you 'get through' and return back to normal at some point, it changes who you are."

With the help of MIS, Andy and Genevieve, who have since had two more sons, came to realise that yes, they were parents, Simon is their son, and they love him like any other mother and father would.

Andy later joined the the charity's board to give back to parents who had experienced the same trauma they had.

And seven years on, he and Genevieve still mark Simon's birthday, every year.

"At the time of his birth, we lived in a part of DC where a mini baby boom was occurring," Andy says.

"Strollers everywhere, it seemed. And we didn't especially want to be in the house that reminded us so much of him - the nursery, the baby books, the cards and flowers we'd received after he passed.

"So we found a little cabin in the Shenandoah Mountains. And that's become our little tradition on his birthday--we go out to the same cabin each year.

"At first, it was just Genevieve and me. We'd bring the cards we received, his baby book, the journals we wrote. I mean, everything directly connected with Simon was and is precious to us, since he was only here for such a short amount of time.

"But as the years passed, our other children came along. Now, it's still an emotional trip, but the tenor is different. More of a celebration of his memory and what we've learned because he came into our lives. A reminder to appreciate what we have in life."

For those mothers and fathers who may be picking up the pieces of their own lives right now, Andy says it comes down to one thing really.

"There's so much I wish I had known, but I think it boils down to this: know that you are a parent. Any impulse any other parent would have toward their child, it's OK if you have towards yours," he says.

"I wish we took more pictures; I wish we spent more time with him; I wish we unswaddled him and bathed him and dressed him in the coming-home outfit my wife had picked out for him; I wish we had asked for a handprint in plaster or anything physically connected with him that we could take with us.

"Simon is definitely a part of our family story, and we talk about him frequently with our living children. He gets his own little water-colour tree branch on his brother's family-tree school project."

Featured Image Credit: Supplied

Topics: Community