On March 1, 2006, our beautiful first-born child, Nicolas Jay, finally made his entrance into this world – one week after his due date. He weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20 inches long. Nicolas, a perfect and otherwise healthy baby, was stillborn. He died suddenly and unexpectedly during early labor as a result of undiagnosed pregnancy complications. Like all new parents, we felt a joy and a love so deep and so full upon seeing our child for the first time. In the same moment, we were consumed by a grief and longing for the son we would go home without, for the son who would never grow up. So began our simultaneous journey into parenthood and mourning.

Our Hanami Prints blog is a way of not only chronicaling this unexpected journey but also reaching out to other grieving parents, honoring the lives of our children, and creating a community to share information, news and musings on miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant and child loss. While our experience includes the stillbirth of our first child at term in 2006 and the miscarriage of our third child at 11 weeks of pregnancy in 2008, we hope to provide relevant information to parents and families grieving the loss of a child at any age from any cause.