Even though it’s common to lose a pregnancy, few women expect it will happen to them.

One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage and 1 in 160 babies are stillborn or die within 30 days of birth. The three of us know these odds too well: We experienced these tragic statistics firsthand.

We each have our own unique experiences. We live with them every day. But Oct. 15, National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, is a solemn yet beautiful occasion to reflect on our losses. It is also an opportunity to let other women who share this experience know that they are not alone.

More and more of these conversations are happening on social media, which allows people to circle a common fire, exchange their stories and create a new way to talk openly about loss and healing. We hope that by sharing our experiences, it will help others find solace in their grief, and a way to move on from heartbreak.

Here are our stories.

Jessica Zucker

When my 16-week pregnancy ended, I shrieked so fiercely I imagined my voice would be heard across oceans, across continents. My daughter emerged from my body. Cutting the umbilical cord, coached by my doctor by phone, was perhaps the most confounding moment of my life. I was home alone that afternoon in October. I began to hemorrhage. My life could have ended had I laid on the floor in horror.

I eventually made it to my doctor’s office. The concern of excessive blood loss was imminent; I had an un-medicated procedure to extract what remained of my pregnancy. Pain emanated as the placenta — the remnants of our abbreviated connection — was tugged from me. I lay silent, surrendering. Before returning home, I took photographs of her, our way of capturing this extraordinarily brief hello and dreadfully long goodbye — a farewell that continues still.

—Jessica Zucker, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and creator of the #IHadaMiscarriage hashtag campaign and a line of pregnancy loss cards.

Tara Shafer

From the moment I learned that my son had died until the moment I delivered him, the order of my life unraveled. It was as though my notion of time had been shredded and rearranged as a garish patchwork collage. I would have to be induced with medication to give birth — an unthinkable procedure but one that is safer compared to surgery.

In preparation to deliver a baby who had died, I walked through Central Park in New York City, where my doctor practiced. The people around me seemed like ghosts or time travelers. When I got to the hospital I was prepared for labor. There were tubes and monitors. There were endless sitcoms with tinny laugh tracks on the television. I labored for days and when I was done, I held in my arms a swaddled lifeless baby boy. He was simultaneously all there and completely gone. He would never live.

—Tara Shafer is the cofounder of Reconceiving Loss.

Nicole Barsalona

Learning Olivia’s heart had stopped beating was undoubtedly the worst moment of my life. What I didn’t expect from stillbirth, however, is for her story to become a love story.

The early days were extraordinarily painful: 24 hours of induction followed by a 23-hour labor with no epidural. I hoped my physical pain would match the emotional agony. Olivia was a perfectly healthy baby girl. The doctors could not explain why she died.

Death cannot erase the moment I met and held my daughter on the day of her birth, or that I became her mother. Out-of-order loss has taught me that the world keeps spinning, even when I want it to stop, and even at the darkest times, life still has incredible richness.

— Nicole Barsalona is the founder of Mommy Interrupted.

Death is as big a part of life as birth. Yet, when it comes to pregnancy loss and infant death, we lack a vocabulary for this experience despite the fact that its survivors number in the millions.

We are challenging the taboo that pressures bereaved parents to arrive at a happy ending suitable for sharing with friends and family. But the lingering sense of shame holds fast even as we try to eradicate it. That creates a culture of self-censorship, making it difficult if not impossible to express the degrees of sadness, anger, and longing that we experience.

It’s been almost a year since I was pregnant with Emerson, and almost a year since I lost him.. #IHadAMiscarriage #breakthesilence

— AllieNoelFoster (@AllyyyyNoel) October 12, 2015

In hearing stories of pregnancy and baby loss, we are struck by how many people grieve on their own. We wonder about the cost of adapting to tragedy in isolation, but are amazed by the resilience we see every day from mothers, fathers and partners.

There are few meaningful ways to grieve collectively as a society, but when those who suffer loss are permitted to feel it openly and amongst others, it helps them heal. Family and friends do so much by walking this terrain alongside those grieving.

Yet grief requires patience from everyone it touches — it knows no timeframe. It is also often transformative. It colors our world completely. We see things differently, and sometimes, no less beautifully.

A year later, after a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy, we are still hoping to be parents.. #breakthesilence #IHadAMiscarriage

— AllieNoelFoster (@AllyyyyNoel) October 3, 2015

As painful as the loss of a pregnancy or newly born child is, we muster strength to move forward — and some of us even thrive. Healthy babies are often born subsequently, but the longed-for lost baby is not forgotten. This is one way to persevere, though certainly not the only way.

Many parents would not trade this dual experience of loss and parenthood; they found power in choosing to honor and remember.

Today we are thinking about living and dying, but we are also looking toward the future.

We must forge a new reality in which pregnancy loss is part of a global conversation. With dedicated effort to support the bereaved and an openness that acknowledges death as a part of life, we can create a society that supports women in pregnancy, and their partners, no matter the outcome.

This dream gives us hope that we can share the difficult and unexpected journey some parents face, and find healing in that courageous act.

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