This does not have to be the most traumatic experience in a couple's life together, says Tanner about such pregnancies. Often a husband and wife will grow closer together, and the father is also given a chance to bond with the child he can't see. Zach Eagar read to baby Kylan in the womb and flew a kite with him. Gifford Decker took baby Savanah Lily camping. Some fathers have written their babies songs, or fashioned a casket.

Hospitals now realize that to whisk away a stillborn baby not only doesn't prevent grieving, but also may add to it — "you can't say goodbye until you've said hello," as Tanner puts it. But some hospitals are still awkward. Marci and Gifford Decker kept Savanah Lily in their room at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center all night after she was stillborn, but the room was far away from the bustle of the maternity wing. "I was around a bunch of older people who were dying," Marci remembers. "I wanted to be around life."

Like the Deckers and Paulsens, Jennifer and Landon Coleman say their religious beliefs helped them celebrate the life of their son. Hyrum, diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart, lived for three weeks after his birth. "We couldn't have done it without our faith," says Jennifer. "We believe that we will see him again, and we feel that we want to be good because we want to be back with him again."

The families who get through these pregnancies the most easily, says Angel Watch's Tanner, are those "actively engaged in whatever faith background they're involved with." Those parents who have the most difficult time are those without a belief system, she says. But even couples without a faith can benefit from creating memories with their unborn baby. "If they don't believe in an afterlife, you offer the comfort of memory."

Occasionally, say Tanner and Kasteler, parents will worry that they're being punished by God. The women will then walk the couple through the ramifications of that belief. Perhaps, they'll ask, you believe that bad things only happen to bad people?

Yes, most of the couples still hope for a miracle as the pregnancy proceeds, says Tanner. (On one Web site, a young Catholic mother admits she picked out a person she knew was being considered for sainthood, pointing out to him that "we could help each other — get me my miracle and I'll lobby to get it recognized by the church.")

But what Angel Watch tries to do, Tanner says, is to re-frame what a miracle is: not a cure, perhaps, but maybe a live birth, and if not a live birth at least a chance to create memories and to learn, for example, what music made the baby kick in the womb.

In the end, says Lindsey Eagar, it was baby Kylan — stillborn at 30 weeks — who taught her and her husband about love and life. "We learned that through really hard times, there is a way to be happy, to love the seconds you have of happiness and joy."

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