LAKELAND, Fla. — One Lakeland woman is turning her tragic loss into a healing power for parents across the country.
Lori Esteve is giving mothers the tools to start processing loss from the very start.
“There’s a tiny piece of my heart that needs to heal there,” Esteve said looking back and remembering one of the toughest moments of her life.
In pictures, Esteve may appear to be a mother of three but, Zachary, who would have been her eldest child, lives only in her heart.
“I went in for a regular doctors appointment and I was two days overdue and they couldn’t find the heartbeat,” she remembered.
It was the 1980s and Zachary was still born.
“When he was born the doctor said he’s beautiful, he’s perfect — yet his cord got tied in a knot,” she said.
Lori, then a young mother, grieved alone for years. That was until she realized she could use those tears and turn them into a healing process for mothers and fathers going through the same.
First her group started out as a local Facebook page, but now it's turned into a national non-profit called Stories of Babies Born Still or SOBBS.
“When you’re going through it, all that stuff you don’t even think about all you can think about is this precious baby laying in your arms,” Esteve said.
This Friday a new tool will roll out on the Apple Store, an app called PARI-P. It’s the mobile version of Esteve’s site. But this way parents can immediately get connected with volunteers, experts and other parents in the same situation, wherever they may be.
“Someone who could maybe say you may want to take foot prints, you may want to take pictures or invite grandparents,” Esteve said this is something many parents don’t have time or the ability to consider without resources.
With PARI-P, now parents can start the healing process as soon as possible.
“When you start talking to other families, it just heals your heart in ways that you never knew you needed,” she said.
PARI-P is already available in the Google Play store as well as the PWA store.
