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Unimaginable: Life After Baby Loss
"There is no way to begin without telling you the saddest part of the story. It’s a love story, and it begins with a positive pregnancy test. But, it doesn’t end with a baby." After 34 weeks of a textbook, uneventful pregnancy, Brooke and her husband David were shocked when she went into labor weeks before her due date—and then absolutely blindsided when they arrived at the hospital only to be told that their beloved “Baby Duck” no longer had a heartbeat. This book tells the story of what came learning to live with a broken heart that keeps on beating, picking up the pieces amidst the devastation of earth-shattering grief, and finding a way to love life again—even when it looks nothing like they had imagined. This is the story of surviving the death of a child, navigating the complexities of life after pregnancy loss, and discovering that grief can somehow become a part of our life without overtaking it completely. Life after baby loss examines what it means to be a parent bereaved through stillbirth, and traces one mother's path back to a hopeful life.
179 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 12, 2021
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85 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 12, 2021
EVERYTHING I Needed After My Loss
Brooke Taylor's blog changed my life. When my daughter was born still in 2013 - just two days before my due date after an otherwise uneventful and healthy pregnancy - the world dropped out from beneath me. I didn't even know that stillbirth still happened, let alone that it could ever, ever happen to me and my sweet baby girl who I had spent the last nine months so very excited to meet. Blindsided doesn't even begin to describe it. I was destroyed, my heart rended into a million pieces, and every truth I ever believed about the world decimated. I delivered my beautiful daughter - still, silent, heartbreakingly perfect - and left the hospital with empty arms. Then I descended into a darkness and despair that left me breathless.
To say I felt alone in the excruciating months following my daughter's death would be only just scratching the surface. My family and friends grieved alongside me and did the best they could to support me, but no one had been through anything like this. Try as they might, they could not fathom the depths of my sorrow. They had not lived the trauma of birthing death. They could not even begin to guess at the (undeserved, nonetheless very very real) soul-shredding guilt that tortured my every waking moment.
Many people think that the birth of a stillborn baby is the worst day, and that things must surely get better once that nightmare is complete. But nothing could be further from the truth. In many ways, the birth is the *best* day - because it's the only day we will ever get with our beloved child. It's the days that follow, when the shock wears off and you are faced with a lifetime without your child, when the real nightmare sets in. When your milk comes in and there's no baby to feed. When everyone expects you to return to normal, as if the person you were before this even exists anymore. When everyone around you slowly seems to forget that your baby was ever even here at all.
It was at this point that I stumbled across Brooke's blog. And it quite literally saved me.
Brooke's story was so startlingly similar to my own, only she was a few years further out and had already braved a harrowing (thankfully successful) subsequent pregnancy. Her words were a lifeline, shining a light for me to show me the way out of the cloying blackness, helping me see the handholds to slowly claw my way out of the abyss. She so beautifully articulated so much of what I was feeling, things I did not have the energy or wherewithal to understand, let alone express. I devoured her words. I literally sat for hours every day, sobbing through her archives, clinging to the hope her story gave me like a rock in a storm.
I am far enough removed from my loss now that I've had the honor of returning that favor for other families who would follow in our footsteps. When I hear from newly bereaved parents, Brooke's blog is always at the top of the carefully curated list of resources I recommend.
But I know that not every parent has the luxury, as I (a writer working from home, with no other living children at the time) did, to pour through years' worth of another person's blog archives. So when I heard that Brooke was writing a book, I was overjoyed - I knew that it would be *just* what other families needed, in a more easily accessible format.
Sure enough, Unimaginable knocks it out of the park. Brooke's writing is so honest and raw, and she expertly breaks down the many complex, often surprising and conflicting feelings that any mother who has lost a baby has experienced. Her words are so incredibly validating - my first read through the book, all I could say every other sentence was, "me too, me too, me too!"
If your baby has died, I'm so incredibly sorry. But please know that you are not alone. Please know that however you are grieving - whether it is ugly or quiet or even absurd - it is normal and okay. And please know, that as Brooke's book will show you, it does somehow (unimaginably) get better.
I cannot recommend this book enough. If you are a loss parent, read it. If you *love* a loss parent, grab two copies - one for them, and one for you, to help you understand just a sliver of what they are suffering. I'm so sorry you have reason to read this book. But I can promise, you've found the right one. ❤️
Brooke Taylor's blog changed my life. When my daughter was born still in 2013 - just two days before my due date after an otherwise uneventful and healthy pregnancy - the world dropped out from beneath me. I didn't even know that stillbirth still happened, let alone that it could ever, ever happen to me and my sweet baby girl who I had spent the last nine months so very excited to meet. Blindsided doesn't even begin to describe it. I was destroyed, my heart rended into a million pieces, and every truth I ever believed about the world decimated. I delivered my beautiful daughter - still, silent, heartbreakingly perfect - and left the hospital with empty arms. Then I descended into a darkness and despair that left me breathless.
To say I felt alone in the excruciating months following my daughter's death would be only just scratching the surface. My family and friends grieved alongside me and did the best they could to support me, but no one had been through anything like this. Try as they might, they could not fathom the depths of my sorrow. They had not lived the trauma of birthing death. They could not even begin to guess at the (undeserved, nonetheless very very real) soul-shredding guilt that tortured my every waking moment.
Many people think that the birth of a stillborn baby is the worst day, and that things must surely get better once that nightmare is complete. But nothing could be further from the truth. In many ways, the birth is the *best* day - because it's the only day we will ever get with our beloved child. It's the days that follow, when the shock wears off and you are faced with a lifetime without your child, when the real nightmare sets in. When your milk comes in and there's no baby to feed. When everyone expects you to return to normal, as if the person you were before this even exists anymore. When everyone around you slowly seems to forget that your baby was ever even here at all.
It was at this point that I stumbled across Brooke's blog. And it quite literally saved me.
Brooke's story was so startlingly similar to my own, only she was a few years further out and had already braved a harrowing (thankfully successful) subsequent pregnancy. Her words were a lifeline, shining a light for me to show me the way out of the cloying blackness, helping me see the handholds to slowly claw my way out of the abyss. She so beautifully articulated so much of what I was feeling, things I did not have the energy or wherewithal to understand, let alone express. I devoured her words. I literally sat for hours every day, sobbing through her archives, clinging to the hope her story gave me like a rock in a storm.
I am far enough removed from my loss now that I've had the honor of returning that favor for other families who would follow in our footsteps. When I hear from newly bereaved parents, Brooke's blog is always at the top of the carefully curated list of resources I recommend.
But I know that not every parent has the luxury, as I (a writer working from home, with no other living children at the time) did, to pour through years' worth of another person's blog archives. So when I heard that Brooke was writing a book, I was overjoyed - I knew that it would be *just* what other families needed, in a more easily accessible format.
Sure enough, Unimaginable knocks it out of the park. Brooke's writing is so honest and raw, and she expertly breaks down the many complex, often surprising and conflicting feelings that any mother who has lost a baby has experienced. Her words are so incredibly validating - my first read through the book, all I could say every other sentence was, "me too, me too, me too!"
If your baby has died, I'm so incredibly sorry. But please know that you are not alone. Please know that however you are grieving - whether it is ugly or quiet or even absurd - it is normal and okay. And please know, that as Brooke's book will show you, it does somehow (unimaginably) get better.
I cannot recommend this book enough. If you are a loss parent, read it. If you *love* a loss parent, grab two copies - one for them, and one for you, to help you understand just a sliver of what they are suffering. I'm so sorry you have reason to read this book. But I can promise, you've found the right one. ❤️
February 14, 2024
“Loving her and losing her are inextricable to who I am today—as a person, as a mother. She has shaped me more profoundly than any other life experience. In one way or another, nearly everything I do and everything I feel traces a line back to her.”
It was healing to read this book and hear someone else’s story. To hear from someone who isn’t afraid of grief. To hear someone say “I understand” rather than “I can’t imagine”.
My daughter died, but the love she brought into our lives remains. Love came here, and here it stays. 💜
It was healing to read this book and hear someone else’s story. To hear from someone who isn’t afraid of grief. To hear someone say “I understand” rather than “I can’t imagine”.
My daughter died, but the love she brought into our lives remains. Love came here, and here it stays. 💜
March 30, 2021
As someone who just lost my own newborn baby Charlie in January, this was everything I needed to read and hear. Brooke D. Taylor does not sugarcoat her experience or search for the silver linings, but tells it like it is. I highly recommend to anyone who has suffered their own baby loss or is supporting someone who has.
May 10, 2024
What a beautifully written book with absolute rawness and vulnerability of a loss moms journey through losing her daughter Eliza. It felt like she was writing what I walked through this past year and the connection I felt with her words were so powerful and so emotional. Thank you for sharing your story, Eliza’s story. 💜
February 17, 2021
"Unimaginable: Life After Baby Loss" tells the story of Brooke Taylor's pregnancy with her first daughter, her "Baby Duck," Eliza, who was stillborn in December 2010, and what happened next.
I will admit that I was predisposed to love this book. I found and started reading Brooke's blog shortly after Eliza died. The first post she wrote after her loss consisted mostly of a passage from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold, which I recognized immediately from my university days. Brooke is almost (gulp) 20 years younger than me; Eliza died almost 12 years after the stillbirth of my daughter Katie (in 1998). She went on to become the mother of three (more) adorable, high-spirited little girls -- Eliza's younger sisters; Katie remains my only child.
And yet, there's a common thread that runs through our grief experiences -- through most pregnancy loss & grief experiences, no matter how different the circumstances. Brooke's words, in her blog and now in this book, beautifully capture the experience of bereavement, and how it evolves over time. The book is not a long read (258 pages) but it's jam-packed with wise words and thoughtful observations -- minute little details that instantly took me back 23 years with a shock of recognition at the memory -- and had me bookmarking page after page. I don't often cry over my lost pregnancy or wee baby girl these days, but I needed Kleenex at several points, reading Brooke's story.
I've read lots of pregnancy loss books & memoirs in the years since the stillbirth of my own daughter. This ranks right up there with the best of them, including Elizabeth McCracken's "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination," which I have long considered the gold standard. ;) It would be the perfect book to hand to someone who is dealing with the unimaginable -- or to someone who doesn't know what to say or how to help someone who is. (Actually, it would be a great book for anyone dealing with any kind of traumatic loss.)
5 stars.
I will admit that I was predisposed to love this book. I found and started reading Brooke's blog shortly after Eliza died. The first post she wrote after her loss consisted mostly of a passage from "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold, which I recognized immediately from my university days. Brooke is almost (gulp) 20 years younger than me; Eliza died almost 12 years after the stillbirth of my daughter Katie (in 1998). She went on to become the mother of three (more) adorable, high-spirited little girls -- Eliza's younger sisters; Katie remains my only child.
And yet, there's a common thread that runs through our grief experiences -- through most pregnancy loss & grief experiences, no matter how different the circumstances. Brooke's words, in her blog and now in this book, beautifully capture the experience of bereavement, and how it evolves over time. The book is not a long read (258 pages) but it's jam-packed with wise words and thoughtful observations -- minute little details that instantly took me back 23 years with a shock of recognition at the memory -- and had me bookmarking page after page. I don't often cry over my lost pregnancy or wee baby girl these days, but I needed Kleenex at several points, reading Brooke's story.
I've read lots of pregnancy loss books & memoirs in the years since the stillbirth of my own daughter. This ranks right up there with the best of them, including Elizabeth McCracken's "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination," which I have long considered the gold standard. ;) It would be the perfect book to hand to someone who is dealing with the unimaginable -- or to someone who doesn't know what to say or how to help someone who is. (Actually, it would be a great book for anyone dealing with any kind of traumatic loss.)
5 stars.
February 20, 2022
Unimaginable is both heartbreaking and hopeful, tragic yet resilient. I’m still convinced that the loss of a child is unimaginable. I’m sure there is no word in any language that would appropriately describe the total destruction one feels at the loss of a child, but Taylor’s raw and unabashed retelling of just such an experience provides a glimpse through a dreadful veil, through a looking glass, darkly.
I cried in many parts of this memoir and celebrated with verbal affirmations in many more. Taylor’s prose is effortless and reads like poetry; her words are dictatorially loaded and rich. Unimaginable is a masterclass in writing. The title alone plays with the complicated layers of child loss and the life that comes after it.
Most importantly, Taylor provides hope for grieving families, a way forward when all one wants to do is quit. Unimaginable is essential reading for families navigating loss and for friends who desperately want to show up but don’t know how.
Simply brilliant.
I cried in many parts of this memoir and celebrated with verbal affirmations in many more. Taylor’s prose is effortless and reads like poetry; her words are dictatorially loaded and rich. Unimaginable is a masterclass in writing. The title alone plays with the complicated layers of child loss and the life that comes after it.
Most importantly, Taylor provides hope for grieving families, a way forward when all one wants to do is quit. Unimaginable is essential reading for families navigating loss and for friends who desperately want to show up but don’t know how.
Simply brilliant.
February 26, 2024
I read this book to help better understand and support my daughter after the stillbirth of her precious son. The memoir was heartfelt and beautifully written. I felt so many emotions as I read it, often through tears, as there were so many similarities in my daughter’s journey. The author offered so much insight into what helped her through her terrible tragedy and hope in her resilience moving forward. If you love someone who has lost a baby, I highly recommend that you read this (and get them a copy if they haven’t). I grieve for my daughter and son-in-law, as well as their baby boy, who already held a special place in my heart. My grief is not the same as their grief but this book gave me a glimpse of what they are experiencing.
January 26, 2022
This was a great book and helped me not to feel alone. My firstborn son Quinton was born still in 2011. We recently lost our second son Adam last week. Stillbirth is such a mind F and this book helped me realize that other women feel the same way and that there are sometimes so answers for why babies die. I’m still in so much pain but knowing other women share and understand the same pain is helpful.
May 12, 2022
A stunning, authentic memoir of loss. It wasn't fluffy or full of filler. It was clear, gentle, raw, and filled with hope. I finished reading this around 6 months after losing my baby girl, and it was a sweet reminder of the pain and horror, and the tears I still cry today. But also of the immeasurable love that we hold for our babies.
February 12, 2021
Aftermath of Grief
Anyone who has lost a baby, or loves someone who has, should read this book. It is beautifully written. I could only imagine what a mother of an infant that died went through. Brooke has put into words what it is like.
Anyone who has lost a baby, or loves someone who has, should read this book. It is beautifully written. I could only imagine what a mother of an infant that died went through. Brooke has put into words what it is like.
February 22, 2021
This is not just a book on baby loss. It is a testament of how we all should show up for those going through any type of loss. It is also reminder that no one is immune from tragedy, in whatever form it takes. We will all eventually have that in common, along with the beautiful pieces of life.
October 18, 2024
Brooke, your book meant so much to me. We lost our first child, our baby girl at 32 weeks last year and I feel like you voiced so much of what I have been feeling and not finding the words to say. Your story gives me hope and I thank you for sharing it with the world.
December 16, 2025
Such a good read, especially after miscarriage. I thought I was a bit crazy for feeling the feelings I had but reading this really validated all my emotions. Highly recommend this to all who are dealing with loss of a baby.
December 31, 2025
This book was a great comfort to me in the darkest chapter of my life. I hate that I’m part if this club, but so thankful to have heard the very thoughts haunting my head and my heart echoed on these pages. Whether you are part of this club, or know someone in it- this book is a great support.
January 22, 2025
beautiful memoir
well written and has helped me to understand the road I’m on a little more after a late pregnancy loss.
well written and has helped me to understand the road I’m on a little more after a late pregnancy loss.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews