6 in 1000

*Disclaimer: This post has very real and raw statistics about pregnancy loss. Please do not read if you are not comfortable knowing, or are pregnant and it will make you more anxious than we mums already get during pregnancy*

I have always been a "doer" by nature. When there is a problem, the first thing I think of is "how can I do something to make this better?" Even if I am just sitting around the house watching TV, I prefer to be folding laundry at the same time so that I still feel like I'm being productive. It is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I am just that - productive, I tend to get things done. But a curse because I have never truly learned how to be still, and be okay with it.

I am having to learn to be still since losing Brooklyn. This is the first thing that has happened in my life that I have not been able to "fix". When life hasn't gone the way I planned in the past, I simply made a new plan and worked with it. When I didn't get into the Social Work program the first time I applied, I came up with a plan B for my education. I learn to work around things that don't go as planned.

But not this. There is nothing I can do to "work around" what has happened. There is no "plan B" option. Yes, if we choose to, we can try to get pregnant again. But this will not "fix" what has happened, or make us feel better. We will always miss our precious little girl. No matter if we have no more children, or 5 more. None of them will be Brooklyn, and no one will be able to replace her or the hole in our hearts that longs for her. 

Something else I am learning since losing Brooklyn, is that I can not put as much trust or faith in science as I have in the past. I have done lots of research over the past weeks, and the statistics are crazy to me. 

I have learned that 1 in 5 pregnancies will end in early miscarriage (before 20 weeks of pregnancy). At the same time, there are 6 stillborn babies in every 1000 births. That's approximately 1 baby lost for every 167 born. These statistics are directly from StatsCAN. This does not include third world countries where we expect things like this to happen more frequently. This is Canada. When we were in the hospital, the nurse told us that they had delivered 6 stillborn babies in the past 8 weeks alone. This is just at McMaster. These numbers are outrageous to me. In a society where science is the answer, how can this many babies still be lost? 

Even more shocking, is the fact that there often aren't answers as to why women lose their children in utero.  50% of parents whose children are born still, never find out what happened or why. 

We opted against a full autopsy of Brooklyn. I knew she had gone to Heaven already, and would not feel pain, but the thought of her tiny body having to endure that made me feel sick to my stomach. Instead they did scans and tests on her which were less invasive. They also took lots of blood (20 viles) from me, in hopes of finding an answer. The last thing they did was take the umbilical cord and placenta to see if there were problems with them. When I gave birth to Brooklyn, both the OBGYNs and the midwife looked at them both and could not physically see anything wrong. No obvious knots were in the cord, and she did not come out with it around her neck. At the same time, my placenta looked normal, was in one piece, and had no sign of tearing on it. 

We have received results back from my testing, and everything was negative. I did not have an infection or autoimmune disease, my organs are in good working order, and I do not have some weird blood-clotting disorder causing this to happen. This is good news. 

We still need to wait 3-5 months now for the rest of the results, but I am not expecting answers. Even the doctors did not seem hopeful that we would even end up finding out what happened. 

Long story short - how in a world where we rely so strongly on our medical system and science to answer the "unknowns", can we be okay with not knowing? I have learned that even science does not know everything. The human body is so complex that we may never have answers to everything that happens - especially in pregnancy.

However,  I have also learned that there is not a lot of research dedicated to this area. This makes me mad. How can we be okay with this? Why is there not more being done to prevent this? Why can't we get the statistic down to 0 in 1000? Who says this can't be done? 

I have decided I want to start a run/walk in memory of Brooklyn. I want to raise funds for research on pregnancy loss. I also want to raise awareness. We live in a society that does not like to think things like this happen. We like to think that stillbirth is a thing of the past, or only happens to older moms, or people who do not take care of themselves during pregnancy. This is not true - it can happen to anyone. We are living proof of this. We are both healthy 23 and 26 year olds who don't smoke, don't drink excessively, and eat relatively healthy. I did everything that was in my control to protect her - from not eating certain foods, to stopping activities I normally would do. My pregnancy was not in any way deemed "high risk", and yet this is our new reality. 

I have no idea where to start, or how to go about this, but if you are reading and want to be involved, please contact me. If you have connections through researchers at the hospital or university (preferably McMaster or somewhere local), have experience running big events, or simply want to be involved, please contact me. I really want to make this dream reality, but I am not able to do it on my own. 

Even though I am not able to change what has happened for us, I want to put my fiery spirit into action by "doing" what I can to help prevent this for other families in the future. 

We now belong to a very daunting statistic. We are one of the 6 in 1000. Help us make this number smaller.