Florence Gloria Parsons
“On Friday, Nov. 3 at 12:24 AM Florence Gloria Parsons was born in Careggi University Hospital in Firenze, Italy. At 24 wks 6 days gestation, she weighed 530 grams. She had dark brown hair, a little button nose, long legs like her dad, olive skin, my unfortunate forehead, and long fingers meant for playing the piano. She was beautiful and perfectly formed down to her little toes.”
Sometimes it’s a struggle writing about our daughter. Sometimes every detail she’s linked to seems too precious to share because it’s from a finite source of memories.
Will there be a day when we won’t have ‘new’ details or memories to share? I hope not.
There’s also that line between trying to capture everything that you’re feeling as parents and trying not to make everything seem so definite. With limited memories of her, everything else we carry is wrapped up in how we imagine her and how much we continue to love her.
Stillbirth effects about 1% of all pregnancies. There are 24,000 stillbirths in the US each year. [1]
I will be the first to admit, in 2017, at 30 years old, I didn’t grasp the term “stillbirth” until Florence passed away. Now, we see a whole world of parents who are grieving their babies and the children and adults they would have become.
Purpose of this site
I created this site as a healing project to complete while my husband was deployed. Aside from being a meditative outlet, my intent is also to 1) share our story and 2) raise funds to donate a caring cradle to Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island.
I decided to set a deadline for myself and publish this site on Florence’s 1st birthday. It feels important to tell her story and how her memory continues to touch our lives so deeply.
Our hope is to have a caring cradle donated by 2019. *Whatever isn’t covered, Stephen and I plan to match the difference to ensure this device is available to families.* When we travel back to our home state of Rhode Island, we hope to have a small dedication in Florence’s memory.
All parents deserve the extra time a caring cradle can provide.