What if my sister wasn't really stillborn? How to research?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok OP, I think I have a good and easy roadmap for you:

First, order a kit from 23andMe.com. $99. They are the company that sequenced the Neanderthal genome, btw--very reputable.

The kit collects your saliva and it's pre-paid and you drop it in the mailbox. You do have to wait about 5 weeks while it's being processed.

It gives you a bunch of fun information: your percentage of Neanderthal genes, your maternal Haplogroup (mom's mom's mom's line), if you are male, it will also give you your Y haplogroup. It breaks down your DNA so you can see what % you are Italian, or Yakut, etc.

However; for your purposes here, it also tells you if you are related to anyone else on this website. There are tons of adoptees on that website looking for blood relatives. And there's community boards, and one called "adoptees" and the people on there are very helpful. They also recommend a very good group of people who had an amazing success rate at tracking down people (I don't remember that group's name but it's easy to find once on the website)

Most importantly, 23andMe gives you access to your "raw data" ---your genome. So, (besides uploading it to another website to get health info and risk factors), you can upload your results to something called GEDmatch, which has a huge, huge database.

And I think you can also upload to ancestry.com and there are a few more websites you can upload to. Anyways, once on 23andMe the world will open up to you with respect to how to proceed.

OP here. Thank you for this! I think it's exactly what I need to do. If she is alive and she's in this database, then she knows she has family out there and also wants answers.

[Anonymous]

Back in the 60s, my aunt had 5 stillborn babies. I found pictures of her holding each one of them then at their little funerals. Hospitals don't hide baby deaths. If you possibly have a sister, she was given up, not sold.

You really should leave this alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and to the PP, even today, even with an autopsy, I never got a death certificate. Most states and countries don't require provision of any official documentation. If a baby is stillborn, it's possible you'll still get neither a birth nor a death certificate. I know my parents never got either. If this was more than 20 years ago, the attitude on stillbirth was this: get over it, forget it, and move on. If they don't want to talk, you have to respect that boundary. It's a traumatic thing and if I don't want to discuss my experience with stillbirth, it's up to me.

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree when it comes to surviving siblings, especially if they have questions. Would you refuse to talk about this with your children if they asked? I can't understand that nor can I understand how this is helpful to anyone. There is plenty of evidence that it is very damaging to siblings who have lost a sibling and grown up in a family where the dead sibling is never acknowledged or discussed with them, and the details of that sibling's death are shrouded in secrecy.

Well, my parents did explain about my sibling. In their case there was no explanation. The baby died. I've asked for more, once, since my daughter was stillborn but that's all they know and they've made it clear they don't want to talk about it more than that. If I have a second child, I do intend to tell them about their big sister but really, once they've hit adulthood and they've understood what happened, I shouldn't have to go over it every day just because they don't believe me. That's the other part that bugs me about the OP--the parents say stillbirth, it's disrespectful to not take them at their word.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you for all the supportive responses. I really do appreciate it. I typed my post quite hastily last night, so I wanted to clarify a couple of things.

I did not mean to imply that only unhealthy women have stillborns. Sorry that it came across that way. The point I was trying to make was that I have never heard of an explanation. I have never heard if it was something wrong with my mom, the baby, if the cord was wrapped around her neck. I have had three kids of my own and my mom has never told me of anything I should be aware of.

The part that seems off is that I remember talking with my mom about my sister and I being breach, and I wondered why we weren't c-section. She said that the doctor told her "If you could deliver a 10 pound baby, you could deliver pretty much anything." But wouldn't that be an odd thing to say since there was a stillborn after the 10 pounder? this makes me think that the baby was not actually a stillborn and actually died (or not) sometime after birth. It wouldn't be out of character for my parents to say it was a stillborn to simplify things so that they wouldn't have to endure questions, advice about lawsuits, anger toward hospital from loved ones.

This isn't something I've "obsessed" over for years. It's always been in the back of my mind that I might not have the whole story, but I've just recently really started thinking about it. As a kid, I never thought much about the fact that we were not supposed to go to that hospital. That's just the way it was and I never questioned it. It didn't have a reputation for being a great hospital, but I didn't know anyone else who felt that strongly about it and refused to go there, even in an emergency. I've recently thought about that I realized there must be a reason that she felt so strongly about it.

I don't think there is a birth or death certificate, and I don't think I could request one without their help. So I'm not even sure of the exact date she was born.

Knowing my parents, they probably did not ask to see her after she passed.

I do think that they believe she died and did not give her up. My mom is visibly upset when something comes up about dead babies. For example, when we saw a preview for Heaven is For Real, she walked out of the theater when the kid talked about seeing his sister who was miscarried. And she was buried in another state so that she could be buried next to relatives. I don't think they would have a fake grave for her, and I really don't think they would go through the process of having her transported to another state if they knew she wasn't really dead.

Losing that baby was, of course, the most painful time of their life. So they really don't like to talk about it. BUT if it turned out that she was alive, nothing would make them happier, and they would love to meet her if she wanted that. They would not be the type to leave it be and move on.

I know it seems a bit crazy and far fetched, but stranger things have happened...

Yes OP stranger things have happened but you're getting wrapped up in something that has been explained to you, more than once apparently. Having turn pounders, c sections etc is irrelevant. As others have said, each pregnancy is individual. So let it go and make peace with it. And let your parents continue to grieve this loss, as bereaved parents do, forever.

[Anonymous]

One more thing, on the never wanting to go to that hospital OP, I am never, never, going back to the hospital where I delivered my dead daughter (I found out she had died at a checkup). Just saying the name makes me anxious, seeing signs for it on the street makes me want to run the other way. It's completely normal that your parents would want to avoid it. What if the medical team there made some mistake that caused the baby to die? What if the staff was awful in horrible circumstances? There are plenty of logical explanations for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One more thing, on the never wanting to go to that hospital OP, I am never, never, going back to the hospital where I delivered my dead daughter (I found out she had died at a checkup). Just saying the name makes me anxious, seeing signs for it on the street makes me want to run the other way. It's completely normal that your parents would want to avoid it. What if the medical team there made some mistake that caused the baby to die? What if the staff was awful in horrible circumstances? There are plenty of logical explanations for that.

Agreed, I will never go to the hospital where mine was, either. Went out of my way to have my last at a different one.

[Anonymous]

If I delivered a stillborn, I'd go out of my way to avoid that hospital too. Who wants to drive by horrible memories? It doesn't sound to me like anything is off with your family. However, if you have a nagging doubt, I think you should talk to your parents in lieu of conducting your own investigation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your starting premise is that a perfectly healthy mother who has given birth to a perfectly healthy baby is highly unlikely to have a stillborn birth.

False premise.

Find something else to occupy your time and energy.

Plus 1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let it go

Pp You are a truly horrible person

do not think this pp is horrible at all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you for all the supportive responses. I really do appreciate it. I typed my post quite hastily last night, so I wanted to clarify a couple of things.

I did not mean to imply that only unhealthy women have stillborns. Sorry that it came across that way. The point I was trying to make was that I have never heard of an explanation. I have never heard if it was something wrong with my mom, the baby, if the cord was wrapped around her neck. I have had three kids of my own and my mom has never told me of anything I should be aware of.

The part that seems off is that I remember talking with my mom about my sister and I being breach, and I wondered why we weren't c-section. She said that the doctor told her "If you could deliver a 10 pound baby, you could deliver pretty much anything." But wouldn't that be an odd thing to say since there was a stillborn after the 10 pounder? this makes me think that the baby was not actually a stillborn and actually died (or not) sometime after birth. It wouldn't be out of character for my parents to say it was a stillborn to simplify things so that they wouldn't have to endure questions, advice about lawsuits, anger toward hospital from loved ones.

OP, I have to wonder: do you understand what a stillborn baby is? It is a fetus of at least 20 weeks gestation that has died in utero. That could be a 5 month fetus or a full term fetus weighing 10 pounds. I cannot for the life of me understand what you think is strange about what the doc said about your mother's ability to deliver a breech. It us absolutely true that a woman who has delivered a large baby is a better candidate for breech delivery than, say, a woman who has never given birth. Having has a stillborn baby changes the equation not at all, why should it? Further, vaginal breech deliveries were once quite common, not rare as they are today.

There are many, many reasons why a fetus dies in utero, ranging from terrible chromosomal disorders to cord accidents and abnormalities to placental deficiencies and abruptions. But often there is no identified reason for the death.

Stillbirths are actually not uncommon. I don't know why you would think it is more likely that this child was kidnapped than that he/she simply died.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am aware that I sound crazy, but here it goes...

My mom had a stillborn a few years before I was born, but I always had a feeling that she was still out there. I think one reason I've always been suspicious is that my mom was very healthy. She birthed a 10 pound baby before the stillborn and two breech babies after. Also, my parents were extremely distrustful of that hospital. Even though it was right down the street, my parents would always drive 45 miles to the next hospital instead. They never said why they refused to go there. Makes me wonder what happened there. AND I recently heard about a hospital in the same region that allegedly sold babies after telling the parents it died. So that really got me thinking about it.

How would I go about researching this? I don't even know the date of birth. My parents do not like talking about it so I hate to ask them.

This post literally makes me ill.

I am very healthy, as were (and are) all my living children. My live births each weighed 10 pounds, no gestational diabetes, very healthy. My living children were delivered vaginally, one with no interventions whatsoever.

Nevertheless, one of my babies was stillborn. Although the hospital in which I delivered that baby had nothing whatsoever to do with her death and handled my case with a great deal of sensitivity, I never wanted to enter the doors of that hospital again (and never have). It is a terrible thing to labor and deliver a dead baby. Terrible.

Your fixation with this borders on obscene.

PP, this is not about you. I am sorry for your loss but it's not at all surprising the OP has questions about this that preoccupy her. This was her sibling.

OP, my sibling died in somewhat mysterious circumstances so I sympathize with the uncertainty you're wrestling with. I also sympathize with not wanting to ask your parents for information. I do wonder if there is a death certificate. There may also have been an autopsy and you could contact the coroner in that area and see if they have suggestions (they may no longer have the records but could still make recommendations).

I also think it's ok to bite the bullet and ask your parents. This is your story too, your history, and you have a right to know. It does not belong only to them. I also think the benefit to you from knowing outweighs the harm to them from being upset by your asking (and who knows if they really would be).

You may also want to check out the book The Empty Room about sibling loss. It's excellent and focuses a lot on sibling loss that occurred when the surviving siblings were very young (and in one case before their birth). I think it might be helpful for you and healing.

I never said it was about me. What I meant to imply was that this is not about OP.

[Anonymous]

Considering your followup post, OP, I think you have to let this go. Your parents have given you an explanation. Further, they believe the baby died. I think it would be cruel to continue to press them for details because you think some dr.'s comment is odd and you're curious.

[Anonymous]

The situation OP imagines isn't out of the realm of possibility.

http://jezebel.com/black-women-in-missouri-wonder-if-their-babies-were-sto-1701726683

[Anonymous]

I'm confused. If your sister was buried - if she has a literal grave that you can go to and actually see and touch her tomb stone - why do you think that she is still alive?

[Anonymous]

Don't have time to read everything posted but obviously if your parents are alive, ask them outright. If they aren't and the baby was stillborn there should be an official record using their last name. My mom was healthy but had a miscarriage and an early delivery resulting in death before she had me and 4 others in 5 years so being young and healthy has no bearing on possible losses.