On October 7, 2016 I delivered our baby girl, Alice Huntington Blair, just two weeks before her due date. She was 20" and 7 lbs 1 oz. She was perfectly healthy, but the umbilical cord had wrapped tightly around her neck and ankles depriving her of oxygen and nutrients. I had felt her kicking just two hours before my routine prenatal appointment that day where I was told that her heart had stopped beating. I delivered her later that day. We held Alice over the next two days, saying hello and goodbye. There are no words to describe bringing your lifeless child into the world, it is something no human should have to face.
1 in 160 babies are born stillborn every year in the United States, approximately 26,000 babies. It is a shocking death that is very difficult to wrap your head around. You go from the highest high and what is meant to be the most exciting time in your life to the lowest low. Like most deaths it is difficult to really understand stillbirth until it happens to you. But most people understand the excitement of pregnancy. From the moment you find out that you are pregnant, to the day you find out the sex, the baby shower, telling older siblings, sharing with friends and families to setting up the nursery, it is nine months filled with joy, hope and dreams. When a stillbirth occurs all of these dreams, hopes and plans for the future are instantly ripped away. You are left with nothing. No happy memories to share with friends and family because no one else knew your baby.
The Star Legacy Foundation has been so helpful in the immediate months following Alice's death because it has connected me with other mothers in my area who have experienced a stillbirth. Women who I can speak candidly with about my experience and they truly understand. Beyond the tremendous support network that Star Legacy provides it is most importantly working everyday to provide funds to support ongoing and new research to help save future babies. On April 29th, Lanyon, Stella and I are going to be running (and walking) for our Alice, because we want her to have a legacy beyond just our grief because that is what she and every other baby gone too soon deserves.
Lanyon and I find peace in knowing that Alice only knew love. Because of her we have a new perspective on life. When you realize that you would give everything you own to spend one day with your child you truly understand that all of the material things that fill up so much of our daily thoughts and worries truly don't matter. Live every moment and love every day because at the end of the day that is all we have and it can all be taken away in a second.
Thank you so much for your support!
Lanyon, Emily, Stella and Alice Blair