On Wednesday April 19th, 2017 Maggie went in for a routine sono to check on our little girl. She was just 29 weeks pregnant and we were counting down the few short weeks we had left. But our world was shattered when they told her they could not find a heartbeat. She called me immediately, I was at a training class for work. I rushed to the hospital to be with her. They admitted Maggie right away and started inducing her. She managed through every bit of pain the best she could, and just over 36 hours later she delivered our precious angel Emma-Méabh on that Friday morning April 21st, silent but beautiful and perfect. We had just agreed on her name the week before. We were angry, tired, sad, and scared but we held our daughter for as long as we could, they took some pictures, and finally we said our goodbyes to leave the hospital without our baby girl and to go home to plan her funeral. We tried for over 5 years after the birth of our son, to conceive more children, dealing with secondary infertility and now we are here still looking for answers to it all. 

What happened to our family is called a stillbirth - and unfortunately, it is much more common than most people realize. Stillbirth (defined as the death of a baby in utero after 20 weeks gestation) claims the lives of 26,000 babies every year in the United States - that's 1 in 160 pregnancies, the equivalent of a school bus full of children dying every single day, and 10 times the number of babies that die of SIDS.

Since our loss, we were able to find and continue working with the Star Legacy Foundation. It is a non-profit organization in the US dedicated to stillbirth research, education, and prevention. We and 50+ other members of the New York Metro Chapter will be taking part in the 5k/walk May 5th.  

Please join us as we remember all the children lost too soon and help us to honor their memory.