This is My Story - Cristina

Possum Portraits
6 days ago
5 min read

In this series of personal stories we hear from parents who have suffered pregnancy or baby loss. We hold space for loss and grief, and we remember our babies gone too soon.

In sharing their stories, these parents are beginning to exorcise the triple demons of stigma, silence and ignorance that afflict so many conversations in the perinatal bereavement space.

Parents share their journeys and the lessons they have learned about grief, parenthood, friendship and living after the death of their baby. They tell us how they have changed, who they have become, and what truly matters now.

**Baby boy Noa James with his mum and dad**

The first day we found I was pregnant we went surfing, like his daddy always dreamt of. We are so happy we did that together on day 1. We knew his name would be "Noa James" on the same day we found out he was a boy. We always wanted to say, "Noa without the h", like his mommy "Cristina without the h".

The last few months have been very difficult for us. After being so happy to find out I was pregnant, we experienced a lot of uncertainty and fear after a blood test. Later

on, an amniocentesis confirmed that our baby boy, Noa James, had an extra chromosome that is very rare and uncommon. This condition came with an unknown and unpredictable range of impacts within an very wide spectrum of possibilities.

Those were the longest weeks. Living in limbo, wanting to share the happy news about our pregnancy but having to hold back.

Initially it was thought the blood test result could be a false positive, or that the result may be confined to the placenta. But then we got the heartbreaking confirmation that the condition was indeed inside our baby boy's body.

There's a chance of this happening in approximately 1% of pregnancies. We made the toughest and most painful decision: in order to protect him, we knew that the right thing to do was not to continue with the pregnancy.

We were and will always be completely heartbroken. But we are also completely full in our hearts, knowing we love him so much, and that we would do anything to protect him.

We've never felt a love like we do for Noa.

It's still hard for us to believe that this is our life, and we truly hope that no one has to go through something like this. But these are situations that actually do happen in real life.

We wanted to share our story because we find that by talking about it we create awareness of these situations. This can also help others.

Two of our friends went through a similar story - though all journeys are different - a few weeks before us. Even though I'm so sorry that we share this experience now, I will always be grateful to have had one of my best friends holding my hand during this journey. To have someone who could deeply understand what we went/are/will be going through.

If we fell victim to something that had a 1% probability of happening, then there could be someone out there reading this who is also affected.

It could be a friend of a friend, a cousin of a cousin, someone that we or you might know. Someone who may (unfortunately) be able to relate to our story.

We want to in some way help and hold their hands by deeply understanding what they are going through. We would like to send our love to those who have experienced baby loss at any stage, week, age or for any reason - they all are

extremely heartbreaking situations and none is more or less painful than another.

This experience is not something that is widely shared, which can make us feel alone. But we are not. Our loss case is called TFMR (Termination For Medical Reasons). It's a term we had never heard of and most people don't know about it either. We wanted to share this because it is valuable to know the right terminology when you are going through it.

After 24 weeks and 4 days, Noa arrived on a sunny Sunday, February 2nd 2025, at 1:47 pm. It is in fact the day of our engagement anniversary. We believe Noa chose this day to join us in our commitment to spend the rest of our lives together - now and forever the 3 of us.

We had the most amazing midwives who made everything truly magical. They are angels on Earth, and we will always be grateful to them. We decided to spend 24 hours with Noa. We got to make footprints and handprints as part of our memory box.

We gave him all his gifts from family and friends. We shared a bracelet with Noa that the 3 of us now have, and the midwives organised a volunteer photographer - more angels on Earth - that are so kind to do this work for families like ours. Noa is now with his grandpa Puchi, and that gives us a sense of peace and calm.

Meeting him was so magical and extremely heartbreaking. It's something we will never be able to explain. It's the most contradictory life experience.

The loss of Noa made us notice that there is no time to waste. He kept us so present and in the moment, enjoying every day we had with him, experiencing new things.

We had both of our families coming for Christmas, and Noa got to hear them all and create memories with them. There was no time to waste with Noa, and there's never time to waste in life.

Thank you for all the love and support from our family and friends. Thank you for referring to Noa as Noa - hearing his name or seeing it written in cards addressed to us means more than we could ever explain in words. Noa will always be part of our family.

We've learned that no message is small, everything adds value, and being present is the biggest act of love anyone can do for someone going through a tough time.

Never hesitate to send that message.

Thank you for all the messages, gifts, flowers and meals, they touched our hearts - every single one of them. Thank you for acknowledging our pain and letting us feel it. Words are not enough to express how grateful we are and will always be.

Noa made us his parents, and it really is the greatest honour to be Noa's parents.

This will never change, we will always be Daddy, Mommy and Noa. Noa is always with us, we remember him and love him every day.

We have a special place we go to feel him very close, and it will be forever our place. We now call it "Noa's Beach".

We believe he chose this one because he can see the fish, and sometimes there are doggies there, and he would love them.

We have Noa's playlist, and Noa's song is "Here Comes the Sun". It always makes us smile and cry at the same time. Noa's book is "Kissed by the Moon", and we still read it to him.

He is in the ocean, in the sunshine, in the birdsongs, in the kookaburras, in the wind...