October 31, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, no one prepares for the silence that follows birth. For Samantha Durante Banerjee, that silence carried both devastation and grace. Her daughter, Alana, was stillborn, and in the hours that followed, Samantha experienced the depth of grief that comes after stillbirth — but also the rare beauty of finally holding her baby. Through grief and healing, she learned that sorrow can live alongside joy. Samantha’s story is a reminder that grieving parents don’t stop being parents — and that even in loss, the love remains.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is our American stories, and as you've come to expect,
we tell stories about everything, the bad, and the difficult
in life. And when we do the difficult, it's always
about how we rise above difficult circumstances and how those
difficult circumstances shape us and test us and ultimately well
(00:34):
in the end, it's who we are how we get
through those kinds of things. And today's story we hear
from Samantha Banerjee, who experienced a stillborn birth with her
daughter Alana Marie.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
She has black hair. I remember someone calling out brightly.
I'd expected this part to be a nightmare, knowing in
advance that our baby wasn't going to make it. I'd
expected terrifying. I'd expected somber. I'd expected heartbreak. I had,
at the very least expected hard work in physical exhaustion.
(01:11):
But what I didn't expect was joy. I didn't expect
to feel focused and strong and confident as I brought
my baby into this world. I didn't expect unadulterated wonder
and appreciation in awe at the tiny little miracle my
body had produced. I certainly didn't expect that my baby
girl would come out warm and soft and glowing, looking
(01:34):
like a perfect, sleeping little angel, that her face would
so much resemble her father, that it would take my
breath away, that my heart would immediately burst with love
for every inch of her flawless little body. As devastatingly
still as it was, it turned out Alana's birth wasn't
a nightmare at all. It was beautiful. It felt right
(01:55):
everything I'd hoped for, everything except the fact that she
had taken her first breath and never would So we
told her we loved her, We gave her grandparents a
chance to hold her, and then we said goodbye. We
left the hospital the next evening for my parents' house.
Walking out those doors with empty arms was one of
(02:18):
the hardest things I have ever had to do, and
the empty car seat in the back seat was a
grim reminder of everything we'd lost. Amazingly, it only been
twenty four hours since we'd arrived at the hospital the
evening before, it felt like a lifetime. We spent the
next few days surrounded by family and friends, everyone grieving together.
(02:40):
We finally delivered the surprise that we'd been safeguarding for months.
That we chosen to give Alana the middle name Marie.
After my Grandma, who we loved so much. Of course,
Gramma Y was honored. We were amazed at how much
we managed to smile and laugh in between the tears
and heartache. Everyone pulled together deep and eye are larents,
(03:00):
our brothers, all our cousins and aunts and uncles, everyone
united in our shared misery. This family had been dealt
to great below, but we would get through it together.
We broke the heartrending news to our friends slowly. Over
the next several days, we contacted the funeral home to
make arrangements for Alana's memorial. We went home and spent
(03:21):
the week preparing. On the night before the memorial, we
decided last minute to visit the funeral home and spend
a few hours with Halana. As we finished up assembling
the photo boards for the wake, we couldn't believe we'd
managed to fill three full poster boards with memories. We
shared each of them with Alana, told her again how
much we loved her and would miss her, stroked that soft,
(03:43):
soft skin while we still had the chance. Even a
week later, her skin still glowed. It broke our hearts
how beautiful she looked even in death. The following morning,
we held awake, a full Catholic Mass and a burial.
My brother mikey to touching eulogy, a testament to how
much this little girl meant to all of us before
(04:04):
she'd even had a chance to live. And we buried
Alana perfect in her tiny white casket in the same
plot as my other grandma, in my favorite cemetery, in
my hometown where no kidding, I used to like to
play as a kid, Much to my own mother's dismay,
we felt very good about everything. It brought us a
(04:25):
lot of closure and gave us an opportunity to honor
the person she would have been, the person she was
already to those closest to her. Some days, this entire
pregnancy feels like a dream, a happy dream filled with
hope that ended in an unthinkable nightmare. But then we
woke up and went back to our lives as they were.
(04:47):
It's an eerie feeling, but the hard truth is that
it was not a dream at all. Everyone keeps asking
how we're doing, and we're not really sure how to
answer that question. Okay, we say, or we're hanging there.
The truth is, the grief comes and goes. Sometimes it's
absolutely devastatingly crushing, like a mountain of sorrow sitting on
(05:09):
my chest, and sometimes it's surprisingly mercifully absent. After all,
it's hard not to smile when you're surrounded by the
people you love, even if one of them is conspicuously absent.
But the gaping hole in our lives where Alana should
be is never far from mind. We can push it
to the side for a time, but eventually it sucks
(05:31):
us back in, laughing cruelly as we struggle just to
stay afloat of our tears. We know that it will
get easier eventually, but we also know that it will
never be right. We will always be missing something someone,
and there's nothing that we can do to change that.
That's probably the hardest part. We want so badly to
(05:53):
fix this, but there simply is no cure. It's taking
a while for that to really sink in, for us
to really come to terms with everything that's happened. And
every time I come to the realization again that there's
no way she's ever coming back, that I really am
not going to wake up from this nightmare, that this
is now my life, well it just hurts all over again,
(06:17):
but we just press on what else can we do.
We're doing everything we can to remember Alana. We've saved
all her mementos and a keepsack box in our bedroom.
We got those photo boards from the wake laminated, and
we'll share them someday with alana siblings so they'll know
the story of the big sister who came before them.
(06:39):
We've planted trees in her honor and are getting a
portrait painted so we can see her smile. I warre
a necklace every day with her birthstone, which your father
had bought in advance of her birth me as a gift,
hoping that I would someday pass it on to Alana herself.
We filled out her baby book, sent out birth announcements,
basically did all the things we would have done anyway,
because we want to celebrate her life. She brought so
(07:03):
much love to us, and the short time she was here,
we just wanted to share that love with whoever's heart
is open to receiving it. I'm still in utter disbelief
that this happened to us, that this happens to anyone
in this day and age. I had, of course, worried
through the whole pregnancy about the possibility of miscarriage or
early delivery. Not being able to carry healthy baby to
(07:26):
term was the deepest, darkest fear of the past twenty
eight years of my life. But once we hit full
term at thirty seven weeks, I finally breathed a sigh
of relief. No matter what goes wrong now, I told myself,
they could take that baby out and she'll be fine.
It still amazes me that with all the reading I did,
all the education I have, somehow I managed to overlook
(07:49):
the entire possibility of a stillbirth that I never knew
it could happen to me. The one thing that has
brought me the greatest comfort is knowing that in her
short life and after her death, I have done everything
I could for my daughter. I had a wonderful, happy pregnancy.
I nurished her and loved her from the moment I
knew she existed, and now that she is gone, I've
(08:11):
done everything in my power to honor her memory and
cherish the person she was. Of course, I question if
there's anything I could have done differently, if I should
have known sooner that something was wrong, if I made
some kind of terrible mistake. I'm only human, after all,
But in the end, I know that these doubts stem
from my desperate wish for control, from wanting something for
(08:33):
someone to blame, even if it's myself. But I know
in my heart that this was in God's hands. Try
as I might, I cannot control everything. To Alana, I
just want to say I love you. We love you.
Your presence is already greatly miss and will be for
the rest of our days. We will never ever forget you,
(08:57):
and we look forward to the day when we can
finally hold you again. We love you so so much.
Sweet baby girl, watch over us, keep your future brothers
and sisters safe, and know that you are always in
our hearts.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And thank you for that reading Samantha and Samantha asked
that we share this note with all of you. Quote.
I volunteer with the Star Legacy Foundation, the premiere organization
dedicated to stillborn research and prevention. It's so so important
to my husband and I to get the word out.
(09:36):
Their website is Star Legacy Foundation dot org. Again, that's
Star Legacy Foundation dot org. I would be so very
grateful if you'd check it out. And thank you again
Samantha Banerjee and the experience she had with stillborn birth,
(09:58):
her daughter a Marie. The empty car seat in the
back was a grim reminder of what we lost. That
just struck me. And that'll happen the rest of her life.
There'll be those reminders. And we know that when people
say closure, I just always laugh at that. It's just
the silliest thing. My mom died four years ago. I
haven't come close to closure, and always the reminders are there.
(10:23):
But there was this. She brought so much love to
us while she was here, and so there you have it.
Samantha's story, Alana Marie's story here on our American Stories
This is our American stories, and as you've come to expect,
we tell stories about everything, the bad, and the difficult
in life. And when we do the difficult, it's always
about how we rise above difficult circumstances and how those
difficult circumstances shape us and test us and ultimately well
(00:34):
in the end, it's who we are how we get
through those kinds of things. And today's story we hear
from Samantha Banerjee, who experienced a stillborn birth with her
daughter Alana Marie.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
She has black hair. I remember someone calling out brightly.
I'd expected this part to be a nightmare, knowing in
advance that our baby wasn't going to make it. I'd
expected terrifying. I'd expected somber. I'd expected heartbreak. I had,
at the very least expected hard work in physical exhaustion.
(01:11):
But what I didn't expect was joy. I didn't expect
to feel focused and strong and confident as I brought
my baby into this world. I didn't expect unadulterated wonder
and appreciation in awe at the tiny little miracle my
body had produced. I certainly didn't expect that my baby
girl would come out warm and soft and glowing, looking
(01:34):
like a perfect, sleeping little angel, that her face would
so much resemble her father, that it would take my
breath away, that my heart would immediately burst with love
for every inch of her flawless little body. As devastatingly
still as it was, it turned out Alana's birth wasn't
a nightmare at all. It was beautiful. It felt right
(01:55):
everything I'd hoped for, everything except the fact that she
had taken her first breath and never would So we
told her we loved her, We gave her grandparents a
chance to hold her, and then we said goodbye. We
left the hospital the next evening for my parents' house.
Walking out those doors with empty arms was one of
(02:18):
the hardest things I have ever had to do, and
the empty car seat in the back seat was a
grim reminder of everything we'd lost. Amazingly, it only been
twenty four hours since we'd arrived at the hospital the
evening before, it felt like a lifetime. We spent the
next few days surrounded by family and friends, everyone grieving together.
(02:40):
We finally delivered the surprise that we'd been safeguarding for months.
That we chosen to give Alana the middle name Marie.
After my Grandma, who we loved so much. Of course,
Gramma Y was honored. We were amazed at how much
we managed to smile and laugh in between the tears
and heartache. Everyone pulled together deep and eye are larents,
(03:00):
our brothers, all our cousins and aunts and uncles, everyone
united in our shared misery. This family had been dealt
to great below, but we would get through it together.
We broke the heartrending news to our friends slowly. Over
the next several days, we contacted the funeral home to
make arrangements for Alana's memorial. We went home and spent
(03:21):
the week preparing. On the night before the memorial, we
decided last minute to visit the funeral home and spend
a few hours with Halana. As we finished up assembling
the photo boards for the wake, we couldn't believe we'd
managed to fill three full poster boards with memories. We
shared each of them with Alana, told her again how
much we loved her and would miss her, stroked that soft,
(03:43):
soft skin while we still had the chance. Even a
week later, her skin still glowed. It broke our hearts
how beautiful she looked even in death. The following morning,
we held awake, a full Catholic Mass and a burial.
My brother mikey to touching eulogy, a testament to how
much this little girl meant to all of us before
(04:04):
she'd even had a chance to live. And we buried
Alana perfect in her tiny white casket in the same
plot as my other grandma, in my favorite cemetery, in
my hometown where no kidding, I used to like to
play as a kid, Much to my own mother's dismay,
we felt very good about everything. It brought us a
(04:25):
lot of closure and gave us an opportunity to honor
the person she would have been, the person she was
already to those closest to her. Some days, this entire
pregnancy feels like a dream, a happy dream filled with
hope that ended in an unthinkable nightmare. But then we
woke up and went back to our lives as they were.
(04:47):
It's an eerie feeling, but the hard truth is that
it was not a dream at all. Everyone keeps asking
how we're doing, and we're not really sure how to
answer that question. Okay, we say, or we're hanging there.
The truth is, the grief comes and goes. Sometimes it's
absolutely devastatingly crushing, like a mountain of sorrow sitting on
(05:09):
my chest, and sometimes it's surprisingly mercifully absent. After all,
it's hard not to smile when you're surrounded by the
people you love, even if one of them is conspicuously absent.
But the gaping hole in our lives where Alana should
be is never far from mind. We can push it
to the side for a time, but eventually it sucks
(05:31):
us back in, laughing cruelly as we struggle just to
stay afloat of our tears. We know that it will
get easier eventually, but we also know that it will
never be right. We will always be missing something someone,
and there's nothing that we can do to change that.
That's probably the hardest part. We want so badly to
(05:53):
fix this, but there simply is no cure. It's taking
a while for that to really sink in, for us
to really come to terms with everything that's happened. And
every time I come to the realization again that there's
no way she's ever coming back, that I really am
not going to wake up from this nightmare, that this
is now my life, well it just hurts all over again,
(06:17):
but we just press on what else can we do.
We're doing everything we can to remember Alana. We've saved
all her mementos and a keepsack box in our bedroom.
We got those photo boards from the wake laminated, and
we'll share them someday with alana siblings so they'll know
the story of the big sister who came before them.
(06:39):
We've planted trees in her honor and are getting a
portrait painted so we can see her smile. I warre
a necklace every day with her birthstone, which your father
had bought in advance of her birth me as a gift,
hoping that I would someday pass it on to Alana herself.
We filled out her baby book, sent out birth announcements,
basically did all the things we would have done anyway,
because we want to celebrate her life. She brought so
(07:03):
much love to us, and the short time she was here,
we just wanted to share that love with whoever's heart
is open to receiving it. I'm still in utter disbelief
that this happened to us, that this happens to anyone
in this day and age. I had, of course, worried
through the whole pregnancy about the possibility of miscarriage or
early delivery. Not being able to carry healthy baby to
(07:26):
term was the deepest, darkest fear of the past twenty
eight years of my life. But once we hit full
term at thirty seven weeks, I finally breathed a sigh
of relief. No matter what goes wrong now, I told myself,
they could take that baby out and she'll be fine.
It still amazes me that with all the reading I did,
all the education I have, somehow I managed to overlook
(07:49):
the entire possibility of a stillbirth that I never knew
it could happen to me. The one thing that has
brought me the greatest comfort is knowing that in her
short life and after her death, I have done everything
I could for my daughter. I had a wonderful, happy pregnancy.
I nurished her and loved her from the moment I
knew she existed, and now that she is gone, I've
(08:11):
done everything in my power to honor her memory and
cherish the person she was. Of course, I question if
there's anything I could have done differently, if I should
have known sooner that something was wrong, if I made
some kind of terrible mistake. I'm only human, after all,
But in the end, I know that these doubts stem
from my desperate wish for control, from wanting something for
(08:33):
someone to blame, even if it's myself. But I know
in my heart that this was in God's hands. Try
as I might, I cannot control everything. To Alana, I
just want to say I love you. We love you.
Your presence is already greatly miss and will be for
the rest of our days. We will never ever forget you,
(08:57):
and we look forward to the day when we can
finally hold you again. We love you so so much.
Sweet baby girl, watch over us, keep your future brothers
and sisters safe, and know that you are always in
our hearts.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And thank you for that reading Samantha and Samantha asked
that we share this note with all of you. Quote.
I volunteer with the Star Legacy Foundation, the premiere organization
dedicated to stillborn research and prevention. It's so so important
to my husband and I to get the word out.
(09:36):
Their website is Star Legacy Foundation dot org. Again, that's
Star Legacy Foundation dot org. I would be so very
grateful if you'd check it out. And thank you again
Samantha Banerjee and the experience she had with stillborn birth,
(09:58):
her daughter a Marie. The empty car seat in the
back was a grim reminder of what we lost. That
just struck me. And that'll happen the rest of her life.
There'll be those reminders. And we know that when people
say closure, I just always laugh at that. It's just
the silliest thing. My mom died four years ago. I
haven't come close to closure, and always the reminders are there.
(10:23):
But there was this. She brought so much love to
us while she was here, and so there you have it.
Samantha's story, Alana Marie's story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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