
Surviving Stillbirth
Clip: Season 2 Episode 79 | 5m 20sVideo has Closed Captions
A Louisville family shares their experience with preventable stillbirth.
A Louisville family shares their experience with preventable stillbirth.
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Kentucky Edition is a local public television program presented by KET

Surviving Stillbirth
Clip: Season 2 Episode 79 | 5m 20sVideo has Closed Captions
A Louisville family shares their experience with preventable stillbirth.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Louisville mother has also been a vocal supporter of stillbirth, prevention and education.
Ray Hofmann.
Jagger has written about her experience losing a child to stillbirth in 2021.
She says more than a quarter of all stillbirths can be prevented with education and information sharing.
I think the problem with understanding stillbirth is that it's so stigmatized people don't talk about it.
I think the first step to prevention is telling our story.
We knew Tim Fox, Allen, but we had as much planned as possible.
We had a name, we had a nursery already, we had lots of clothes.
We had all the things that someone would have when they're expecting to have a living baby that breathes praise.
Pregnancy with Evie was very uneventful, successful, as I think we naively assumed that foxes would be the same way.
And I remember thinking, this is just another visit.
We had a textbook normal, healthy pregnancy.
It was our 32 week checkup.
The OB went to find the heartbeat and she couldn't find it.
And then she tried another machine and couldn't find it.
And then the reality set in that, Oh, our baby doesn't have a heartbeat.
That means our baby is dead.
And that was when our reality changed as we know it.
I begged to be induced that day, even though I knew that our baby was going to be born on Thanksgiving Day.
But I think we both, especially Rae, wanted to induce and just be done with the nightmares As soon as possible.
But turns out it's not super soon.
It was still like 24 hours from when he was finally born.
So it was it was a long time.
It's cruel in our country because there is no place to birth where you don't hear the sounds of living heartbeats and babies crying for the first time in their moms so happy that they have this baby.
And then you are in between those rooms and it's silent.
You hear no heartbeat.
Your doctor is not coming in or your nurse to check on the baby.
And you know, is the baby safe?
Is the baby going to be born?
You are just there on your own trying to come to terms with the fact that you are going to meet your baby just like everyone else.
But then you have to also plan a funeral.
So we birthed him.
He was real.
He existed.
He had a name.
We got to hold him and I think that helped me.
This reminds us that although he is not with us now, he was real.
We birthed him.
We got to meet him, and unfortunately, we had to bury him.
But he's very much still a part of our lives.
And having him here reminds our daughter that, you know, she had a brother that isn't here and that he's still a part of our family.
We have created a space for him in our family where he can be talked about.
And it's not as much of a hard thing to bring up anymore.
He is just fully synthesized into our family with us.
I think what we needed from anyone, which we didn't know, was someone to just sit with us and be with us and not say anything.
Because what what is there to say, really?
Words fall short and then we really wanted people to just ask questions, what he look like.
And even now we love when anyone mentions his name.
I am a mom of three one.
You know, is not here with this on earth.
And then I have two babies where we hold the ball and you mix it with naptime.
But my husband and I both realize that it is entirely up to the birthing person to advocate for themselves to find out how to have a living baby.
So the next time we wanted to have a baby, we had to learn about count the kicks and making sure we were getting accurate kick counting measures.
We had to learn what to ask for as far as different ultrasounds and non stress tests and many people don't know those things until something goes horribly wrong and they lose their baby.
The longest nine months of my life, you know, after you've been through a stillbirth, it sort of pulls the veil away a little bit and you realize that nothing is guaranteed to anyone.
And anything can happen even if it's less than 1% of the time can happen.
And it was hard up until the day I was born to allow ourselves the possibility that he was going to make it.
There's this whole when you're in you that you feel like can never be filled again because it's just sadness and grief for so long.
And when sci comes, there's it's not a replacement, but there's, there's space in you that that sort of gets filled again.
We've been been in the valley and now you're you're up, up again.
Oh, oh.
Now you start.
Sigh is are sweet and happy rainbow baby who is just happy to be here.
And we know we have a baby to hold and we know that life is short and to cherish every single moment we have with him and our daughter.
The Jaguars say that unlike many parents who lose a child to stillbirth, they had an autopsy done to determine what caused Fox's death.
They found out he had an entire uterine growth restriction, which is preventable.
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S2 Ep79 | 3m 18s | Education leaders, university presidents and KY General Assembly members discuss ed costs. (3m 18s)
Headlines Around Kentucky (9/19/23)
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Clip: S2 Ep79 | 2m 18s | Lexington could change alcohol sales law and a KY man searching for a kidney donor. (2m 18s)
Planned Parenthood's Political Ads in Kentucky
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Clip: S2 Ep79 | 1m 6s | Planned Parenthood plans ads in opposition to KY candidates who oppose abortion rights. (1m 6s)
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Clip: S2 Ep79 | 4m 18s | Efforts to address the stillbirth crisis in the United States. (4m 18s)
Remembering Gov. Brereton Jones
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Clip: S2 Ep79 | 6m 8s | Former KY Gov. Brereton Jones, governor from 1991 to 1995, died 2023 at age 84. (6m 8s)
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Clip: S2 Ep79 | 42s | Workers at two Ford plants in Louisville are still on the job as the UAW strike continues. (42s)
U.S. Congressional District Map
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Clip: S2 Ep79 | 2m 4s | KY Supreme Court considers Congressional Maps enacted during the 2022 legislative session. (2m 4s)
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