Do you want to cut the cord? the nurse asked. I watched my husband pick up the scissors, his hand trembling as he cautiously severed the lifeline that once connected our daughter, Anika, to me. The nurse wrapped her in a blanket that we had brought from home and placed her in my arms. I remember very little about the hours leading up to her delivery, but I remember every second of holding her. She had a full head of hair, my husband’s eyes, and my nose. “She’s long,” the obstetrician noted. “And beautiful,” I added. Everything about her was perfect despite the obvious, undeniable fact that she was dead. Over the next 4 weeks, the fetopsy, microarray, and placental pathology all came back with the same unnerving conclusion.

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