Natalie and Brian Morgan of Orlando, Florida were ecstatic about the arrival of their second child. It was a girl and they were head over heels in love, all over again. Baby Eleanor had been kicking around inside her mother’s womb as Natalie went to bed on the night of September 10th. The next morning, Natalie couldn’t feel a thing. Eleanor was born sleeping, and still.
Their shock, pain and grief are unfathomable. The brave parents spent six hours with their stillborn before saying their final goodbyes. They bathed Eleanor, brushed her hair, held her, took photographs with her and told her how much she is loved.
Brian and Natalie shared their heart breaking tragedy in a series of photographs via Facebook. These pictures will certainly make all parents feel grateful for their little ones, for the miracle of birth, that they get to grow old with.
In the process of recovering from her tragic loss, Natalie addressed a plea via Facebook to parents around the world, to never take their children for granted, and to never give up on them, despite their lowest moments in life.
29 Year old Natalie lost her 40 week old baby, who was born without a heartbeat. She describes what she went through when she found out about her unborn daughter’s death, in her post on Facebook saying, “ I couldn’t breathe, I lashed out, I screamed, I threw things, I threw up… and then a piece of me died with her. I was helpless to change anything. My body was supposed to keep her safe, and instead it killed her.”
As the doctors induced labour suggesting she took an epidural, Natalie refused saying that she needed to experience the physical pain and the agony to mirror what she felt in her heart. As she shared her tragic story with the world she wrote, “There are going to be so many of you who have babies who are going to cry every time you try to put him or her down. Or they’ll cry for no reason even if you’re holding them and you’ve fed them, burped them, changed them… everything. But please just remember, while you’re awake at 3 am because you have a baby in your arms keeping you up that late, I’m up at 3 am because I don’t.”
Natalie, who works at Disney Land, went on to plead in her Facebook post saying, “All I ask of you is when you have your dark moments with your baby, instead of begging your child to go to sleep and being swallowed up in your frustration and exhaustion, find the tiniest bit of strength within you to keep going, and say a prayer of gratitude for your child.”
Natalie got a tattoo on her shoulder in Eleanor’s memory and the couple brought her ashes home in a tiny urn.
Natalie and Brian faced a fare bit of criticism for sharing photographs of their dead child on social media. But the praise and support that the couple has received from across the world speaks volumes of their strength and bravery. Her post has been shared more than 3,30,000 times since September 21st. The grieving mother responded to her critics saying, “To whoever keeps reporting our daughter’s photos for containing ‘nudity’ or ‘graphic violence’, please see your way kindly to hell.”
The loss of a child, a miscarriage, stillbirth, are tragedies that most of us have experienced first hand or seen from close proximity. But Natalie and Brian’s story of coping is courageous to say the least, given the taboo and judgement around failed pregnancies, especially in India.
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