Support group helps her deal with daughter’s death
Crystal Ortiz, with her fiancé, Joel DeLaGarza, and their children, Jordan and Miraya.
“They said it was a prolapsed cord, when the umbilical cord goes into the birth canal before the baby. So she was pressing up against it, and that cut off her oxygen.
“After her funeral and when we went home, my fiancé and I couldn’t look at each other. We couldn’t communicate. We didn’t know how to be there for each other. So we ended up breaking up.
“I moved out and we didn’t speak. It was very depressing. The loneliness that you feel is horrible. You don’t know who to reach out to. I stayed to myself. I had gained 18 pounds my whole pregnancy, but I lost 40 pounds in a matter of three weeks after it all happened because I wouldn’t eat.
“My son, who was 6 at the time, was basically living with my mom. I ended up moving back in with her. It was very difficult. I couldn’t really function as a normal human being. I would be on Google all day long, searching for stories about stillborn babies. I needed to know that I wasn’t alone. I needed to know that I would be OK.
“I ended up finding a support group that meets in Houston called MEND. It stands for Mommies Enduring Neonatal Death. They were amazing. Just being with people who had gone through something similar was a huge help. I finally felt like I wasn’t alone. I was able to talk to women who could say, we’ve been there and we know what you’re going through. It made all the difference in the world.
“They also have a daddy group that meets, and I was able to convince my fiancé to go. That’s when it all kind of started to turn around. His communication skills improved and mine were better. We were in a pretty good place, so we decided to get back together.
“I tell him all the time now that it was my daughter in heaven working for us to make it happen. She worked hard to get us back together.”
— Crystal Ortiz
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