The Blindsided – NJ PA Miscarriage Stillbirth NICU Infant Loss Support

Mia Searles

Mia Searles has been an educator for 16 years. She is a crafter, book fanatic, cinema connoisseur, and aspiring author. She lives with her family in a small town in South Jersey. She is a mother of 4 on earth (Junior, Achilles, Wolfgang & Immogen) and 2 angels in heaven (Atticus & Vyolette).

Jackie Mancinelli

Jackie Mancinelli is a high school English and ESL teacher in NJ. She is the founder of Start Healing Together, an organization dedicated to supporting educators experiencing pregnancy loss and infertility. She is also the New Jersey Ambassador for Count the Kicks. Follow Start Healing Together on Instagram and Facebook, and check out the website.

Julie Shapiro

Julie Shapiro describes herself as a mother gaining strength by fighting for her daughter’s legacy. Her and her husband, Justin, lost their daughter Aubrey Rae in 2020. She has since started, Aubrey’s Advocate, a non-profit financially helping other local loss families.

Erin Epstein

Erin is a momma and wife who lives in South Jersey (by the ocean!). She lost her twins Dylan (miscarriage- P-PROM) and Madelyn (NICU loss) and her story is complicated, as is the grief associated. She runs an Infertility Support group and is a fierce advocate for families facing all forms of infertility struggles.

Nicole Bruno

Nicole is school nurse in South Jersey. She is a proud mom to Sammy, and wife to Jay. After her own loss in 2008, she began helping families experiencing stillbirth, pregnancy and infant loss, including starting the Blindsided podcast.

Sara Sheperd

Sara is a Middle School teacher here in South Jersey. She is momma to Oliver in Heaven (May 2021) and Theo, her rainbow baby born in March of 2023. She has started her program, “Ollie Bears“, to help other loss families in their grief.

Melanie Pierucci-Stienstra

Melanie is a health coach, personal trainer, yoga teacher and wife to the best husband, Pieter. After the loss of their son Noah, she decided to specialize in prenatal and postpartum fitness. After the recovery from a C-section, she made it her new mission to help other angel and rainbow mothers in their journey towards physical, mental and emotional healing.

Amber Swartz

Amber is a hairstylist and momma to son, Lucas and wife to her husband, Nick.
She lost her son on April 26, 2023 after his heart stopped beating at full-term. Listen as she tells the beautiful details of her pregnancy, his birth and the 36 hours they were able to spend together as a family. Amber also has turned her grief into purpose, as you’ll hear at the end! Amber has 2 episodes available!

Tina Rouh

Tina is a mom, wife and RN from Mantua, NJ. She lives with her husband Joe and their children Jenna (22) and Hudson (2), and is currently pregnant with a little girl, due in May. Listen as she shares the story of losing her daughter Madelynn in December 2019, due to SUIDS.

Ana Vick

Ana serves as Co-Director of Communications for PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy, a non-profit she helped start. Under the Instagram handle, Stillmyson, Ana strives tirelessly for change in honor of all the infants lost too soon, including her own son Owen on October 3, 2015.

Brittney Basquez

Brittney is a stay-at-home mom living in South Jersey with her son, daughter and fiance’. She lost her daughter Aria, at 20 weeks 6 days gestation on April 27, 2021. After her water breaking, followed by 2 days of monitoring in the high-risk floor of the hospital, Brittney began to pass blood clots, which was the first sign she was going into labor. Aria Lorelei Clark was soon born sleeping on April 27th, 2021, into the arms of her loving parents. She was fortunate enough to be surrounded by her fiancé, a caring hospital staff, a professional bereavement counselor and best of all, her wonderful Obstetrician.

Ashley Naglak

Ashley and her husband Blake, from Levittown PA, learned they were pregnant with their daughter Nora in January of 2023. The pregnancy was uncomplicated until about 26 weeks when Ashley started to experience rib pain. She learned that she was in liver failure, HELLP syndrome, and needed to be delivered emergently. Nora was born on June 3rd, 2023 and did very well in the NICU until day 7. An xray revealed that Nora had a hole in her bowel as a result of Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Nora passed away later that day. 

Shandeigh “Nikki” Berry, PhD, RN, CNOR

Nikki has done extensive research in perinatal loss, grief, and bereavement and focuses on decreasing the emotional trauma parents experience in the wake of a life-limiting fetal diagnosis. When we stumbled across her research articles, we just knew we had to interview her for the podcast. She is also the founder of Project Poppyseed, which began after her own niece passed away shortly after birth from an Anencephaly diagnosis in-utero.

Sibling Episode with Emily Entrekin

Emily, now 13, lost her brother Connor to a full-term stillbirth when she was just 4.5 years old. She remembers vividly, the time she spent holding him. Emily share with us the importance of including your young child(ren) in meeting their sibling after a stillbirth. Instead of a traumatizing experience, Emily actually wishes she had more time with him.

Hope and Lou – An Unexpected Meeting

Hope and Lou met in the most unique way, after the loss of their first babies. Join us as they share their stories, their eventual meeting and what having a friend who “understands” has done in their lives! Each has gone on to have another baby, and they share how their pregnancies after loss were also a trying time for them.

Ann Coyle, RN- Perinatal Bereavement Manager

Ann Coyle, the manager of the perinatal bereavement programs at Virtua Health, shared with us about her journey to taking (and creating) this role. She also tells the story of a recent family that personally impacted her, and about the support she offers to pregnancy and infant loss families in Southern NJ.

Lucas James Event

We were honored to attend the fundraising event for Lucas James ‘ first birthday, held on Saturday, April 13th 2024.

Amber allowed up to set up a table to record mini-interviews for our podcast! Thank you to the families who shared with us, and made this episode possible.

Terrell Hatzilias, PhD

Dr. Terrell Hatzilias is a neuroscientist and medical writer. After losing her son Kegan, Terrell published her first book, titled Still His Mama, about stillbirth and grief. She shares with us about her pregnancy, and how she has made stillbirth prevention and advocacy, a priority.

Father’s Day Episode with Brad Entrekin

Brad joins us to talk about what it was like to suffer the loss of his much wanted son, Connor and how losing him affected their entire family. He openly shares his thoughts and feelings that he had at that time, and gives some wonderful advice to other dad’s suffering a similar loss.

Liz Cressman

Liz is a mom of two to Aria (would be 4) and Oliver (3). She is married to her high school sweetheart, Rob. After losing Aria to stillbirth, Liz has been trying to find a way to help other loss families and is currently in school for diagnostic medical sonography. She hopes that through this career, she will be able to further ensure thorough ultrasounds for all pregnant people and help provide support to families during and after a loss.