Kate Safris, co-founder

In March of 2001 I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of our minivan, freshly purchased for what was supposed to be a family of four … but there were just three of us. The fourth, our daughter Emma, was born just a few weeks earlier, and passed away after just eight days of life from congenital heart defects. My husband and I had made it home to our driveway after returning from my first postpartum OB appointment. Having sobbed the entire way home I sat motionless in the passenger seat. I was angry, and I found myself snapping at the tiniest of things.

I don’t exactly remember what caused me to snap at that particular moment. My husband said something, probably as innocent as, “Are you ready to go inside?” and that was all it took. Every ounce of anger spilled out in that minivan. My rage spanned the gamut of reasonable to absolutely absurd. I berated the pregnant teenagers I had seen in the waiting room at my OB’s office, the pain of the C-section incision that throbbed with my every twist and turn, the nurse who dared to ask how I was doing, the weather, my hair, the song playing on the radio — nothing was safe from my wrath. My husband sat silently and listened, and when it seemed as though I had choked up every last morsel of anger, he turned to me and said six words that would change my life.

“You can’t be this angry forever.”

I sobbed. Again. He was right. While my life had spun out of control with the loss of our precious baby girl, I realized that I had a choice — a real CHOICE — that was completely within my control. I could determine my daughter’s legacy, and anger and bitterness didn’t have to be a part of it. I had no idea how, but at this pivotal moment, sitting in my minivan, I knew some GOOD would come from my heartache.

Over two decades later, I have found that GOOD in my work with Healthy Birth Day, Inc. and Count the Kicks. Since founding the organization in 2008, Janet, Jan, Tiffan, Kerry and I have had had the honor of hearing from countless parents whose babies have been saved with Count the Kicks. We have looked into the eyes of the babies who are here, happy, and healthy, because their parents knew to speak up if they noticed a change in their movements.

Those babies are our daughters’ legacy and the GOOD I knew I needed to find over two decades ago. I will never stop working to ensure that more parents have these stories to share.

Tiffan Yamen, Co-Founder

May 31, 2003 – this date changed my life forever. That day brought a wrenching heartache and sadness that to this day I cannot fully describe. The weeks and months following it brought dark, scary days of uncertainty. It also delivered amazing, unexpected gifts. A deeper faith, the confidence to speak up, the friendship of four women who understood me and a resolve to ensure no other parent would unnecessarily experience what my husband and I were faced with on May 31, 2003. After an uneventful and healthy pregnancy our daughter, Madeline, was born still at 37 weeks due to a double nuchal cord (knotted umbilical cord).

In those early days I remember telling my family that I wanted Madeline’s life to matter. At the time I had no idea what that meant or what was ahead of me. And then I was introduced, one by one, to the other four founders of Healthy Birth Day, Inc. and Count the Kicks. We met in coffee shops just as five moms, each of us grieving the loss of our baby girls, each of us understanding one another. We pondered two questions: “Why doesn’t anyone talk about stillbirth?” and “Why is stillbirth still happening in this age of incredible medical advancement?”

Our work to advocate for stillbirth awareness and prevention and our work through the mission of Count the Kicks is solid proof of what can be accomplished when we don’t give up on our hopes and beliefs.

“What if we could save one baby?” What started with an innocent idea has become a powerful, life saving movement. Every baby saved, every volunteer who helps us spread our mission, every believer in our work keeps that fuel burning for me. Madeline, my sweet baby, your life has certainly mattered.

Iowa Sen. Janet Petersen, Co-Founder

The first time I heard the word stillbirth, I was just a little girl in the car with my big sister and mom, heading from Iowa to Missouri to visit my maternal grandma. I was excited to share with my mom that I had memorized all 10 of her siblings’ names. When I rattled them off, she informed me that my grandma actually had 11 babies – I was missing baby James who would have been my uncle. She told me he was a stillborn baby, born between my Uncle Huey and Aunt Dorothy in the summer of 1920. I remember how incredibly sad I was for my Grandma, wondering how she lived through that unfathomable heartache and was brave enough to bear seven more kids.

Nearly 83 years to the day after my Grandma Hall lost her baby boy to stillbirth in the family’s farmhouse, my husband Brian and I would experience the same fate. In July 2003, we lost our daughter Grace Elizabeth to a true knot in her umbilical cord when I was nine months pregnant.

How could we have lost our daughter Grace? She was beautiful and perfect. I had had a perfectly healthy pregnancy. I was fully insured. I didn’t have a country doctor; I went to a group of highly educated and experienced OB/GYNs with full access to modern medical technology.

My doctors explained that stillbirths were rare, but we learned otherwise. Brian and I were just two of the 52,000 parents in the U.S. that lost a baby to stillbirth that year. I remember laying in my hospital bed in the maternity ward without my baby, reeling both emotionally and physically … wondering how women could still be losing babies to stillbirth and how the doctors could seem so nonchalant about it, basically writing them off as unpreventable accidents.

I am passionate about preventing stillbirths because I know the pain of losing a baby. I believe wholeheartedly that most stillbirths can be prevented. We are proving just how many babies can be saved just through our fetal monitoring program Count the Kicks. Other countries are doing even better, proving stillbirth prevention safety bundles work.

I’m passionate about stillbirth prevention because I know this problem is solvable. I’m fighting with love in my heart for our daughter Grace and our living kids – Maggie, Charlie and Buck. I’m pushing for stillbirth prevention for women and girls and families I don’t know, because I wouldn’t wish the pain on anyone.

I know our country can do better. We must urge those in power to move from silent complicity to moonshot actions to make stillbirth a maternal health tragedy of the past.