Mom-To-Be's Shirt Sparks Touching Conversation About Miscarriage

A chance encounter at Hobby Lobby turned into a sweet moment between two women, all because of a T-shirt.

During a trip to her local Hobby Lobby store, Autumn Tolliver Safley wore a shirt with a rainbow heart and the words “You’re looking at a rainbow!” over her stomach. The shirt meant that she was carrying a “rainbow baby,” a term used to describe a baby born after a miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss or neonatal death.

Near the entryway of the store, Safley passed by a woman named Courtney Mixon. The two women didn’t know each other then, but they soon met when Mixon approached Safley with tears in her eyes.

“She said that she loved my shirt and that she knew exactly what it meant,” Safley told The Huffington Post. “I walked over to her and asked if I could hug her and she proceeded to tell me that she and her husband lost their baby to miscarriage last year and had been trying to conceive since.”

Safley then told Mixon that she was pregnant for the third time after losing two babies since October.

“I told her as we hugged that I would be praying for her and that everything would be alright,” Safley said.

On Sept. 10, Mixon posted a photo on Facebook of Safley, whom she now considers a friend, and her shirt and explained how much she appreciated bonding with her about their miscarriage experiences. She described the encounter to HuffPost as “awesome.”

“It was awesome, like we weren’t in the middle of the store,” Mixon said. “And it was pure, like we knew what each other had gone through. It was such a blessing like God telling me, ‘Look, do you hear me now?’”

As of Monday, Mixon’s post about Safley has been shared more than 33,000 times. She said she never expected it to go viral and simply wanted to raise awareness for miscarriage. She also wanted to let Safley know she admired her strength.