Everywhere I look and anything I do, I’ll always be reminded of Zade.

I knew you for every second of your life

My body fueled yours

Nourishment, warmth and laughter

We put up a Christmas stocking for Zade this year. Although it will not get stuffed with lots of gifts, it’s a beautiful reminder that he’s a part of us. The stockings read Dad, Mom, Zade, and Dom - our fur baby.

We had an unexplained stillbirth. A stillbirth with an unknown cause is called an “unexplained stillbirth.” Stillbirths are only deemed unexplained if a complete investigation fails to yield a cause, and ours did. Both of Zade’s placenta and autopsy report came back without a cause. This news was, and still is, extremely difficult to digest.

We recorded our story for the Tiny Footprints Fundraising Gala.

Tiny Footprints was started in 2016 by co-founders Kristina and Jen. The loss of Kristina’s daughter, Riley, is the inspiration behind this foundation.

Today marks one

Oh how I wanted a boy

Mommy's little boy

How I would have taught you to be kind

I often tell my husband that I’ve got a grief hangover. A while back I started to notice how tired and deflated I felt after doing something social. Social events tend to take up a lot of my energy, and so I go into overdrive and try my best to be normal, converse, ‘act cool’.

Personally, last year I didn’t know that October was pregnancy and infant loss awareness month. But this year I very much do. For those new around here, I had a stillbirth at 40 weeks last year in November. I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Zade. The love of my life. My star child.

still, a word I knew but didn’t comprehend

now after feeling it so deeply, I understand

I’ve had people ask me how they can bring up Zade in conversation. And to tell you the truth, I’m still figuring it out. To lose a child that nobody else met or really knew, well of course that makes it much more difficult to talk about.