You see it flashed before your eyes on your mobile device. It’s on your TV. And it may have even oozed into your conversations—the repeated message that abortion is “empowering,” “health care,” and “a right.”
But what does the death of an unborn child actually look like?
Sandra Tepatti knows. She lost her stillborn son at 37 weeks in utero. And the bombardment of pro-abortion messages cut into her as she still continues to grieve Carter James Tepatti, who is now with the Lord.
“It’s frustrating that people who have perfectly healthy babies choose to have an abortion,” the Michigan resident said. “There are other choices, like adoption. Either way, even if these women have an abortion, they’ll still have to give birth to the baby.”
Carter’s stillbirth resulted from left-sided Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). It was a gut-wrenching end to a story that began on July 30, 2022, when Sandra and her husband, Tyler, learned she was pregnant.
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From that day up until her 20-week scan, everything seemed to be progressing smoothly. The couple walked into the appointment excited, but the doctor’s detection of CDH left them initially panic-stricken. However, the doctor offered reassurance.
“He was crying while he told us but said that he’ll be able to have a normal life,” Sandra said. “He’ll just need to have surgery right after he’s born. It might take a while, but he’ll be fine.”
The couple was sent to MFM (maternal fetal medicine) the next day, where more ultrasounds were performed to confirm the diagnosis. They gave the unborn child a solid 80% chance of survival.
Learning about all the medical care their child would need led them to ask the inevitable question about cost. They were told fees would climb into the hundreds of thousands. Sandra and Tyler were then asked if they’d consider abortion in light of the intense complications and expense that would come with baby Carter.
“We said no, that’s not a choice we’re going to make,” Sandra said.
As Sandra continued to endure more appointments, doctors continued to add worrying items to the list of everything wrong with her unborn son, including the discovery of a congenital heart defect.
The Friday of her 36th week, she went into another appointment. She was scheduled to be induced in two more weeks. She was told everything was fine by the midwife who saw her. No doctors entered the room as part of the examination.
Everything began to unravel two days later on March 15, 2023.
“On Sunday, he kicked … weirdly,” Sandra said. “And at that point, I should have just gone to the hospital. He kicked a bunch in a row, and that was not a usual thing, just in one spot kicking a bunch and then stopped, and then I didn’t feel anything.”
Convincing herself everything was okay; she worked the next day at the in-home daycare that she and Tyler manage. But she ended up confiding in her husband that she wasn’t feeling the baby move at all, which wasn’t normal.
Tyler tried to reassure her that everything would be all right, but took her to the ER to be sure, which was located half an hour away in Traverse City.
“I was crying the whole way there because I already knew in my heart something was wrong,” she said.
After being admitted, a nurse asked her if she could feel the baby move at all. When Sandra told her no, the nurse suggested eating food or drinking cold water to get the child moving a bit. But Sandra had already done that.
The nurse put a heart monitor on her. Nothing.
She came back with the doctor who quickly performed an ultrasound. Soon, he told Sandra and Tyler the news that no expectant parent can even imagine hearing: “I’m sorry, we can’t find a heartbeat.”
Sandra said she wanted to scream, but she didn’t.
“I just balled and was shaking a lot,” she said. “They left me and my husband in the room for a while to take it in.”
By this point, it was 9 o’clock at night. Sandra was told they could take her straight back to the birthing room to begin induction or she could go home and return the following morning. Sandra and her husband chose the latter.
But the next morning, they called and learned the room would not be available until the following evening. And when they finally went in, Sandra labored for 30 hours before giving birth to one silent Carter James Tepatti at 3:08 a.m.
He was 20 inches long and weighed 5 lbs., 14 oz.
“At first, they wrapped him up in a blanket and brought him over to me,” Sandra said. “They told us to take as long as we wanted. I held him for a while, probably like half an hour, and I was crying the whole time.”
One of the nurses came in and gently offered to take pictures of Carter. She photographed the couple somberly holding their son, along with his handprints and footprints. She would eventually put those prints into the baby book she had purchased for him. They also created a mold of his hand.
Sandra and Tyler weren’t the only family members to hold little Carter and say goodbye. Both sets of grandparents were also given their time with him.
“I didn’t want to be in the room when my parents saw him, so they got to see him privately,” she said. “They brought him back in, and we had him in our room until we left the next day.”
Carter was cremated and his ashes sit in necklaces that Sandra and Tyler wear. A funeral was held a month later, with only a select few invited to attend.
Today, Sandra is pregnant again—due in March of next year. It’s a happy occasion, and both parents are working to remain positive, but there’s yet another battle to be won.
After the news that Carter’s care would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Sandra and Tyler ended up procuring coverage from Special Children’s Health Care Services from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
But the coverage was canceled because Carter was stillborn. These fees would have been paid if Carter had survived through his birth, even if he had died a moment later. Sandra and Tyler now find themselves $30,000 in debt for all the services provided during her turbulent pregnancy.
Unsure of what to do next, they continue to grasp for a solution while preparing for their latest arrival. They currently have a GoFundMe page, casting a net out into the sea and praying.
And through it all, they continue to mourn Carter. Sandra overcame a particularly dark period where she wanted nothing more than to join her son in Heaven.
However, help came in the form of another stillbirth mother—a friend of a friend who had experienced a similar loss a year prior to Carter.
“She sent me a gift basket, and it had two different devotionals,” Sandra said. “She just let me talk to her a lot and I told her how I felt. She told me she felt the same way and that it gets better.”
And it has.
“I don’t feel the same way as I did back then,” Sandra said. “I’m just glad that I can see him again one day, and I have full faith in that.”
