February 18, 2015. That was the date. The date where everything was going to change. We would no longer be "just us". We were going to become a family. 

My pregnancy was picture perfect. My appointments consisted of taking my weight, blood pressure and a quick Doppler listen of the baby's heartbeat lasting all of 15 minutes. That was it. Picture perfect. 

I was just shy of 34 weeks, only 6 more weeks till we got to meet our baby boy. I would say to my husband Joe, "that's like only a little over a month!" Because 6 weeks sounded so much longer than a little over a month. Needless to say we were excited. 

January 6, 2016. This is the date. The date everything changed. It was no longer "just us". We became a family. We did become parents, parents to the most perfect little boy named Graham Joseph Van Den Berg. He was a long fella at 19 inches and weighed 5lbs 1oz. He had a full head of hair. The perfect little hands and feet. We just weren't able to take our perfect son home with us. We only had hours to spend with him in the hospital versus the lifetime we had planned for. All the testing came back negative. There was no reason for him not to be coming home with us. Again, he was perfect. 

Stillbirth happens 1 in 160 pregnancies. It occurs 10 times more than SIDS. 10 times more! After Graham’s passing, many people came forward and shared their stories of loss. These were people I worked with, went to school with, people I saw every day. It seemed many people knew of someone who had experience stillbirth. It does happen, it happened to people I knew personally, it happened to us. No one is exempt. The Star Legacy Foundation works to raise funds and awareness surrounding stillbirth. We are walking in memory of our son Graham. We would love it if you would join our team and walk with us or make a donation in Graham's name to support such an important cause.