Mom Grateful to Empathetic Nurses for Bringing Her Back to Life After Stillbirth

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While facing life’s difficulties, one generally tends to rely on the support of family or friends. However, sometimes that love and concern might not be enough to overcome the dark and hollow days. For a woman in Vermont, it was a group of nurses who played the role of angels to save her from death after the loss of her first child who made all the difference.

Though Rachel Whalen is a mother of an adorable daughter named Frances, she never stops to think about her first daughter, Dorothy, who was stillborn. In a heartfelt post on her Facebook page, “An Unexpected Family Outing,” she opened her heart on life after Dorothy’s death and the immense support she received from the nurses.

The message that is addressed “To the nurses,” reads, “Your skills and your knowledge saved me from following my daughter into death, but it was your compassion that guided me back towards life.”

Whalen with her deep-felt gratitude also thanked the nurses for ensuring that her husband was well taken care of while he stayed in the hospital with her, even allowing him to “sneak popsicles from the freezer.”

Whalen was pregnant with Dorothy in 2015 after two first-trimester miscarriages. Everything seemed fine, but after a placental abruption caused by complications from preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome, Dorothy passed away.

“Although she slipped into our world silently, her impact has been profound,” wrote Whalen.

But still, Whalen recalls the dark days after Dorothy’s delivery with gratitude, and mentions how a nurse taught her to put ice packs in her bra to suppress her milk because her daughter wouldn’t need it and also held her when she cried.

The pained mother also remembered how a nurse dressed up her baby and snapped a precious photo of them.

“Thank you for making sure her hat didn’t cover her eyes and that her hands were positioned so gracefully,” Whalen shared. “That picture means the world to us.”

But that’s not all that the nurses did for Whalen while she was grieving.

On the first night after Whalen lost Dorothy, a nurse came by and shared her own story of giving birth to a stillborn. That nurse was the “first person to lead me out of the isolation after losing a child,” Whalen added.

Whalen concluded that “Finally, I want to thank the nurses who saw me through my pregnancy with Dorothy’s little sister.”

This beautiful tribute to all the nurses is not just a reminder of all the good people that exist in our world, but also serves to acknowledge that God always manages to send someone during the darkest days of life.