At ceremony for Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, grieving families find hope in 'The White Pumpkin'

White pumpkins were everywhere Sunday at Independence Health System’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month ceremony.

The pale gourd serves as a symbol for babies who die during infancy or pregnancy, inspired by “The White Pumpkin,” a poem written by a mother who suffered such a loss.

Children whose brothers or sisters left their families too soon applied fluorescent splotches of paint onto 17 tiny white pumpkins that adorned a table inside a Unity health care facility.

Twenty-seven pillowy white pumpkins — constructed from bundles of yarn, wine-bottle corks serving as makeshift stems — awaited decorations nearby.

And, after a nurse read the poem that lent the titular vegetable its deeper meaning, families flocked to clear plastic trays filled with white- pumpkin cookies.

But, it was the memories that resonated loudest and drew out the tears — like those Lindsay and Will Fennell shared about Willie, their first child, who died shortly after his birth Jan. 6, 2020.

“It felt like you were hit by a freight train, blindsided … and I had a weight on my chest that I thought would never go away,” said Lindsay Fennell, 34, of Ligonier.

The birth of the Fennells’ daughter, Farrah, 11 months after Willie’s death “was God blessing us,” Will Fennell added.

It helped the couple heal. So did an analogy about an egg and a potato.

“You can throw both into the boiling water. One will get hard and one will get soft,” Lindsay Fennell told about 30 parents and children gathered Sunday in a first-floor room inside Excela Square at Latrobe. “So, we softened our hearts.”

Their family’s tragedy yielded an annual event — Willie’s Random Acts of Kindness Day, held each year on the boy’s birthday —which has raised thousands for charity and helped Willie’s family process his absence.

“It took what was a hard day and made us so proud our son was spreading so much love through the world — and from above,” she said.

Mackenzie Hontz, like the Fennells, mourned a pregnancy loss. She had two miscarriages after giving birth to her daughter Riley four years ago.

She and her husband, Jimmy, waited 12 weeks into the most recent pregnancy to tell Riley about their soon-to-be-sibling — “because we thought we were in the clear,” Hontz said.

The Mt. Pleasant woman, 33, remembers what her daughter said after hearing about how the second pregnancy ended.

“She asked, ‘Why do our babies keep going to Jesus?’ ” Hontz said, as started wiping tears from her eyes.

“It can be hard,” she added, trying to maintain her composure. “But Riley will be a great big sister someday.”

The Pregnancy After Loss support group estimates one in every four pregnancies in the U.S. ends in miscarriage — and one in 160 ends in stillbirth.

Around 3.6 million babies are born in the U.S. each year, health officials say. Roughly 1,000 to 1,100 of those babies enter the world at Independence Health Westmoreland Hospital in Greensburg, said Dr. Randi Turkewitz, the physician who helps deliver many of them. The hospital does not track the number of miscarriages, stillbirths and infant deaths it handles.

When Turkewitz trained during her residency 15 years ago, talking about pregnancy loss was fairly taboo, she said.

“I think this is something that’s been brought more to the forefront since then,” Turkewitz said. “And these types of events make people more comfortable talking about it and sharing their grief.”

Dr. Samara Rubin delivers a baby at Greensburg’s hospital about once or twice each week.

But, Sunday, she talked less about the mechanics of her job than how her responses to pregnancy loss have changed since she had her 2-year-old son, Oren.

“It’s tougher to hear, it definitely is,” Rubin said.

The poem “The White Pumpkin” was written by Jennifer Giles, who lost a child when she was 38 weeks pregnant. Published by Giles on social media in 2018, the poem became widely embraced by others suffering loss.

Barb Bumar, a nurse who works in the obstetrics unit at Greensburg’s hospital, ended Sunday’s ceremony by reading the poem, which hails “the sweet little ones” and their “lives perfect and pure.” As Bumar read the closing stanza, some parents in attendance quietly shed a tear; at least one mother wept heavily.

“Angel parents, I know there’s still tears to be shed / But I hope that this pumpkin brings peace instead,” Giles wrote. “Our babies are promised forever in heaven / And that’s the best gift we could ever be given.”