Six years after the stillbirth of her first baby Jessica, Jennifer Jara launched "Love, Jessica." Her goal with the non-profit organization is to help grieving parents who suffered after losing infant pay bills.
Jennifer suffered stillbirth
In 2014, Jennifer Jara and her husband, Joaquin, learned that their 27-weeks baby was not growing in the womb despite having a heartbeat. Doctors said that due to complications related to her high blood pressure, the baby would most likely die in utero.
After monitoring and hoping their baby would live for 13 weeks, her attending doctor told them that their baby had no heartbeat. On July 1, 2014, Jara recalls that she went home from the hospital that evening without her baby. After induction and 24 hours of labor, their daughter Jessica was stillborn.
Grief increased when bills arrived
The mom of three now said that she was heartbroken in the weeks after the stillbirth. Her grief only grew when she received medical bills after Jessica's birth. She felt it was unfair that she had to pay bills every month without having the baby.
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Six years after her firstborn's stillbirth, she wants parents who suffer like her to have one less thing to worry about. She wants to help pay the bills of parents who lost their infant by a miscarriage or stillbirth.
She sat down and thought about the days after Jessica was born and thought about how someone could have helped her during her grief. She thought that next to saving her infant, she would have liked the bills settled. Jara launched the organization while she was on maternity leave after giving birth to her youngest child, Gianna.
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Helped five families so far
The organization has already covered $1250 medical expenses since its launch on July 1, which could have been Jessica's sixth birthday. She has already helped five different families in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana by giving them $250 to each family.
Donations poured from businesses and individual donors. Parents who want to receive help will have to fill out a simple application and submit copies of medical bills. Jara would then pay the facility directly then provide the family with a receipt.
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With the growing organization, Jara is hoping to cover higher amounts per family. To date, the organization already has enough money to fund more families in the coming months.
Keeps her daughter's memory alive
Jara wants to help grieving families from the loss of a baby so that she could honor the daughter that she lost. She said that by helping others, she keeps her daughter's memory alive. She smiles a little bit every time she writes, "Love, Jessica," because it makes her feel that her baby's death did not happen in vain.
