My Stillbirth During Anna's Maternity Leave - a podcast by WNYC Studios

Pregnancy loss happens a lot. Of women who know they’re pregnant, 10 to 15 percent will have a miscarriage before 20 weeks. After that point, pregnancy loss is called a stillbirth. One in 100 pregnancies ends that way. That's what happened to a listener named Krystal, who lost her son Everett this past spring at full term.

A few months after her son died, Krystal sent us an email with the subject line, "My stillbirth during Anna's maternity leave." She wrote about how her son's death had left her feeling really isolated, and changed. "I still feel as if I'm in a vacuum and looking out at the world with no more sense of self," she wrote. "It’s incomprehensible and earth-shattering. I can’t explain how out of sorts it makes me feel."

We get a lot of emails from you about pregnancy loss—and the culture of silence around it. So I asked Krystal if she'd talk with me about her experience: what happened the night she delivered her son, how it feels to be in a postpartum body while grieving, and how she and her husband are taking care of themselves—and their older child—now.

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If you want to hear more conversations about pregnancy loss, we've got a few recommendations of other podcasts to listen tohere. They're part of acollaborative spreadsheetwhere you can also suggest the books, podcasts, songs and other things that have helped you grieve if you've experienced pregnancy loss.

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