Stephanie has spent her career in corporate and community affairs, and the last 15 of those in banking, working to bring people to the front of the issues that most deeply impact them. It wasn’t until 2016, when Stephanie tragically lost her middle child Ethan to stillbirth, that her journey to help others who had experienced this trauma and heartbreak began.
Together with her husband James, Stephanie has three children, Samantha who is ten years old, Ethan who would be six years old, and Will who is five years old.
When Stephanie was 40-weeks pregnant with her son Ethan she went into hospital preparing to deliver her precious baby into the world.
“Everything had been absolutely fine up until that point, and they were going to induce me if I didn’t go into labour myself,” Stephanie says, “then they went to monitor Ethan and there was no heartbeat. We just couldn’t believe it.”
“There were no signs that anything was wrong or about to happen, so it was just completely unexpected”.
Stillbirth is devastatingly common, impacting six Australian families every day. Globally, 3 million pregnancies end in stillbirth every year.
Unfortunately, Stephanie and her family know first-hand the immense grief that is caused by stillbirth.
Stephanie and daughter Samantha’s shadow, while pregnant with Ethan in 2016
“When we found out Ethan had died, we went home to let it, kind of sink in a bit more. Then we went back to the hospital, and I delivered him there. He was perfect, so beautiful, just missing a heartbeat and we don’t know why. It was such a shock, and it was so hard to deal with and recover from,” Stephanie says.
“Our daughter Samantha was a bright and bubbly three-year-old at the time. She felt his loss and experienced her own sadness, and she also continued her normal fun, active life which helped us enormously. We are so grateful for our wonderful daughter.”
In the weeks after Ethan’s death, Stephanie reached out to Red Nose Australia for support, an organisation which she now volunteers her time and skills to.
“I just felt like I didn’t know what to do and who to talk to. This whole new world had opened up that we had found ourselves in, and we had to do things that we didn’t know how to do,” Stephanie says.
“Making decisions about funerals and all sorts of things when you had been expecting to be going home with a newborn baby to look after. It was overwhelming and so hard to navigate your way through. To have that support with people who had been there and understood made it easier.”
In Stephanie’s role as a volunteer at Red Nose Australia, she speaks with GPs and other health professionals who provide care for pregnant women and families, to help increase their awareness of safe sleep, safer pregnancy and the stillbirth bereavement care that Red Nose offers.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as a phone call, but it is a network of incredible parents doing the work and raising awareness. There’s a challenge in that because we are sharing our own stories of stillbirth and at times it can be very difficult to talk about,” Stephanie says.
Stephanie first met Professor Stephen Tong, Co-director of Mercy Perinatal and clinician scientist and specialist obstetrician when she was pregnant with her youngest son, Will.
At her 32-week scan, Stephanie’s sonographer detected a change and that something wasn’t right. It was at this point that she was admitted as an in-patient at Mercy Hospital for Women in Heidelberg.
After two weeks in hospital, the team led by Professor Sue Walker AO, Co-director of Mercy Perinatal, noticed that things were declining quickly.
“They detected another change. Things were declining a bit and that’s when Sue came and did an ultrasound, and the team decided, we’re going to get him out, and that’s how Will came into the world,” Stephanie says.
“Going on to have Will, after what happened with Ethan, the pregnancy was very stressful, but we had a great team looking after us with Stephen and Sue. We are so grateful and can’t express that enough.”
Unfortunately, ultrasound identifies less than 50% of all babies at risk of stillbirth.
That’s why the team at Mercy Perinatal, led by Professor Tong and Professor Walker, are currently developing a stillbirth prevention test; a blood test that could be offered to all women that identifies vulnerable pregnancies with a heightened risk of stillbirth.
These at-risk babies could then be safely delivered and taken out of harm’s way before stillbirth occurs.
This world-first test will make the impossible, possible, and revolutionise pregnancy care around the world – saving millions of families from the heartbreak and tragedy of stillbirth.
“The research needs to keep being done, and the fact that Mercy Perinatal is doing this right now is so important and will help so many families. So no one has to experience the devastating loss of unexpected stillbirth,” Stephanie says.
To support Mercy Perinatal’s groundbreaking stillbirth prevention tests, please consider making a tax-deductible donation before 30 June 2023.
Last reviewed June 13, 2023.