Couple Finds out They Have a Baby Girl, the Next Day She Dies

One day they were celebrating a gender reveal party, and the next day they found out the baby was not going to make it.

First-time parents Jessica and her husband Hayden cannot help but feel blessed as they celebrate their gender reveal. They were surrounded by everyone they loved, who cheered when the cake revealed they were having a baby girl.

Everything was going well, or so they thought.

"We were a low-risk pregnancy, so we had no idea that anything would go wrong. We were going to baby shows and already started painting the room and buying everything we needed," the 28-year-old would-have-been-mom from Orange, New South Wales, shared with Kidspot.

The parents did not know they would be mourning just hours after the celebration.

Premature labor

The next day of the gender reveal party, Jessica had a mild spotting as they were on their way to a baby expo.

Both parents were utterly surprised as two days ago, in their midwife appointment, they were told that she was in good health and had a "perfectly normal ultrasound" at the 22-week pregnancy mark.

According to What To Expect, Jessica and Hayden's baby girl at 22 weeks is already the same size as a small doll, weighing one pound and 11 inches long. Her grip was firmer, and she could sometimes hold on tight to the umbilical cord. Her sense of sight is more fine-tuned, as well as her hearing sense, as she can already hear her parents' voice, her mother's heartbeat, the murmur of her stomach, and the rushing of blood through her body.

Jessica immediately informed her midwife about what happened and was told that the symptom was normal, but suggested they stop by the hospital if they could.

After waiting four hours in the emergency room, the doctor gave them the worst news of their lives. The doctor announced that she was in premature labor, and if the baby came out that night, their first child would not be able to make it.

She could not help but feel "so upset," yet she needed to calm down to keep the baby as long as possible.

Baby Lilly has gone too soon

How can they say goodbye to the baby they have prayed and longed so hard for? The parents were both confused about why this was happening and, at the same time, devastated in grief.

But their little girl knew exactly how to say goodbye.

On that night they were in the hospital, the baby kicked for the first time, and unfortunately, the last time. Their baby girl made sure to kick so hard that even her daddy felt it too.

Despite desperate attempts to hold off the labor, Baby Lilly came out on November 13, 2017, after a 13-hour vaginal delivery.

The parents were still able to hold her and spend time with her for 28 long minutes before she "passed away so peacefully on my chest," Jessica painfully recalled.

It was found that an "incompetent cervix caused Jessica's premature labor," also called a cervical insufficiency, as described by Mayo Clinic. The latter explained that when a woman gets pregnant, the cervix, typically closed and firm, slowly softens, decreases in length, and dilates. If one has an incompetent cervix, it might begin to open too soon, causing premature birth or loss of healthy pregnancy. Cervical insufficiency is difficult to diagnose and treat.

For so long, Jessica blamed herself for what happened and thought her body had failed her. Yet, a year later, she got pregnant again and now shares two children with Hayden.

During both pregnancies, she made sure to go through internal ultrasounds that were able to check the length of her cervix, something that she was not aware of when she was pregnant with Lilly.

Jessica shared that even until now, she always wondered how big the chances were if she knew that her cervix needed to be checked and if the hospital also checked sooner.