Capturing the Briefest of Lives

When an infant dies or is delivered stillborn, distraught parents face the heart-wrenching process of how to memorialize a child who doesn’t survive.

Photo courtesy Todd Hochberg

Terrah Tillman and her husband had been trying to have a child for five years. After several miscarriages, they had all but given up on the prospect when Tillman unexpectedly became pregnant with a girl, Berlyn, due in early May of 2013.

“It was everything I dreamed of,” says Tillman, a 34-year-old child therapist from California. “I went to prenatal yoga classes. We got so involved; we wanted to do a natural childbirth, so I had a doula and we had a childbirth educator and tons of support.”

A few days after Berlyn’s original due date, Tillman went into labor and called her doula to her home, where she was ready with candlelight and music.

“It was all very pretty,” she says, gently recalling the scene. “Our family was coming in from out of town to see her. This little baby girl had been waited for, for five years, and we were so excited.”

But at the very last minute something went horribly wrong. Tillman felt no movement from the baby and ended up rushing to th…