Unimaginable

Book excerpt: There is no way to begin without telling you the saddest part of the story. It's a love story, and it begins with a positive pregnancy test. But, it doesn't end with a baby."Everything was right on schedule in Brooke Taylor's meticulously planned world. She had checked off every box-the husband, the house, the dogs, the graduate degree, the (modest) savings account-and now, positive pregnancy test in hand, she had checked the most anticipated box of all. As a young couple with every dream seemingly within their grasp, the potential for looming tragedy wasn't even on their radar. The death of a child? That was an unfathomable abstraction, a terrible tragedy that could only happen to someone else.And then, in one fateful moment, the unimaginable became their reality.After 34 weeks of a textbook, uneventful pregnancy while expecting their first daughter, Eliza, in 2010, Brooke and her husband David were shocked when she went into labor weeks before her due date-and then absolutely blindsided when they arrived at the hospital only to be told that their beloved "Baby Duck" no longer had a heartbeat. This is the story of what comes next: of learning to live with a broken heart that keeps on beating, of picking up the pieces amidst the devastation of earth-shattering grief, and of finding a way to love life again-even when nothing goes according to plan. This is the story of surviving the death of a child, navigating the complexities of life after pregnancy loss, and discovering that grief can somehow become a part of our life without overtaking it completely.Unimaginable: Life after baby loss examines what it means to be a parent bereaved through stillbirth, and traces one mother's path back to a hopeful life.