Karen is a neo-natologist, who spends her days doing something really difficult: helping the sickest children to survive and thrive.

 

While Karen loves her job, her heart bleeds for the parents who she can't help; the parents whose children she's unable to save. 

 

To let them know that she's thinking about them, the American woman wrote a heartwarming letter to them.

 

"This a letter to the parents that no one wants to talk about," she began. 

 

"The parents that never get to send out birth announcements. The parents that never get that first smile or first step. The parents that say goodbye when they should be saying hello. I wrote this letter for you."

 

Continuing, Karen described the normal excitement that these parents no doubt felt upon learning they were expecting a child. 

 

"You make that first doctor appointment and all you can dream about is that first sonogram and hearing that first heartbeat," she wrote. 

 

 

"You wonder who your child will look like and what their personality will be like."

 

It doesn't cross your mind that the child won't make it. As Karen wrote, "You never imagine that you will never know. Then you get a phone call that brings you to your knees."

 

Just like you hope, and expect, that your baby won't have anything wrong with them, Karen is acutely aware of the denial stage that parents go through when they're given the devastating news. 

 

"You hold on to the hope that maybe the tests are wrong," she wrote. "That hope gets you through the myriad of consults with genetics counsellors, maternal foetal medicine specialists, cardiologists, neurologists and surgeons."

 

"Hope that you continue to cling to, hoping beyond hope, that just maybe these tests will prove that your baby is healthy."

 

But sadly, Karen and her fellow doctors aren't always able to tell these parents what they desperately want to hear. 

 

"The answer is no, your baby will not live a long or a healthy life," she wrote. 

 

"And now, you lie awake at night wondering, what do we do now? You wonder, why did this happen and what did I do wrong?"

 

 

"The answer is, you didn't do anything wrong and we are here to help. You were dealt the toughest hand in this life. It is a hard, long road you are abut to walk but we are here to support you. I have made it my life's mission."

 

At this stage, most parents feel desperately lonely, but Karen assures them that "my job doesn't stop when the bad news comes."

 

"No matter how long your child lives, every baby is loved. We discuss how to make your child comfortable and how to keep your family together from the first breath to the last."

 

"We develop a plan for feeding and to care for all aspects of your child's life and in doing so, know how much your child is loved."

 

We honour your roles as parents, the role this new child holds in your family, for however short or long and as you say goodbye to your precious little one, we hope you remember that you honoured this new life and that legacy of love will live on.

 

Karen finished the letter with a touching reminder that they should not feel pressure to forget. 

 

"This child will always be yours, and you will always be a parent."

 

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