In November 2018, my husband and I decided we were ready to start trying to build our family. We had always talked about having a big family and dreamed of a loud busy house. We found out in December 2018 that I was pregnant with our first baby. We were so excited, but the excitement didn’t have a chance to last long. A week past my first positive pregnancy test, we lost our first baby Jubilee. I was told over and over how common miscarriages were and everyone reassured us that the next time would be different for us. 

The next two pregnancies after Jubilee, I went on to have two more miscarriages. We named them Journee and Jaxlee. After three miscarriages in under a year, I was desperate to find a way to remember our babies and not feel so alone. In my searching on social media, I came upon the Walk of Remembrance. We attended the walk in October 2019, and it was the first time we were able to be surrounded by people who had been through losses similar to ours. The walk helped us feel like our babies lives had purpose and we felt like they were being remembered and celebrated. We loved seeing and hearing their names be read aloud and seeing them on the walk t-shirt gave us something tangible to remember them by. We never thought two years after that first walk we would be attending again with an added name.

In early 2020, we found out we were pregnant again. I remember feeling excited and cautiously optimistic. It was a big relief to have made it past the first trimester, and we discovered we were having a little girl. My pregnancy was easy and uncomplicated. Each visit, we would hear her heartbeat and feel reassured she was doing well. Her nursery was all set, and we were so ready to have our first baby girl in our arms. 

At our scheduled 35-week appointment, on December 22, 2020, we went into the office like normal. The nurse went to find her heartbeat, like we had done many times before, but it was taking longer than normal. We started to get the feeling that something was different, and panic started to set in. After multiple attempts to find her heartbeat, they brought in the ultrasound machine and confirmed that our little girl’s heart was no longer beating. I was 35 weeks 3 days and in complete shock. I thought that since I was so far along, nothing would happen to our little girl. After going through so many losses, I didn’t think it would happen to us again. I believed like many people after the first trimester I was in the safe zone. 

We named our little girl Harper. After Harper’s death, I began trying to find every way possible to remember her and to build memories for her. My goal and I felt purpose as her mother is to give our family and friends different ways to keep her memory alive. When the Walk of Remembrance came around again, we signed up to attend and created a team. We created our team ‘Steps for Harper’ to give us a way to include our family and friends and hopefully use Harper’s story to raise more awareness about the importance of the Count the Kicks purpose. We now look forward to attending this event year after year with our team. We’re grateful and thankful for this event and the opportunity to remember our babies while raising money and awareness to hopefully save other babies. It gives us an opportunity to remember our little ones and be surrounded by other families who have unfortunately walked similar roads.