Victoria Goode

Our Sweet Girl Penelope

Our story 🩷

At the beginning of this year, we found out that we were going to have a baby.

After hoping and waiting for this moment, seeing that positive pregnancy test was one of the happiest days of our lives. We were going to become parents to a little girl, and our whole world started to revolve around the tiny person growing inside me.

My pregnancy was filled with excitement, little milestones and so many dreams for the future. We talked about names, imagined what she would look like, planned her nursery and pictured the day we would finally bring her home.

We named her Penelope.

At 20 weeks, everything appeared to be going well. We knew she had hydronephrosis in one of her kidneys, but her fluid levels were normal and we were reassured that she was growing and developing. We continued looking forward to meeting our little girl.

As the weeks went by, she became more and more real to us. I felt her kicks and movements, watched my bump grow and counted down the weeks until we could hold her in our arms.

Then, at 30 weeks pregnant, our world changed completely.

We lost our beautiful baby girl.

On 26 August, I gave birth to Penelope. Instead of the moment we had imagined — bringing our daughter home, starting our life together and watching her grow — we had to say goodbye.

There are no words that can truly describe what it feels like to give birth to your baby and then leave the hospital without them.

We are absolutely heartbroken.

Penelope was loved from the moment we knew she existed, and she will always be our daughter. She will always be part of our family and she will never be forgotten.

Since losing Penelope, we have had to navigate a kind of grief we never knew existed. There are moments when it still doesn’t feel real, and moments when the reality hits all over again. We are learning to take things one day at a time.

I wanted to share our story because no parent should ever have to experience the loss of their baby, and yet baby loss is something so many families quietly live through.

That is why I’m raising money for Sands. I want something heartbreaking to hopefully become something that can help another family going through the unimaginable.

Every donation, no matter how big or small, means so much to us. It helps keep Penelope’s memory alive while supporting other families who may find themselves facing a journey nobody should ever have to take.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story, for remembering our beautiful girl and for supporting us in helping other families.

Forever our baby girl, forever our Penelope. 🩷