By Sandy Danek
God has blessed my husband and me with children, and while each and every life we have been given by God is precious to us, it was Kathleen who had a significant change in my life because of her life – and because of her death. We gratefully experienced three live births and two adopted children. Kathleen, who died at 20 weeks gestation, was the third of our four babies to die before birth.
Our child-bearing years were, needless to say, challenging. When an ultrasound revealed that Joseph, our first loss, had died in the womb, we were told we would need to wait until natural labor occurred. That didn’t happen for an entire month (something that wouldn’t happen today, due to the risk to the mother). Our next loss, Patrick, was delivered by a D & C. The idea of that procedure still haunts me today, which is why we chose to deliver Kathleen naturally, which occurred at 20 weeks gestation. We suffered her death less than a year after Patrick’s death, and we were quite discouraged.
An autopsy revealed that Kathleen was a trisomy 18 baby, which is what caused her death. Being young and anxious about seeing her, we didn’t know what to expect. Her body was darker than a healthy delivery, and a hat covered her deformed head, but to us, she was beautiful. The parent-child connection was still there; we had a relationship with her, and we did not want to let her go. We spent as long as we could just holding her, until we had to say goodbye.
We had two children at home at that time: Jamie, 15 and Jeff, 7. As a family, we experienced the loss together with a gravesite service led by our priest at our local cemetery in a section called “Babyland.” It meant everything to us to give her a proper burial, respecting her body as she deserved. She was God’s creation, brought into existence through the love my husband Richard and I had shared.
Through these experiences I gained intimate knowledge of the humanity and sacredness of God’s creation in the womb. I resolved to do whatever I could to bring that awareness to others. Thus began my journey into pro-life work – first as a volunteer, then on the boards of Lincoln Right to Life and Nebraska Right to Life (NRL), and eventually as NRL board president and executive director.
The grief of losing two babies so close together was difficult to manage. While my faith had come to life, my church had little to offer in support of those going through the grief experience. It was obvious to me that there should be such a comfort ministry, so I began to think and pray about what could be done. Thus, with the help of a good and holy priest who led Catholic Social Services, the Healing Hearts program was born in 1991. The initial focus was on couples who had lost a baby in the womb, but it didn’t take long to realize that the need was there for other losses as well, such as the death of our son Jeffrey at 39 years of age last year. All these years later, the grief program still exits.
In the pro-life movement, it is often said that all life has a purpose, a place in God’s creation. Kathleen, along with my other children who died too early, are a constant reminder of that blessing.
