I read this news story the other day, possibly, you read it too, about a 59 year old man who was illegally video taped having sex with his 50 year old comatose wife in a nursing home – where he thought he had some privacy. Now, my first thought was kind of “um, eww.. she was comatose”.

But, here’s a few more details. They two were married in 1988. The didn’t have any kids. He went to visit her every single day, reading to her from the bible, moving her arms and legs so they wouldn’t atrophy. In thinking a little deeper on this, I almost find it sweet… He loved her so much. I can imagine he talked to her like she could hear him, he read to her like she was listening and he probably loved on her like she was still aware. Whether that’s considered illegal or not, I can see in a way, where he was coming from. We, the general public, the deciders of what’s “normal” and “acceptable” in society don’t have to see it his way, it just is.

In 2000, my husband and I lost a baby. She was stillborn – I knew it when I turned 36 weeks during the pregnancy and she was born about 5 days later. I wrote pretty in-depth about my pregnancy and the birth story at the time. It was my “therapy”. Over the first few years, I edited parts of it out, because even though the majority of the responses I received were positive, and even thankful, a handful were not and I felt so bare and judged. I wish now I’d left it alone. Anyway, the thing is, when we are in a situation that is not the “norm”, we may handle things differently than what you, who has never been in that situation, may handle it. When we lost our baby, it was my husbands first child. We didn’t know her gender… it was so hard. But we did things like dress her, hold her, take pictures… all things that in years to come, we’d have as mementos. We talk about her, we note (but don’t really celebrate) her birthday.

What sparked my thoughts on this today, was first the article about the man and his wife.. but then this morning, an article about Why infants still die from SIDS. It’s unknown. We just don’t know why. We do everything right – like our baby Jordan… no idea why. I equivalate our baby’s stillbirth with SIDS.

People do things during times of stress and heartache, they may not otherwise do or may in other times, think odd or even gross.. but who are we to judge and condemn them until we have been there? And trust me, I’d never wish a person to walk the path of heartache, loss.

Reward Rebel tagged me for Random Facts about me. I didn’t realize until this morning that Connie from Easy Share also tagged me for the same thing! I was double tagged. Wow! I’m terrible with doing these things in a timely manner.. but I think I’m only a week or so late on this one.

1. I gave birth to our oldest son in a kiddie pool, in our living room with just my husband, my mom and the girls here with us – a planned, unassisted homebirth. We video taped the whole thing. We did end up transferring to the hospital after the birth because Tege was slow to start breathing – that is normal for a water birthed baby.

2. The year before our oldest son was born, I was pregnant with my husbands first baby. At 36 weeks pregnant, she died of unknown cause – she was stillborn almost a week later. I can’t even tell you how difficult that time was – I didn’t want to leave my house, even to get the mail for fear someone would ask how things where. Losing a child, at any age is horrible… birth stories … while we don’t talk about it much any more, she is still part of our family. We have a garden dedicated to Jordan.. which this year, the boys will help plant, weed and water.

3. I make soap, though I do sell it, mostly I make it because I love making it. I haven’t used regular store bought soap (or deodorant bars) in about 6 years. I share tutorials and recipes about handmade soap on this site. My favorites are the Oatmeal Milk & Honey (scented, with real goat milk and oatmeal), Lavender (with goat milk, lavender and lavender essential oils), and Yuzu (a crisp, grapefruit scent – Japanese Grapefruit).

4. I love pets. Currently, living in our tiny house we have 3 dogs (Bean, our whippet girlie and oldest; Sky, our adopted Australian Shepherd; Enzo, my italian greyhound boy); I’ve assumed ownership of Olivia, my tiny, sweet Apricot African Pygmy Hedgehog – my little piggy; Not mine – 7 adorable and friendly rats, momma rat is a “dumbo” and the older she gets the sweeter! Oh.. and the cat.. she’s been with us forever; and a 10 gallon fish tank. In the past, I also had a couple of smiling leopard geckos, bunnies, a bird (mustache parakeet) and a multitude of other rats, cats, pooches and fishes.

5. I met my husband through my ex-husband – we were still married. Bad relationship and after too many years (but two lovely girls) we parted ways and he moved in with a friend from work. I had met this friend a few times, but when they moved in together, I started seeing him a bit more. He asked me to see Lyle Lovett in concert and even got permission from my then-to-be ex… one thing led to another and today, we’ve been happily (almost the whole time, ha!) married 11 years.

6. I have Crohn’s Disease. This is a big deal for me because I’ve always been so healthy.. and in the last 2 years, so much has happened. It’s not easy to deal with things like not being able to eat what you want – I’m talking even healthy food, like salad, beans.. so much makes me hurt, or worse, I throw up. Sometimes one of the hardest things being sick, is it’s not always (usually never) apparent to other people. I am sick and I hurt and I may come across crabby.. but it’s *because* I’m sick and I hurt. I sometimes wish for a t-shirt or a sign “Just because I look healthy, doesn’t mean I am”.

7. I can be kind of obsessive about things. Two summers ago, I spent a week digging a hole about 5×7 and 30 inches deep so I could put in a pond. I wanted a natural pond, so it would help wildlife.. after digging with a shovel, having my husband cut the roots with his saws-all, picking just under 1 million rocks and pebbles, I decided I couldn’t afford it and filled the whole thing back in. (Thanks GG, my lovely grandma, for this trait… actually I like the trait and I adore my GG.)

There you go.

I am going to just tag one person:
Marianne – and Marianne, you don’t have to play along.

Invitation to Play:
If anyone else wants to play, leave a comment here to your post (so others can visit, of course) and have fun!

Already done it? That’s ok.. leave your link anyway. I’ll come read your random facts and leave my link too.

Pregnancy and Birth can be an amazing time for a woman. I found myself drawn to stories, images and having many questions about what if. Sharing our birth stories seemed very natural to me, even though things didn’t always go how we’d wished they would. In the end, we’ve been blessed with 4 amazing children, here on earth with us – who continue to inspire, bring awe and smiles to us daily.

Do you have a birth story you’d like us to link to? Please let us know. :)

Unassisted Home Birth – birthed at home, in a pool… just us.
Tege’s home waterbirth – a hospital transport
Unassisted Pregnancy – belly pictures

Hospital Births
Cassie – my first Grandbaby Anna – Labor / Birth Story… in a hospital. Anna has her own website ~ Anna Riley. See Anna Riley flickr set for pics.
Cassie – first birth
Emily – second child – story to come
Ryland – pregnancy – belly pictures
Ryland – hospital birth with midwives.
Ryland – home again

Stillbirth – Our loss Jordan Riley was my husbands first baby.. lost at 36 weeks gestation.

Jordan – Stillbirth (disclaimer)
Jordan – Pregnancy of a Stillborn – belly pictures
Jordan Riley – Stillbirth Story
Jordan – Stillbirth (after) – Contains pictures

Other Pregnancy & Birth Related Pages:
Baby Shower Gift Ideas – I did a belly cast during my pregnancy with Teigen.. and we did one for Cas. It turned out so cute!
Memorialize Your Pregnancy – Six ways to make your pregnancy memorable. Nine months of pregnancy seems to last forever, but looking back, the time flew by.. Don’t forget little the things.
Beautiful Belly Pictures – I share a site I came across about womens post-pregnant bellies… good to read.

3/8/00 – 27 weeks – Belly is getting bigger…

4/14/00 – Almost 33 weeks. Nice and round like a basketball!

After Jordan’s stillbirth.

The nurse cleaned me up, the doctors left the room, the nurse made sure we had the placenta and could get it home to a freezer and then she left.

We begin the process of healing, grieving the loss of our baby, the loss of our child.

Jordan was with us from birth until our hospital stay was done. We held her, we kissed her. We took pictures of her. We shared her with our family… which before had seemed an almost morbid thought to me, the thought of looking, touching or holding a lifeless body, but at this time, was so right, so important to others too. We kept her close to us, and napped a bit before getting ready to go home. No one bothered us, no one came in. Oh, not true, the nurse who helped, she came in to tell me she was going home soon. She told me we did good, gave me a hug, gave Bob a hug. She told us Jordan was beautiful. She had tears in her eyes after Jordan’s birth, and again when she left. She told me she would think of me on Mother’s Day. And true to her word, I received a phone call from her yesterday, making sure I was ok. We napped in the room, with Jordan by us… I looked at Jordan’s mouth and did feel so much sadness that those perfect little lips would never wrap around my nipple to nurse, never smile, never wrinkle in fits of frustration… so sad.

When we were ready to go, we asked the nurse to come get her. We couldn’t leave her alone in the room. We stood and cried and held each other. To watch our baby go… and us… leaving the hospital alone. I carried a blanket the whole time I was there. The one I wanted for her so bad, it is now my blanket. I’ve slept with it every night, held it close. She left holding a little pink elephant. We will pick up her things this week from the hospital.

We had Jordan at 5:08p and didn’t leave the hospital until 12a, so we had her with us for 7 very short hours. But, we had her to ourselves for every minute of those 7 hours.

I just wanted everyone to know how good they were to us. Things weren’t at all how we wanted. But, they were good to us. Gave us privacy through the whole visit, from the beginning all the way up to the end. We couldn’t have asked for any better.

Just one more thought, before we went to the hospital, I have to say I was terrified of going through labor to birth a stillborn baby, our Jordan. I was so prepared for a homebirth, natural, in water. This was not what I’d planned for, not was I was prepared for. I was so afraid of what birthing a still baby would do to me. I didn’t think I’d have the strength. More than one person, worrying about me, suggested a c-section. For some reason, that just was not even an option. I felt so strongly that having Jordan vaginally was important. I felt that it was part of the healing process for me, no matter how scared I was. It turned out that it wasn’t what I thought. I didn’t cry right after her birth, I felt right. It was supposed to be this way, I was healing already, and Jordan was helping me. Just like birthing a live baby brings a woman joy, I felt joy at birthing Jordan. It was bittersweet, true, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

We have already started our healing, but we knew it could not begin until Jordan was released, and so we did. I believe that Jordan’s soul went long before her birth, her release was for us, her family. I am now the mother of 3 girls. One an Angel, born with wings.

Just a quick note.. at the time of this writing, it’s a new year, January 2005.  We have gone on to have 2 more babies.  Teigen, our unassisted homebirth water baby and Ryland, our last, a midwife assisted hospital birth.  We still think about where our little Jordan would be today, if we she had lived.  However, we do not wish to change the fact that we have two wonderful boys now and two older daughters.  We are not people to live in the past… we always do our best to look forward. 

It saddens us each time we hear of an infant loss… During our past two pregnancies.. two list-mom friends have lost their babies.  After our loss, there were certain things that I seemed to almost search out.  Angels, Dolphins, Butterflies, Ladybugs in particular, I even had a blanket of Jordan’s that I loved.  Everyone has their own thing in which they find comfort. Searching for Infant Loss Gifts, Memorial Gifts or Remembrance Gifts could bring up some items which would be beneficial to grieving families.

Below are pictures of our daughter. Please keep in mind, she was stillborn. These stillborn baby pictures are not meant to be unnerving to others.. though I certainly understand why it would feel that way. No one wants to see a dead person, let alone a baby… I do not post these pictures to lead people to believe I am sick or in need of help. Quite the contrary… sharing the story of our baby loss was a very healing process for me. And I am only here to help support others going through the same loss in life. If you have not experienced your own loss of a child, I don’t expect you to understand… but until you walk in my shoes, please think twice about criticizing me… Bearing this in mind, you are free to hit the back button at any time.

If you are here because of an infant loss of your own, whether is it a pregnancy loss, infant loss, child or other loved one.. know my heart is with you… I will periodically post updates on the home page of my site, if you want to see how things are going. (7/02)