#366 | Full-Term Stillbirth at 39 Weeks: Penelope's Story

In today's episode, we speak with Stephanie about her stillborn daughter, Penelope, who arrived at 39 weeks and 6 days. After two healthy births and a completely uneventful third pregnancy, Stephanie found herself facing the unthinkable: an awareness of no fetal movement, confirmed by a silent Doppler and finally a hospital ultrasound. What followed was labor induction, birth, and the impossibility of leaving the hospital without her baby, riding home with her innocently cheerful toddlers in the car.

Next came shock and denial, pleading with God, managing her milk coming in, and experiencing an isolation so extreme that even a friend of fifteen years told Stephanie she couldn't handle maintaining a friendship in the face of something so grave. Stephanie also reflects on the impact to her equally-devastated husband, the family members who ranged from phenomenal to absent, and facing the disorienting task of caring for her two children while grieving a third. To this day, Stephanie grapples with how to answer the question mothers usually enjoy: "How many children do you have?"  

Our conversation later turns to grief, faith, 'God winks' that seem to show up everywhere as signs of her daughter's love and presence, and Stephanie's evolving sense of peace, even hope and eagerness, as she looks toward continuing to expand her family. 

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Transcript

I'm Cynthia Overgard, birth educator, advocate for informed consent, and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Show. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me and Trisha today to come and share the story of the loss of your third baby, your daughter, when she was full term at 39 and a half weeks. You have been a long-time follower and fan of our show and our Instagram page, and because of that, we ended up forming a pretty affectionate communication stream with you over the years. So we've really felt like we've gotten to know you pretty well. And when this happened, you reached out, and we've been in touch with you ever since, and at one point in talking, you shared some really powerful things with me about what a hard time everyone around you has with the fact that you lost your baby. Never mind the hard time you and your husband are having, and you sounded interested and willing to come on the show and talk about it, which we really appreciate, because the community of stillbirth moms and dads is very underserved, and it's an area most of us are very afraid to go near because it's like everyone's worst nightmare, and everyone's afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting it wrong, but we've learned that it's one of the most important things a podcast like ours can do. So we're very grateful to you, and I already told you that if we record this and you change your mind, we're just going to pull it and pretend this conversation never happens. So if this makes it out there, it was with your full comfort level and approval, but thank you for being here with us.

Well, I appreciate you guys having me. When you asked me if I wanted to share my story, it was kind of, for me, an immediate yes, because you and Trisha have been a very safe place for me over the last few years. You guys are actually the reason I had a birth with a midwife with my first, and so I wanted to share, not only because my daughter deserves her story to be told, but you're a safe place to tell that story. And on top of that, I think there's a lot of people who will hear it and resonate, and I'm learning that losing your child is a very, very lonely island, and not enough people talk about it because nobody wants to. It's not a happy story. So there's not a whole lot of places to share and feel heard and loved and safe and being able to actually tell it freely, not the sugar-coated version. So I appreciate you guys having me for that.

Well, it's probably the last story a mother who already had two healthy children would ever expect she would be on a podcast talking about, but why don't you start by telling us your daughter's name?

Penelope. Penelope K.

Penelope, why don't you tell us Penelope's story?

So I got pregnant in March of 2025. I was seven months postpartum with my son, so it was very much a surprise, but not surprise kind of thing. I knew I always wanted a third, and so I was just so eager and excited. And I have annoyingly uneventful pregnancies. My midwives call them the most uneventful things that happen. Everything's good. Every visit, everything's fine. I'm just one of those people who just has really uneventful pregnancies. I take very good care of myself. I work out. I lift weights all throughout pregnancy. I walk my dog several times a day. So everything was smooth. It was smooth sailing.

I had my two little ones. My son would have been about 14 months apart from Penelope, and my daughter was turning three, so I would have had three, three and under. And then December 4 hit, and I put my kids down for a nap. My mother-in-law had flown in because she's been here for every birth of mine. She's the most incredible human being, and she has seven children of her own, all natural births.

And I came and sat, actually, in this corner right here where Penelope's stuff is now, and I had her rocking chair, and I sat down, and I realized I hadn't felt her move in a little bit. It had been a couple hours. And I thought that was weird. And you know, you're busy with two little toddlers, you don't really think much of it. And so I did my little tap, tap, tap on the belly that I would do, because she was always in the same spot. It was always the right side, and I could feel her butt on my belly. And I did the little tap, tap, tap, and I didn't feel anything. And I thought, okay, well, she's sleeping good today.

And I did it again. I still didn't get anything. And I thought, well, that's weird. She normally gives me some feedback. And so I tried a couple more times, and then I thought, okay, I need to at least text my husband. So I text him, and he said, I need you to call your midwife. And in my head, I'm thinking, it's fine. I do this every pregnancy. They don't move enough, and I go to the worst. And I'm thinking, Stephanie, this doesn't happen to you. It's fine. It's fine. She's just sleeping. Your babies are so snug, they're fine. I just checked on her yesterday. I had a midwife appointment yesterday. She was fine. She was moving all night.

So I text my midwife. She asked me how long it's been, and I said, I don't know. I don't do kick counts. I don't keep track. I'm busy with other kids. But the last I remember her moving was that morning, and this was about 12 p.m., and she has me drink some fresh pineapple juice, lay on my side, get an ice pack, get a flashlight. We're doing everything to see maybe she's just sleeping really heavy.

And at this point, my husband's on his way home. He's law enforcement, so he's in his vehicle. He's on his way home. He sounds worried. My midwife is on her way to check. She told me to go to triage, and I said, well, if something's wrong, I'd rather find out from you in my own home than a stranger in the hospital. So I said, can you just come here and get your Doppler? And I have a very tight belly, so I can feel my babies in my belly. And I said, let me grab her butt, because I can get her butt. Let me get it with my fingers, and let me just wiggle and see if she'll move. And I did that, and I kept it together. And I said in my head, I just said, Stephanie, calm down, calm down, calm down. But I knew. I have known how all my babies feel.

So my midwife came through the door, and I laid on my couch where I normally would for our appointments, and my daughter came over and wanted to be a part of it, and she put the Doppler on, and for the first time, it was quiet. And she kind of moved it a couple times and said, well, maybe she just kind of moved. Let me see. And I looked at her, and I just said, Candace, you'd be getting the placenta too. I have an anterior placenta. We always hear my placenta first. I've been through this with you before. You'd be hearing it. And I think she just didn't want to tell me.

But I think she probably knew. And I think we searched for a good 15 or 20 minutes, and I already knew at that point, and then we decided to go to the hospital from there. And so I went to my kids' rooms, I got them up, I waited with my mother-in-law, and she said, you haven't felt anything yet? And I just shook my head no. And my husband got home, and he looked at me, and we've been married 10 years, and he knew the look on my face was not good.

And we got downstairs, my midwife came in. I laid on my couch where I had done so many of my prenatal visits, because she would just come to my home, and my daughter would grab the Doppler and play with us and pretend to do it too. And for the first time in nine months, it was quiet. And I just looked at her, and she said, hang on, let me try. Maybe she's rolled, maybe she's rotated. I said, Candace, you'd be getting at least the placenta. My placenta is right there. I have an anterior placenta. It's right there. You'd at least be getting that. And I think she just didn't want to tell me, because she just kept saying, hang on, let me. We heard her yesterday, hang on.

And we made the decision to get in the car and go to the hospital. And I think at that moment, I just dissociated. I think my brain had left the building, because I already knew, but my brain said, nope, we're not accepting that reality, so we're going to leave that reality, and it's going to be okay. We're going to get to the hospital. They're going to save her. It's going to be fine, because this doesn't happen to you. You have healthy pregnancies, you have smooth births, you have super fast postpartums, you don't have trouble conceiving. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine.

And we drove to the hospital. It was the longest trip of my life. And I called, I think, my sister and my dad. I have no memory of this phone call, but I apparently called them and just said, I need you to pray. We can't feel a heartbeat. They thought I was calling to tell them she was born, so they were excited. And I said, I need you to start praying. I can't find her.

And so I get to the hospital, they check me in this little room, and they do the Doppler. They can't find anything either, and they said, well, let's do an ultrasound. And I'm just kind of thinking, well, someone please just tell me. Just tell me the words I already know. Just tell me. Don't make me sit here and think there's hope. Just tell me.

And so I'm waiting, I don't even know, probably 25 minutes, sitting there with my husband shaking, and I finally go out to the lobby, and I just said, is anyone coming to do this ultrasound? And they said, oh, you know, he's on a call, or a phone call or something. And I looked at her, and I said, I know it's not your fault, and I'm not trying to be rude, but I am waiting to find out if my daughter is dead. I need someone to come in here now. And she looked at me and just said, okay, let me go get him. So I don't know if she didn't understand or if she was just trying to be calm, but I'd had it. My patience was gone.

So I get a male OB who comes in, who's about 70 years old, and doesn't seem like he has a single emotional bone in his body, and he does the ultrasound. And I can see her, and I can see her head bobbing, just like I said it was. And then he does it over her heart, and plays the heartbeat for you, you know how when you get an ultrasound and you get to see the heartbeat, and he shows me the flat line.

And I started screaming, and I just said I could have gone without seeing that.

And he says, I'm sorry, it looks like she's gone. I don't see any problem with the cord. Everything looks fine. I don't see any noticeable stuff. I won't know till she's here, but everything looks good. On my end, everything looks good.

And at this point, I'm standing by the bed with my hands on the bed screaming and crying, and he says, well, there's always sperm donors. And the nurse looked at him and then looked at me, and just her mouth dropped. And I left the building at that point, and she took my hands, and she just looked at me and started talking to me, and she said, focus on me. You did nothing wrong. This was not you. You are a good mom.

And then he said, well, you can wait a couple weeks if you want, and just see if labor starts naturally. And again, the nurse said you could become septic, so I don't know that that's the best plan. And I'm just thinking, you think I want to be pregnant for two weeks, getting sick, possibly, while my daughter is like this? I want my daughter in my arms. My body's not doing anything for her at this point.

And so he told me to wait a few weeks. I just dismissed him, and I just said, I want to go home. And he said, well, we need to do some tests. I said, no, I want to leave. I'm not asking your permission. I need to go home. Okay, well, we'll have you go home. I think she said, we'll let you go home. And I could hear Cynthia in my head saying, let? And I just said, you don't need to let me do anything. I'm going to leave. I'm going to go home and be with my family. I need to think.

And I went out to the lobby, and my kids were waiting for me, and my mother-in-law was there, and I made eye contact with her, and I just said, she's gone. And I cried for about 10 seconds, and then it was like mom mode. Hi, Addie. Hi, Bubba. What are you guys doing? And I gave them a big hug, and I left the building and snapped into reality with them.

And I went home and I walked my dogs. I left my kids with my husband, and I said, I need to go for a walk. I just needed not to think. And that was always something special for me and Penelope, and we would go on walks with the dogs, and I would talk to her, and she'd move and I would pray over her and all that. And this was the first walk where I just thought, what am I supposed to do? I was in shock, absolute shock.

And I talked to a friend on that walk. And she just said, can you go back tonight? Because my first thought was, oh, I'm getting a C-section. I'm not going through labor. I'm just going to C-section, be done with this, and go. And the day before this happened, I had filled my birth tub so it was ready with lights. My birth space was ready, because I thought, if I get my space ready, maybe she'll come. So I had my birth tub ready. I had the lights. I had my affirmations hung. Everything was beautiful because it was a planned home birth.

And I just thought, okay, now I'm switching gears to a hospital birth. I've never had a hospital birth. I've never planned for one. Now I have to induce or have a cesarean. And she said, well, if you have a cesarean, then you're not going to be caring for your other kids for a while. You can't just pick up your son, who is deeply connected to me.

So I weighed the pros and cons. The hospital had a grief, bereavement kind of counselor that called me, and I spoke with her, and she was great, and I ultimately made the decision that I need tonight, because my kids are going to be sleeping, so I can use that time to get my body going in labor. My body wasn't ready. Obviously it wasn't. It wasn't saying, let's go.

And so I told my husband, I'm going to start packing, I'm going to take a shower, and then I'm going to go. I want you to stay home with the kids. I was like, I don't need you to watch me labor. I'm going to try and sleep. So stay home with the kids and I will have comfort knowing that they're okay with you, and when it's close, I'll call you, but you don't need to sit there and watch me labor and watch me sleep. I need you to get rest and be there for our kids.

So my midwife came and picked me up and took me to the hospital. My other friend and midwife came, who was at my son's birth. Both these women were at my son's birth the year before.

And I got checked in, and they started me on, I think, Cytotec to get me to kind of get a little bit there. And then they started the Pitocin after my epidural, because they had told me, they're like, we don't want you to be in any more pain today. Are you okay with that? And I was like, that's okay. I never want an epidural again. That was the worst experience of my life. I'd much prefer natural birth. But given the circumstances, I understand kind of the encouragement for it.

And my midwives were just so good. They were very on top of it. They told the nurses, hey, let's get some saline in her, because I know you guys won't start the epidural until that first bag of saline's through, or whatever. They helped me decline things I didn't want. I didn't want the gown, so I was just like, nope, I'm good. I'm going to wear this. So, like, she doesn't need that. She can wear her shirt. And, you know, things that I just didn't have to think about, they advocated for me. But honestly, aside from the male OB, the staff there was incredible. I couldn't have asked for a more amazing hospital staff, and I have not had good hospital experiences, so I was incredibly thankful for the women that surrounded me in that room.

So they started me on the Cytotec, and then the Pit, and then I think they did an amniotomy in the middle of the night to get things going. And the male doctor came in again and said, probably going to be here for a couple days, so I wouldn't plan on going home tomorrow. It's going to be a couple of days for your labor. And I again just looked at him like, can you please not come back in here?

And so the next morning, it was shift change. The new OB came in, and I asked her, can we make sure that male OB does not come back? Because he's already told me I can get a sperm donor. He's told me it's going to be a few days. He told me I should stay pregnant for a couple of weeks. He's causing stress I don't need. And she said, yep, no problem. You are having an all-female team today. That's what we will put in your chart, our all-female team. He will not enter your room again. I said, thank you.

So I didn't feel any pain. There was one moment in transition. This was the night before, and then the next morning, I started to feel it. And the anesthesiologist came in and said, turn on your left side, because it needs to kind of level out. And it leveled out. And I was fine.

And I've always had natural home births, so I didn't know I was close, but I could feel pressure. And I asked my nurse, I said, is she coming? Are we close? And she said, her head's right here. And I started to cry. I said, can you turn off the Pit? Turn off the Pit, please. I need to call my husband. If you can lay me down, I'm going to lay down and just put my knees together. And I need to call him.

And my kids had just woken up from a nap, I think. I called him, and I said, hey, I need you to come. It's time to come see her. And he drove to the hospital, left my kids with my mother-in-law, and he got there, and you could just see how he'd just been up crying all night.

And I got the lights real dim, and I put on my birth playlist that I would have had for home, and I played that to her throughout our pregnancy as well. And it was such a beautiful thing, because it was this team of women in a horseshoe around me. I had my midwife, bereavement counselor, nurse, surgical assistant, OB, the other nurse, my other midwife, just in this horseshoe, and then my husband, of course, around me.

And I started to cry. And there's actually this picture of me with my husband's head on my chest, and you can see the look of pain in my face, and it's not because I'm in physical pain, but I knew. I knew to birth her was to let her go, and that she'd no longer be a part of me, and she wouldn't be tied to me anymore, and that when she left my womb, I'd have a time limit on how long I could keep her with me. And it was this moment of feeling frozen, like if I just don't push, she has to stay, right? Nobody can take her. She has to stay. If I just freeze here, I could just stay here.

And I looked at my nurse, and I just said, can you just tell me when I'm having a contraction so I can work with my body? Because I don't know when they're coming. You know, I'm not used to this. And so she said, okay, I don't want to disrupt you, so I'm going to give your hand a little squeeze, and that's how I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you it's starting, and then I'll squeeze it again when it's done.

And so she did that, and I just took some deep breaths, and I think she was out in like two pushes, and I brought her to my chest, and my husband just kind of fell, and I held her, and I just said, you are so beautiful. I said, you are perfect. You are so perfect.

And she looked just like her brother. I mean, like twins, twins. If I see him asleep on the monitor, I swear I'm seeing Penelope. It's just wild. Same hair color, everything. And there's a moment, and actually I've looked at the birth video. I have the whole birth video. I have hundreds of photos. There's a moment where you see my face shift from this tragic, hurting face to this mom mode, I'm in awe of my baby, and I switch modes to giving her kisses and talking about how beautiful she is and how much I love her. And you can see this shift where I'm like, I'm so in awe of her.

And my husband has told me, he's like, I wish I had that moment, but I didn't get that rush. I just saw her, and she was gone, and I was broken. But I think I had that mix of birth tie and that mom mode of like, she's here, she's in my arms. She's perfect, she's beautiful. And I think part of my body kind of just helped me dissociate a little bit, to an extent that helped me survive it.

And so I held her and we cleaned her up just a little bit. My midwife asked if I wanted to put her outfit on her. I have an outfit over here that she wore, that's actually, the print is called Penelope, that I had ordered her. And so I had that outfit for her, and I asked her if she would get her dressed, because I think it would be too hard for me in the moment to see her just moving differently than babies have for me.

So she got her dressed. We weighed her first, and we were just totally shocked by her weight, although I told them she's going to be in the sixes because I have seven-pounds-plus babies, and she was 6.6 pounds. And I'll get into that a little bit, of how many signs I've seen with that.

And then the hospital provides a photographer, and they said, we'd love to do some family photos with you. Trust me, you're going to want these. And at first I'm just thinking, like, why would I want any of this photographed? And I'm looking back so thankful that we do. And she said, you'll never be a family of five again. You're going to want these. And I said, okay.

So I told my husband to go home and get the kids. We'll bring them back with your mom. And so I had about 30 minutes where Penelope was wrapped in her Penelope outfit and her blanket and her bow, and she was on my chest, and I just held her. And everyone was quiet. Everyone left. It was just my midwives, and I just held her, and I just closed my eyes, and I have pictures of that, and it's where I go. That's where I go when I'm hurting and missing her. It's just she's on my chest, and she's perfect, and she just fits.

And there was even a moment where I had to sneeze and I covered her ears, thinking I would startle her, and I sneezed, and I said, oh, sorry. And I just looked at my midwife, and I just started crying. She's like, I know. She's like, this is your girl. This is your mom mode. This isn't going to just turn off. And I felt so stupid. And she's like, no, this is every instinct in you doing what you know to do.

And so my husband came back. They took her in the other room for a minute to do some pictures just with her. And I miraculously could feel my legs, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to get up from the epidural. But I got up. I got dressed, I hugged my son, I hugged my daughter, and they said, you want to come take pictures?

There was a thing of flowers in my room from a woman who brought them to me, whose daughter also passed on December 5, and in the vase were butterflies. And I thought that was interesting. And we went into this room to take photos, and on the wall there's this big butterfly painting. And on my side, when I was 21, I got five monarchs tattooed on my side. Penelope was our fifth family member, and I just started seeing all these butterfly signs everywhere, all of a sudden, just immediately.

And so we go into this room to take photos, and it's all of us, and my daughter meets my youngest daughter, and she holds her hands up like this and goes, oh my God, baby, baby, and she's only three at this point, and she gives her a kiss, and there's a video of this, and I am in mom mode. I'm just like, she's sleeping. Yeah, this is Penelope, because we talked about her for months. She knew. She knew her name.

And we did our photos, and then it's like, Mama, I'm tired. Mama, I need cheese. You know? It's back into just reality, but also we're stuck here. And so we did our pictures, and my mother-in-law got to hold her, really special. Nobody else got to hold her outside my husband and I and my midwives, and I'm so glad she was there for that. My daughter's middle name is my mother-in-law's middle name, Kay, so that was really special. They had the same initials, PKR.

And she took my kids to the car, and then it was just my husband and I, and I think this was maybe a matter of four or five hours. I didn't have long with her. They told me I could stay. And this is kind of morbid, but the process of that is, you can keep her, but she has to go back in a cooler, and then you can hold her, and then she has to go in a cooler. And I just thought, are you kidding me? Like you think you're going to pry her from me, and what you're telling me is she has to go in the fridge.

And I understand, like, I get what they were saying, but as we were there, you could see her changing because my body was no longer there to preserve her. You could see her changing. And I knew, I knew I couldn't stay, and I knew if I stayed, I was never gonna leave. They were gonna have to commit me if I didn't leave.

I should also mention, when she was born, the OB immediately found a true knot in her cord. There was no guessing as to what happened. Half of the cord was rich, full blood, and the other half, I'm telling you, was completely pale, white, and dying. There was no supply from the placenta. It was completely cut off. And she said she'd almost never seen a knot this tight and cinched. There was nothing. There had been nothing flowing. And so knowing the reason that quickly, I think, was helpful, because I didn't have to wait for tests and labs and what did I do wrong? It was just, no, this is what it was.

But anyway, we did our pictures, we did footprints and molds. And there were items that she had held that we got to take with us, and blankets that we took with us. We took her outfit back and put her in a different one. We wrote letters to her that would stay with her, and I just tried to memorize her face, and just memorize every bit of her. I just stared at her and tried to memorize.

And there was a moment where my husband went to pull the car forward at the hospital, and I just laid there and held her on my chest, and I just knew, like, I'm never going to nurse her. I'm not going to bring her home. She's perfect. And it almost angered me that it was a knot. I would have been okay if it were a tumor or cancer or deformity or some sort of thing that she wasn't viable. It angered me that a malfunction in my placenta and cord took her. Something so stupid took her, and I was already just feeling so much anger about it.

And we went back with her, and I looked at my midwife, and I just said, what do I do now?

And she said, well, if you're ready to go home, I will hold her, and I will stay with her, and then you go home.

And there's a picture of me and my husband, and my midwife's now holding Penelope.

And I will tell you, that was the hardest moment, leaving my daughter in someone else's arms when she should be coming home with me. And I just kept thinking, this is not real. I'm gonna wake up, right? I'm gonna wake up.

And I will say, as wonderful as the hospital was, that's the one thing I wish they did, was get me a wheelchair, because I had to walk out all the way downstairs and around the corner, and I'm coming out of an epidural, I'm bleeding, and I had to leave. I couldn't just collapse into my husband and cry. I had to walk. So my nurse is holding me up, my husband's holding me up, and I have to physically walk away from my daughter and leave her.

And I'm so thankful for my midwives, because they have their own families. They stayed with me, and when people would ask them, oh, you know, who are you? They just said, we're family, we're family, and they are. And I'm so thankful that Penelope was in their arms. It wasn't like I left her in some bassinet that's plastic. I'm thankful to have left her with them, but to walk away knowing I'm never going to hold my girl again, I screamed. And I almost feel bad for the other women who were there celebrating giving birth, because I screamed that whole corridor. And I just said, no, no, no. And I just kept yelling and screaming.

And then I got outside, and I just started to hyperventilate and shake, and I could see my kids through my car, and I just thought, okay, you have to pull it together, because if your daughter sees you like this, she's going to start crying and being worried for you. And so I just went silent, and I got in the car, and I just stared at the floor for the 20-minute drive home.

And we got home, and her name sign right here, Penelope Kay, had been delivered to my front door, and I just thought, I forgot I ordered that, but it was like she came home with me, just in a different way.

And then a group of women from my church had delivered a little lantern that they prayed over, and on top was a butterfly, and they didn't know what that significance was to me. And then, you know, we came home, and I think we kind of went into autopilot. We put our kids down. I think I ended up taking like an herbal path and just dissociating for a bit.

And within the following days, we had logistics to talk about, like, are we cremating? Are we not? And the woman that I spoke to with the funeral director, she had lost her son, and so she opened up to me. Turns out our kids have the same birthday, and she is an amazing human being named Allison, and has become a dear friend of mine.

She said, I'm going to ask you a question that you're probably never going to want to answer, but do you know what urn you want? And I'm scanning this catalog, and I said, you know what? There's this. I'll show you this, this beautiful butterfly. And I said, this just looks so happy. It's a butterfly. That's my girl. And she said, I can't find that. Can you show me the page number? And it was page 66. She was six pounds and six ounces.

And I started to cry. And I said, you probably think I'm crazy. But she goes, no, no. That's called a God wink, and she will send you those often, and that's her saying she's with you. And she likes that one too. And so we picked that one, and I've just seen multiple moments of 66 showing up. Today I'm 33, and 33 times 2 is 66. So it's just little things like that.

And yeah, that's her story from hospital to home to at my bedside. She has not left my bedside. This butterfly sits at my pillow in her baby blanket, 24/7, with me.

So Stephanie, I feel like you've told this story so beautifully, insistently, and with so much grace and love. I almost feel like our voices in this are just not even necessary. I don't even want to ask you questions, really. I almost feel like you should just share a little bit more about the grieving process and your healing process and where you are now, and yeah, that is all we need.

The grief has been hard. I think the first week, I don't remember anything. I was catatonic. I remember sitting in her rocking chair, holding her outfit, screaming, saying, I just want my baby. I need to go back. We have to go back to the hospital. I begged, and I really got to a point where I thought if I begged God enough, that he would somehow bring her back. If I just begged enough and loud enough and offered a trade, if I offered anything, somehow that would be granted.

We had a meal train organized from my church that was actually supposed to be for her arrival, and it shifted so the caption had to be updated, which I got a notification of. And with every meal that came, I was angry, because I knew why it was coming. And so I was thankful, because I don't think we would have eaten if they weren't coming. But I was upset with every single meal that came.

In the beginning, there were a lot of check-ins, some good, some not helpful. And then it started to taper off and taper off more, and then it was like everyone returned to life. And then my husband and I are still broken, and we're still shattered, and we're still trying to figure out how the heck do you go back to normal life with the death of a child?

My husband is supposed to get 12 weeks paternity leave, which is fantastic. We've had that for each baby, and it's been amazing. But because Penelope wasn't here, they told us, well, you don't have a baby to care for, so therefore you don't get paternity leave. Never mind that he has a postpartum wife who is still bleeding and postpartum, and my milk had come in, and I'm grieving the death of her daughter, and he's law enforcement, so you want to put him back in a weapon and a vest after losing his daughter, and you want to put him back after, I think it was, you get like eight days of bereavement or something.

Thank God he got some more leave that he had pulled and was able to take some time off. But there's a lot of things you don't think about. It's not just like grieving a friend or a parent or even a husband. Grieving your child, I cannot think of a more painful experience for a mother, because you go through so much in pregnancy and you think it's all worth it, don't worry.

In fact, I just looked at my journal for the first time in four months, and I was 36 weeks at my last entry, and I talked about how hard it was, and my feet hurt and all this, and I said, but it's going to be so worth it. I can't wait. And to try and put words on that next page.

And Trisha, I know I talked with you, and my goal initially was to dry up as fast as possible. How do I just dry up? Because who am I feeding? Let's dry up. And then, you know, I started pumping, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. I have a really good supply, and I feel connected to her, because I'm talking to her while I pump. And this was for her, so this milk was created for her.

And, oh, well, now Orion has a cold. I can give that to him. And it became such a fulfilling, special thing where I'd go pump and talk to Penelope, and my kids would get sick, and I'd give it to them, and they'd be over it in three days, and other kids are sick for weeks, and I would thank her every time. I'd just say thank you for giving this to your siblings.

And I'm still pumping today, and I'm still giving that to them. And, you know, they just got over a cold, and I'm getting over it, and they're fine, you know, and I'm thankful for being able to give them that gift.

But the phone has gotten really quiet. I've had friends, a very, very close friend of mine of 15 years, who said, I don't want to see photos. I don't want to know. I can't deal with it. And since then has said, I can't have you in my life because of all this, and that hurt a lot. And I'm just kind of the person that tries to put everyone else first and understand. So I at first just said, well, I want her to protect her mind. And then I thought, well, what about me? What about Penelope? To be abandoned when we needed others the most.

Even though there's nothing that anyone can say to make this better, just like you and Trisha, both of you just saying, I'm thinking of you, checking in, how are you doing? That's all I needed. I just needed to not be forgotten. And I feel like because she's not here, she was forgotten. Nobody wants to know, because it's not a happy story.

And I think the mom who doesn't have the baby gets forgotten because she's not really postpartum, is she? But she is. You're going through all the postpartum sweats and the bleeding and the cramping and the hair loss and the breastfeeding and all this, but I have no baby to show for it, so the phones get real quiet, and that's been really hard, and it's a very, very lonely island.

And I think what people have to understand is that the pain doesn't get less, it doesn't get easier, but somehow you survive it because you have to. And my kids are what keep me showing up every day. And I know, even before I talked to you guys this afternoon, I sat here and I held this butterfly, and I just talked to her, and I said, please be with me. And she usually is. Every time I say that, I feel just like this wave of peace.

And, you know, I've even had dreams where I was just driving in my car, and I said, Penny, please be with me today. And I look up and a rainbow appeared in front of me, and ever since then, I have been seeing constant random rainbows in my yard, like where there shouldn't be a rainbow, or on a plate that my daughter was eating on. And I just thought, maybe this is her sign that we'll get another chance, you know, a rainbow baby, and it would never replace her.

And I think that's something hard to talk about too, is people think that you're trying to replace or moving on too fast or whatever. And I'm like, you don't understand the desperation to feel a baby on you that takes a breath until you've lost one who doesn't, and the realization that your family's not done.

A friend of my sister's, her son was born with a brain tumor, and I was pregnant with Penelope when this happened, and I felt for her, and I just felt so bad. And I'm like, I'm so thankful my kids have never had that. I can't imagine. And when Penelope was born, I just thought, I wish I were her. I would do anything to have a couple months to just look at her, to just hold her, to see her look. I don't know what color her eyes are, to just see her look up. Penelope has only been home in my belly.

So everything changes. Everything changes. I think of the loss of what my kids have lost in a sister. My daughter loves Frozen now, Elsa and Anna, and I cry because I think that's what she's missing now. It's her sister. So it's a lot. There's a lot of things that you don't think are going to trigger you that do, and she's everywhere and nowhere. It's really hard.

The loss of their sister is always going to be in the imagination, since Penelope didn't come home with you, right? But the reality that your children are experiencing that doesn't get enough recognition is what happened to your children is they now have two grieving parents. That's a big deal. And I remember distinctly in the early days, I remember two things distinctly. One was, oh, these were hard days, Stephanie. I remember the day that you said, I don't even know how to be with my other children right now. And it was like a combination of guilt, because you couldn't be with Penelope at the same time, and it was like not knowing how to speak to them. But that was so heartbreaking too. Do you remember that? Because that was the month that you were in.

That was very early on, and it lasted a while. I couldn't look at my son because the emotion, and I couldn't be with my daughter because she's a reminder of the daughter I don't have. And they so badly wanted to connect with me, and they could tell I was sad, and they wanted to bring me out of this hole I was sinking in. And I just told my husband, I was like, I can't be around them right now. And I know I need them, but I'm having a hard time even looking at them, and I felt so much guilt.

But you did it. You texted me and you said, I'm having them come in to me now. So you got through that. And the other thing that was really standing out for me was your husband was as devastated as you. I mean, I don't think fathers get much of a second thought with this, because it is so much more intense for mothers biologically. But he was devastated. I mean, he was so devastated.

I still hear him upstairs crying.

Yeah. And this is what I mean. Usually what people say to the father is, how is she doing? How's Stephanie? How's she doing?

Yeah. And I remember, and he shared with me a couple things that really hit. There was one night where, and he's military, he's law enforcement, so his whole life is serving and protecting and keeping everyone safe, right? And there was one night where he woke up and just sobbed on my chest, and he said, I didn't save her, I didn't save her, and I'm so sorry.

And he said he envies me, and he goes, I know you're going through way more than I am, because you just delivered your baby. You don't have her with you biologically. You're going through so much more. I know that. But he said, I never got to feel her the way you did. You held her in you, and you bonded for nine months. And I wait until the moment they're born, and then they're on my chest. And that was always our thing. Our babies would nurse on me, and then they'd be on his chest. He would baby-wear all the time. That was it. It was on dad's chest. He's a much less anxious person. They were just at their spot.

And he just said, I'm so jealous that you held her. He didn't get that. And I totally agree. I think the concern is on the mom. But then the dads, being the protector of their girls and their boys, and feeling like he didn't protect me from this and her from this. And he knows logically, he understands there's nothing we could have done. But that hurt is very deep for him, and he still apologizes to this day, just feeling helpless that there's nothing he could have done to help me and her.

What we see happen a lot with rainbow babies, as they're called, so if you have another baby and have a sixth family member, your fourth child, and you know that your third child, you would be bringing home, what we see happen a lot is that everyone around you now gets to move on. They get to pretend you move on. I mean, I'm guilty of that. I remember years ago, before I really became close to women and understood this, I remember thinking, oh, thank God, they had a healthy baby now. Oh, thank God. I really used to think it would resolve their pain, until I had a woman in my postpartum group who described the guilt she felt when she brought home a healthy baby after the loss of her son, her stillborn son, and now everyone at the preschool was talking to her again, and, oh good, you have a baby now. And it just opened my eyes to like, oh my God, I would have been that person who was just happy for them and not realizing it was just a whole new should-have-been, a new component to the grief.

Yeah. And my friend Allison, actually, she said she had lost her son when he was two. And I asked her, did having her daughter after that, did it help you, or did it hurt? And she said it was the healing she didn't know was possible, and that she is just to this day the biggest ray of sunshine, and she's convinced that her son will talk to her because she'll talk to someone in her crib, and it's no one, you know, but she's like, I know he's talking to her.

Because I was worried. I thought, well, if I have a girl next, I'll feel guilty that I'm replacing her. These are all the clothes that she was supposed to wear. This should have been her. If I have a boy next, will I be disappointed? And then I just thought, no, I will be so grateful and thankful to bring a life into this world.

And I had a dream, and I'm holding the new baby, and Penny's next to me, and she kissed my forehead, and she just said, I'm with you. And I just knew. I just knew this next endeavor, if we get the chance, it will be okay, and she'll be with me, and there's no replacing because no matter how many kids I have, I will always be a mother of X, raising X, right? So it's going to be, I'm a mother of three, raising two, or I'm a mother of four, raising three, what have you. And there is no mother of two anymore.

I think that's another really hard one, is we get asked how many kids we have. I got that the other day. My kids were playing on a playground. So how many do you have? And I paused. I have three, just two with me today, though. It's one I haven't had to deal with in my neighborhood yet. It's winter in Indiana still, so it's cold, but now people are starting to walk. And I know my neighbors have been waiting to see me with my three kids and my wagon, and that question will come up, and I can't just say, oh, she's at home. So it's a conversation that we will continue to have to have, but it's a question that I didn't know I would dread.

There's so many hard, hard parts of going through a loss like this, going through what you went through. Is there one part of it that you can identify that is the hardest? Is it finding out? Is it trying to take care of your children in the aftermath? Is it wondering if you could have done something differently? Is it trying to stay connected to her?

I think the caring for my kids kind of snapped back pretty quickly. So that's actually kept me from sinking. I think that's helped. If I had to pinpoint the worst part, it was leaving the hospital. I think leaving her physically was the hardest part for me, and then just kind of trying to learn to accept that this pain is part of life now, that I never will hold her again, not in this life. I firmly believe that she's in heaven waiting for me, and I will be sprinting to hug her then.

But I think it's hard, especially with talking with my friend Allison and other moms who have grieved their children, it's that this doesn't need to be your entire life, that it will always be a part of it. But right now, it feels like this is your entire life. Your entire life is this loss, and it will get to a point where it's a part of your life and a part of your story, but it's not going to consume everything.

But I think right now the hardest is that there are so many emotions that are dual. So I can have a moment of joy of seeing my kids do something, and then I'm immediately pulled back to Penny's never going to see that, you know. And so there's this emotional whiplash you go through. Or you have a day that you're not on the floor sobbing and screaming, and you feel guilty because you're like, does this mean I'm okay? Am I a horrible person? Or you are on the floor sobbing and screaming and you're saying, I'm not a good enough mom to my kids who are here.

So I think it's just learning to navigate grief, raising two kids and grieving one. Learning to navigate that is really hard, and you have to give yourself a lot of grace, because it is going to be like swimming in the ocean at night. You're not going to know when the next wave hits, and it could be one that knocks you under, or it could be one that just kind of washes over you gently, and you're okay, and you have to learn to just know that you're going to come up for air, it's just going to be a minute.

What do you do when the moments hit that hard? How do you help yourself in those moments when you feel like the world is crashing down?

I don't fight it. I don't fight it. If I'm with my kids, usually I can kind of keep myself busy, but I have had moments where I remember specifically, a couple weeks ago, I was in the car and I just started sobbing on my steering wheel, and my daughter just said, Mom, are you okay? Are you sad? I said, yeah, honey, I'm really sad. I miss Penelope. And she knows who she is. She asks to see pictures all the time, and I've got jewelry that's got my breast milk and ashes in it as well, so she knows those are my Penny necklaces. And I don't try to hide from her if I'm hurting.

But just two nights ago, we had put the kids down, and I could just feel this wave over me. I was holding her blanket and this baggie of ashes from her, and I just took a pillow and I just screamed, and my husband held me, and I just let it out. And then I just kind of was so tired after that. It's just like, okay, and now we brush our teeth and we get our kids ready for the rest of bed.

I think you have to let yourself feel those things, because that grief is so strong and it's so real and it's so powerful. And you're going to have times where you are sinking into that hole. But I have had to learn that I need to come out eventually to be with my kids. You know, we recently started going back to the YMCA, which is where they love to go, and that's been so good for them, because I can't let them sink with me.

So if I need to retreat and feel that wave and just let it wash over, then I do. And then I talk to Penny, and I say, okay, I need you with me. And then I get up and I go, I just need to put pants on. I just need to get water. If I can just get to my son's room and then to my daughter's room, I don't have to do anything else. Okay, now let's just get downstairs. They don't need breakfast right away. Let's just get downstairs.

And it's just one foot in front of the other. And that sounds so cliche, but it really is true. You can't think of the whole day you have to get through, or the whole afternoon, or the week or whatever. It's just this moment. I just need to get my son his bottle or whatever. And once you get through that, you worry about the next thing.

Do you want to talk about family? What your expectations were and what the reality was?

Yeah. My mother-in-law was already out, so she was here, and she was amazing. The next morning, my father-in-law flew out to be with us. My sister has talked to me every single day since December 4, hasn't missed a single day, and we have a three-hour time difference. We send videos back and forth and text. She'll call, FaceTime almost every night. I would fall asleep with a text from her saying, I love you. I love Penny. I'm here with you. She will never be forgotten.

She has a ring as well with me, so she wears her ring every day. She has her picture on her phone, I know, I think, and all her kids know who Penelope is. So she's a part of her family, and is very much alive in my sister's house, and it makes me so happy.

My parents called me one time, and it was about two weeks after, maybe one or two weeks after. I had to schedule a time to call them. They asked what I wanted for Christmas, and I can tell you now I don't really remember Christmas. I remember letting my kids open some presents. I don't remember anything else. That whole month is just a blur.

I remember saying, can you please just get plane tickets and come out? Because Chris has to go back to work, he doesn't get paternity leave, and I'm very afraid to be alone. They didn't come out. They had to put their cat down, and that seemed to take a toll on their emotional health more than this. And they just said how expensive flights were, but then told me they spent three grand on their cat, and were doing golfing trips to Scottsdale and dinner dates and all this stuff, and I'm seeing all this stuff and I'm just thinking, and yet I'm here alone.

We have no family in Indiana. It's just us. They don't text, they don't call, they don't try to FaceTime my kids. I heard from my brother once, and he asked me advice about a hairdryer and about the gym, and that was it.

They said that they might come visit in May, but they don't ask how I'm doing. It was incredibly disappointing. My dad lost, my dad was an orphan by age eight. His mom took her life when he was eight, and his dad had died when he was a baby. So I thought more than anybody, he would understand the depth and heaviness of grief and how isolating that is. And instead, I think he goes the opposite direction, where he just can't deal with it at all. He can't look at pictures of her, doesn't really talk about her. My mom will send things that I think are well-intentioned, but end up not being, and so I kind of have to ignore some things that are sent.

But it's been really hard. You think that people are going to rally for you, and then they don't, and you want to give them excuses, and you want to understand, but at the end of the day, you were the one who lost your daughter, and everyone else needs to show up. And I will never forget the people who were there for me, but I also won't ever forget the people who disappeared and went quiet, and that was really hard, and it's still hard. And from what it sounds like, they have kind of healed and moved on, and I don't think they understand that we might be functioning because we have to, because the world doesn't stop and we don't get paychecks unless we go to work and the world keeps going, right? But it doesn't mean that we've suddenly healed and that we're okay.

Do you feel like the hardest parts are still ahead, or do you feel you've gotten over the hardest parts at this point? It does keep changing. We know that about grief. And when we did our stillbirth roundtable episode way back in the early days, episode 14, I remember one of the women was like director or president of Star Legacy, like one of the big stillbirth organizations. She knew some valuable information, in addition to having lost her own daughter, and I always remembered her saying that they know the grief peaks at around four and a half months. It's hard to quantify things like this, but what I know about grief is it changes. And that denial you were in, going home and walking your dog after, I mean, it just checks out. That's how it can be. And month two and three can be so much harder than month one, just like, how? It's absolute shock, and that is good, because the shock is a lot of the pain. Just the rethinking the future that you had envisioned is so much of the difficulty.

So now you've adjusted your vision of the future, moving on in this manner. How has it evolved? And do you feel like you're going to live with this loss? But do you realize at this point that you're going to be happy again? Do you realize? Do you believe it now? Because in December, it was inconceivable. Do you believe now that you will?

Yes. Yeah. I think in the early days, if you had told me I'd be here talking to you about it and saying we have hope for our family in the future, I'd say that's not happening.

I think that it's evolved in the sense that there are going to be harder things to come, right? Like her first birthday. I'm already thinking, how the heck am I going to survive that day? I'm having flashbacks a lot. I'm having night terrors. I'm having moments that I'm remembering that I had forgotten. Or I'll find something from the hospital that I forgot. I found my bag of clothes that I had worn when I last held her and I haven't touched them, you know. So there are things that you find and unfold.

But like you said, grief changes. It's not a wound that's going to close up with this nice scar that's just a little rigid and you know it's there. It's not going to be like that. It's always going to be open. There are things that trigger that pain that I didn't know would trigger it. Brushing my daughter's hair, I started crying, and I just thought, what would Penelope's hair have been like? My daughter has this ridiculously gorgeous Rapunzel hair down her back, and she's three years old. It's just nuts. And I just think, oh man, would Penelope have had this too?

But I will say, I have hope, because a few months ago, I think I would have said, there's no way I'm ever getting pregnant again. We're done. I'm not doing this. I will show up for my children every day, but I'm checking out. How am I supposed to be happy? Even today, I'm 33 today, and my husband wanted to take us out to breakfast, and I'm like, what are we celebrating? You know, like, I still have moments where I blame myself for not getting her here safely. So those moments do come, but I also have these moments of hope and realizing that I am surviving this and I didn't think I could, and that I know Penny's with me, and I know that Penelope does not want me to not live and celebrate and laugh and enjoy life with her siblings just because she's not here with me.

And I just keep thinking, would she want me in my bed just thinking, or would she want me to live? And the answer is always the same. I know what she wants from me as her mom and for her siblings.

So the grief changes for sure. It's not that I feel less pain or that I'm healing or that, oh, we're better now. It's just that I feel like I've learned a little better to let the wave ride over until the next one comes. It's okay to be breathing and not sobbing, and there's no guilt with that. And there will be another wave. And sometimes you go on this up where everything's okay, and it's okay if you crash down again, and just to give yourself grace with that.

But I think I've reached a point in the grief now where I realize, like, I am going to survive this. It's forever going to be hard. I will always miss her, and I will always have this deep longing for her. And I even told my sister the feeling that I can best describe it, for those who have never lost a child, is your child's been abducted. They're gone, they're missing, and you are frantically searching forever, and nobody else is searching because they believe they're gone, but you and your frantic mother heart have this panic to find them and hold them, and that feeling just doesn't go away. You have this panic to hold your baby again and search for them, and that's kind of what it feels like.

So it's never going to feel normal and natural to not have her with me, but I do believe that we will survive it, and I do feel hopeful that our family can continue to grow, and because of how much we love her, that is why we want our family to grow. I didn't know I wanted more kids until her, you know, and I realized how much more we have as a family.

So I think my friend Allison put it really well. With so much love comes the cost of that grief. The grief that we have for our children is because we have so much love. And I would rather have been chosen to be Penelope's mother and lost her than never have had her at all. And so I'm glad that she exists, and I'm glad that she's mine, and she'll always be mine. I'll always be hers. I'm just forever going to wish she was with me, but I wouldn't take it back, because I was meant to be her mom, and I know that.

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