All Michelle McCranor wanted to do was hold the body of her baby daughter Celeste in her arms.
Instead, her stillborn baby was whisked away by doctors and nurses, never to be seen again – taken straight from the hospital to the grave.
Michelle and husband Tim still bear the mental scars of the ordeal which took place 23 years ago – and they are desperate to prevent others from suffering in the same way they did.
The Adelaide couple had always dreamed of having a child and were delighted to fall pregnant within a month of their wedding.
Ms McCranor said the pregnancy with Celeste was ‘perfectly normal’ with complications only arising in the final 10 weeks.
‘I had a blood clotting condition that was picked up. It only seems to appear when I’m pregnant,’ Ms McCranor said.
‘The clotting was causing a blood flow issue and the baby wasn’t getting enough nutrients.
‘But there was never any alarm. We were in this pregnancy bliss, there was no mention of our baby not making it.’
The couple (pictured on their wedding day) were shocked to learn an average of six Australian babies are stillborn every day with 20 to 30 per cent of those deaths considered preventable
Ms McCranor (pictured during her pregnancy) remembered having to leave her daughter ‘behind’ at the hospital without ever getting the chance to hold her
The McCranors remembered feeling as though they had ‘never been pregnant’ when people stopped asking about Celeste because of their own discomfort (pictured: Celeste’s funeral)
Ms McCranor later suffered from preeclampsia, a high blood pressure disorder affecting pregnant women, and was placed on bed rest in hospital.
During her stay, doctors noticed Celeste’s heart rate had slowed and decided to induce her birth at 32 weeks.
The couple talked to a counsellor about potential issues with a premature baby but they say there was no preparation for what would happen if Celeste died.
‘It’s hard to explain, it was sort of like I had no fear. I thought, “Well, I’m in the hospital now. If there’s a problem, they’ll fix it”,’ Ms McCranor said.
‘We were in this little bubble of excitement because we were going to have a baby.’
Mr McCranor added: ‘No one mentioned the word stillbirth. We didn’t even know what it was at the time.’
The day of Celeste’s birth was a complete blur for Ms McCranor.
She had been placed on a self-administered morphine drip, meaning she felt dazed from both the overwhelming emotions of giving birth and the effects of the opioid.
However, she clearly remembers the eerily quiet moment Celeste was placed in a cot next to her bed.
‘Everything felt like it went in slow motion, yet it all happened so quickly,’ Ms McCranor said.
‘We had an older midwife and I remember her putting Celeste on her bed.
‘I was thinking, “What do we do now? Are we allowed to touch her?”
‘Nobody ever handed me my baby. I never got to hold her, ever.’
As the realisation their daughter had died began to dawn on them, the couple went into a state of shock.
‘We were just looking at her on the bed, not knowing what we were meant to be doing,’ Ms McCranor said.
‘Nobody led us, no one said if it was okay to pick her up – like they do these days.
‘Now they have a whole healing process, some people even take their babies home for a few days.
‘Sometimes I feel almost angry that we missed out on that.’
The heartbroken parents remember feeling lost after the birth of their daughter and, with no one to guide them, never got to hold her (pictured, the family’s memorial to Celeste)
Ms McCranor (pictured) first began running after the birth of her son in late 2002 as a way to cope with her feelings of grief and guilt
The moment that jarred the parents out of their shock was when they were discharged from hospital just one day after Celeste’s birth.
‘I remember walking out of the hospital and I was frightened to leave,’ Ms McCranor recalled.
‘I was leaving my baby behind.’
Mr McCranor said: ‘The expectation is, like most people, you’re going to come out happy with a new baby.
‘Instead, we came out, had to arrange a funeral and tell everyone what happened – which is pretty confronting.’
Ms McCranor was left feeling as though the only proof she had that she’d ever been pregnant was the stack of hospital pamphlets she’d received about coping with grief.
‘It was almost like we walked out the door of the hospital and everybody forgot we’d ever been pregnant,’ Ms McCranor said.
‘Tim and I are the sort of people who think we need to just chin up and get on with life, but it hurt that we couldn’t talk with people about our baby.
‘Back then, people would be uncomfortable if you mentioned it. It’s almost like they think the baby just evaporates.
‘When you’re pregnant everyone asks how you’re going and so on. Then you go back to your daily life and no one wants to ask anymore.’
As much as they tried to ‘soldier through’ their grief, the couple was constantly confronted with the loss of their daughter through the carefree words of those around them.
People at their shared workplace would quiz them about their maternity leave and the following year when they welcomed their son Luke, other parents would question why they chose to have just one child.
Following Celeste’s birth in 2001, Ms McCranor went into a deep depression due to the heartbreak of losing her daughter and the misplaced guilt she felt for ‘failing’ her.
‘Our son was born and I was distracted for a while but I still wasn’t in a great place,’ she said.
‘I had what I called the “sads” but obviously it was depression.
‘I kept brushing it off but one day I was at my chiropractor and I saw a business card for a personal trainer.
‘I’d never liked the gym or anything like that but something just clicked and I thought, “This is what I need”.’
Mr McCranor called on his wife’s behalf and booked her first session.
‘The trainer was this really lovely young girl and she made me feel so comfortable,’ Ms McCranor said.
The McCranors hope Michelle’s (pictured) run will raise $1million to assist in sharing awareness programs that could save one baby’s life every day
‘She soon learnt our story and genuinely wanted to help. She understood I was there just as much for my mental health as physical.
‘She was the one that eventually got me running. She entered us in these off-road events and I discovered trail running.
‘It started to make my head feel better. It became my medicine.’
As Ms and Mr McCranor gradually started to heal over the years, they’ve become more open about their daughter’s passing.
Growing up, Luke always knew he had a sister and would include her in family drawings as a child.
The family celebrate Celeste’s birthday every year and keep a photo of her on display in their home.
Along with that process came the desire to know more about stillbirth, and the couple were shocked by what they found.
‘At the moment we’ve got an average of six babies that are stillborn every single day in Australia,’ Mr McCranor said.
‘The emotional and economic impacts are massive, not to mention the impact on the health system.’
Ms McCranor, 53, is planning to run from Adelaide’s Seacliff all the way to Port Melbourne over the span of just 20 days, finishing on November 20.
She hopes to raise $1million for Stillbirth Foundation Australia, which is working to distribute a program called the Safer Baby Bundle.
The bundle is an awareness program of the five key things expecting parents and doctors need to monitor to beware of their baby’s health and when to intervene.
Implementation of the Safer Baby Bundle has the opportunity to save at least one of the six babies whose lives are lost to stillbirth every day in Australia.
Ms McCranor felt as though she was being called to action by all the babies, like Celeste, whose deaths had been kept ‘hidden’ because of their uncomfortable nature.
‘It was annoying me that stillbirth was still being overlooked. I felt like we’re not giving a voice to all these babies that, unfortunately, aren’t making it out alive,’ she said.
‘Between 20 and 30 per cent of these babies could be saved through simple awareness program, like the Safer Baby Bundle.
‘These programs cost nothing, it would only cost the government, and their effectiveness have been proven in the UK.’
Mr and Ms McCranor have invested themselves, and their money, into creating Stillrunning, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness about stillbirth.
They are also working to produce a documentary with interviews from bereaved parents in an attempt to push the government into funding awareness campaigns.
‘I’ve found my voice and I just feel like we’re in a position where we can bring that voice out for all the other parents that haven’t got their voice at the moment,’ Ms McCranor said.
Michelle and Tim McCranor (pictured with their son Luke) had a stillborn daughter, Celeste, in 2001
‘I’d love to see an awareness campaign on TV. Like the quit smoking, Slip Slop Slap and road safety campaigns.
‘We don’t want to make expectant parents frightened, we’re just trying to give them the best opportunity of having a healthy baby.’
Mr McCranor, 62, added: ‘We can start saving lives today. That’s how important this is.’
Ms McCranor currently spends 11 hours running and completes at least three strength sessions every week in preparation of her upcoming fundraiser run.
The couple is accepting donations on the Stillrunning website with the goal of raising $1million by November 20 for Stillbirth Foundation Australia.