This wasn't something we had ever thought would happen to us.

Hi there, I would love to share our story in hopes to be apart of this amazing documentary you are making. This is such an important topic that NEEDS to be discussed. It was never anything I had acknowledged as a possibility in my life until it happened.

Six weeks ago, Mother's Day, it happened to me. We were pregnant with our 5th child, a baby boy. My husband and I were shocked to learn we were pregnant in the first place but soon after we were excited and couldn't wait to welcome our new little one into our already large family. Our 4 other children, 5 and under, were so excited to have another brother in house. We told them early on in the pregnancy and they asked every day for 8 months when the baby would come. My due date was July 4th, 2015, just a week from now.

On May 9th, everything changed. A usual busy Saturday at our house turned into every parents worst nightmare. That evening, I laid down to rest after a long day. Its wasn't long before I realized that my usually very busy baby was suddenly motionless. As a birth doula, I knew all of the tricks to help encourage quiet babies to move. None of them worked. I soon alerted my husband and I jumped in the car and rushed to the hospital. It was there that we had learned that at 32 weeks, our son had died.

We were left speechless, broken, and in shock. This wasn't something we had ever thought would happen to us. Our irrational fears were laid right in front of us, living it out moment by moment. Within hours I was sent to labor and delivery and induced to have my son. My dead son. How does a mother comprehend going through labor and delivering a dead baby? How was I supposed to do that? 13 hours later, a small, perfect little boy made his way into our world. Macklin. Silent and cold.

We immediately learned that his cord had a knot as well as being wrapped around his neck 3 times. He was an active baby which is normally a good thing, but in this case, it lead to his death. His over-activeness lead to cord lengthening and he soon suffocated himself. It was very stupid. There was NOTHING I could have done. No test, ultrasound....nothing.

We had about 7 hours with him before his body began to break down. We said hello and goodbye in a matter of hours. Our other children got to meet and hold their brother that they had waited so long to meet. It was heartbreaking as a mother to witness your children grieve over the loss of their brother. Our families have grieved the loss of our son as well. Macklin has many grandparents, aunts, uncles and an entire community that came along side our family during this tragic time. I began to blog just a week after his birth and it has been shared thousands of times since. There are so many more details to our story and they have been recorded in my blog https://handsfulloffive.wordpress.com/ Thank you so much for telling these stories. The world needs to know that these children existed and that their families need them to be acknowledged.