PART 1
My husband, Brayden, and I had been married for three years when we moved from Washington State to Boise, Idaho. We were enjoying our new life together, exploring the city, meeting new people, and getting comfortable in our new home.
We always knew we wanted children someday, but we weren’t in a hurry. We were happy being a family of two and had imagined waiting until we were around 30 before starting a family.
Then, one cold November day in 2021, everything changed.
Brayden found out his job was being eliminated.
The very next day, we discovered that I was pregnant.
The timing couldn’t have been more unexpected. We were shocked and scared about what the future would look like, but underneath all that fear was an overwhelming feeling of love for the little baby growing inside me.
Brayden quickly found another job. We started looking for a house in the suburbs, created a budget, signed up for birthing classes, and reached out to our families and friends for support.
Before long, our worries started turning into excitement.
We learned we were having a baby girl.
We named her Miclaine.
We prepared her nursery, had two baby showers, attended birthing classes, installed her car seat, and packed our hospital bags.
Everything was ready.
The pregnancy itself was surprisingly easy.
As the weeks passed, I became more and more excited to meet our daughter.
Then we reached 39 weeks.
One warm July evening, I suddenly realized I hadn’t felt Miclaine moving much since dinner.
At first, I tried not to panic.
I drank some juice.
I did jumping jacks.
I ran around the house.
I tried everything I could think of to get her moving.
But nothing happened.
I called the hospital, and they reassured me that everything was probably fine. Still, they told me to come in so they could check on her.
I woke Brayden up, and we headed to the hospital.
He was calm and optimistic.
He kept praying that Miclaine was simply being stubborn and giving us a hard time before deciding to enter the world.
I didn’t feel the same way.
Something inside me was telling me that something was very wrong.
When we arrived, Brayden dropped me at the entrance while he went to park the car. I ran straight to labor and delivery.
Within minutes, nurses connected me to machines.
Then came the Doppler.
Silence.
They tried an ultrasound.
More silence.
The nurses called doctors into the room.
My fear grew with every passing second.
Eventually, we heard the words that no parent should ever have to hear:
Our daughter no longer had a heartbeat.
I completely broke down.
I kept asking why this was happening.
How could we have gone from preparing for our daughter’s arrival to being told she was gone?
There was no explanation.
We would never know exactly why Miclaine had suddenly died.
I turned to Brayden and asked how we were supposed to live without her.
He was devastated too, but he knew he had to stay strong enough to help me through the surgery and everything that followed.
He called our family in Washington and told them to come to Boise.
He found a cemetery.
He began making funeral arrangements.
He made sure I took my medication and went to counseling.
He couldn’t save his little girl anymore.
So he focused all his energy on taking care of me.
After the C-section, we were finally able to hold Miclaine.
Brayden saw her first, and he gasped when he saw how beautiful she was.
Then they brought her to me.
I held my daughter against my chest and pressed her cheek against mine.
She was warm.
She was beautiful.
She looked perfect.
She had long dark hair, thick eyelashes, full cheeks, and tiny chubby fingers.
She weighed less than seven pounds, but she was wonderfully chunky.
I didn’t want to let her go.
Her name was Miclaine Marie Miller.
She would forever be our baby girl.
Leaving the hospital without her was something I don’t think anyone can truly prepare a parent for.
We had to leave our daughter behind.
We had to plan her funeral.
We had to bury her.
We had to return to the nursery we’d lovingly prepared for a baby who would never sleep there.
We had to somehow continue living.
Eventually, I created Miclaine’s Mission, a foundation designed to provide grieving parents with personalized gifts and resources after the loss of a baby.
I couldn’t take away anyone’s grief.
But I wanted other parents to know that their babies mattered, their children were remembered, and they didn’t have to experience that loss completely alone.
