For Nikita Razo, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month is personal. Several years ago, during a routine 12-week check-up, she found out that her growing baby had died. An ultrasound tech was unable to find the heartbeat. After sitting alone in the waiting room for an hour and a half, a doctor finally confirmed the news. It was days before Thanksgiving 2012 and Razo, her husband and the couple’s first son had been planning to visit family and announce her pregnancy over the holiday.
To honor her experience, and the experiences of others like her, Razo ― a Savannah-based birth and family photographer ― arranged a photo shoot to help women tell their stories of miscarriage and stillbirth. She put calls out to her Facebook community, as well as on local parenting boards, and in mid-September, assembled a group of six women. They posed with white balloons that signified each of the babies they had lost.
“I was standing there by my car with a helium tank blowing up these balloons and the counting off the number I needed to hand every woman,” Razo told The Huffington Post. “I handed one women 12. I’ve only had one miscarriage, and that was hard enough. Handing her that many really hit me.” Several of the women have living children. Others don’t.
Ultimately, Razo said that she hopes the project gives the women she photographed a concrete way to acknowledge what they’ve been through (several haven’t even told their friends and family how many babies they’ve lost, she said), and helps further the message that miscarriage is common and shouldn’t be hidden in any way.
Here are their stories.

I went through labor and delivery without any medications to give birth to a daughter I knew I could never bring home with me. I held her in my arms before they took her away. I asked questions. Why? How? I begged for her to come back to me. It was, and still is, the most heartbreaking moment of my life. We paid for an autopsy, but we got no closure. We were told: "These things happen sometimes and it's not anyone's fault."
Six months later, I also miscarried twins. I can't put into words how devastating life is after each loss, but I want others to know they're not alone in this.

Over the next three years, there were more miscarriages, more appointments, more prayers and, sadly, less support. Finally, I got pregnant and made it to 36 weeks. Upon arriving at the hospital for some monitoring before induction, I learned our son had passed away the night before. I delivered a 9 pound, 22 inch boy on March 6, 2009, while my husband was fighting in Iraq. Again, we grieved and to our surprise, started to be judged. “When are you going to give up and realize you’re not meant to be a mother?” “When will you stop putting your husband through this?” The list goes on.
We suffered another two miscarriages before being blessed with the opportunity to adopt a baby. After our son came, I had a few more miscarriages. We eventually met with a specialist in Savannah and decided to give it six months on treatments. If it didn’t happen, we were done.
After a reproductive surgery and tons of monitoring, our first round of treatments took! It was a long 42 weeks, but I had a healthy baby. After nine long years, we have decided this is our family and we are extremely blessed.

Five months after that, I found I was pregnant again. My husband and I kept it secret, but then I started bleeding at work. Once again, I was losing my baby.
My heart hurts every time I meet someone who went through, or is going through, the same thing, because you know the pain they feel and that there are no words that you can say to them that will make them feel better.
My babies will always be in my heart and I know that some day, I'll be able to meet them.

As the years went by, I could not stop seeing those babies in my dreams. I could not stop myself from wondering who they would be and what they would look like. Would they laugh like me? I could not stop hearing the echo of “mommy” in my mind.
I have no rainbow after the storm. I will forever be in this storm. I will carry my babies in my heart until God calls me home. I have the month of October to remind people that my babies existed and to join families like mine in remembering our angels.

I've heard from people that I "just need to move on and accept that I'm not supposed to be a parent." They've told me to "just adopt and then it will happen" or that I should "be more faithful and trust in God to bring me a child when the time is right." None of these words make the journey easier. They make it even harder. I'm still left waiting with empty arms, knowing that the babies that have grown under my heart will never be in my arms.

I've heard everything from, "Did you do anything to cause the miscarriage?" to “Imagine if you had lost the baby further along" and "Maybe you shouldn't try again because you are almost 40." I think people mean well, but truly don't know what to say.
My bond really started the moment I found out I was pregnant. I began talking and singing to my little angel. The loss of a child is extremely painful, even if that loss happens just two months into your pregnancy.
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