At St. Mark's Hospital a birthday gathering on Friday allowed Eliza and Cody Sorenson, their infant daughter Oakley, and medical staff to remember their son Hunter, who died during childbirth after a rare kidney disease and insufficient amniotic fluid halted lung development. The parents reflected on the grief, the difficult decisions after his passing, and expressed thanks to Dr. Jennifer Kinghorn and nurse Jenn Serrano for their support.
A birthday gathering on Friday at St. Mark's Hospital honored Hunter Sorenson, who died during childbirth. Eliza Sorenson expressed gratitude to Dr. Jennifer Kinghorn and nurse Jenn Serrano, who supported the family.
MILLCREEK — A birthday celebration Friday at St. Mark's Hospital carried extra emotional weight, as a mother and father remembered their son who died during childbirth. Eliza and Cody Sorenson and their 9-month-old daughter, Oakley, joined caregivers in remembering Hunter on the day when he would have turned 2.
Eliza Sorenson said in 2024, she was 22 weeks pregnant when she learned Hunter had a rare disease involving both kidneys and a lack of amniotic fluid was inhibiting the healthy growth of the baby's lungs.
"Because of the lack of fluid, his lungs would never grow in a way that would sustain life, and so we were told the best-case scenario would be that Hunter would be born alive, but live for just minutes," the mother said. "My husband Cody and I were really devastated by this news. ""Unfortunately, during the childbirth process, Hunter passed away," Eliza Sorenson said.
"I remember waking up the next day after I gave birth to him, and that's kind of when reality hit that, you know, we're not going to get to take our beautiful son home with us. ""The coming days we spent picking out a casket for Hunter, picking out a headstone for Hunter — just things you don't expect you're ever going to have to do as a parent," Eliza Sorenson said.
"We much rather would have been picking out a crib or a stroller. " Dr. Jennifer Kinghorn, Sorenson's obstetrician-gynecologist at St. Mark's, acknowledged it's the kind of experience that can make a mother question if she will ever have a child. "It's hard to see that heartache of something they really want, and it doesn't happen when it's out of their control," Kinghorn said.
"I, myself, in growing my family had a couple of miscarriages and so … I know what that feels like. "said she and her husband tried to keep the hope that one day it would happen, and she eventually found herself pregnant again with her daughter, Oakley, now 9 months old. "Just to get to that point where we had a healthy baby was just overjoyous," Kinghorn said. "They were happy, I was happy.
It can be a really emotional process for everyone involved and having been with them through every step of the process is just part of the reason I love my job.
" Eliza Sorenson said Oakley didn't "minimize" or "replace" Hunter, and this day was about remembering him. "I felt like on the day of his birth, it was really important to not just be sad, but also to celebrate — to celebrate him," Serrano said. "Just recognize he is a person and he deserves to be cooed and awed over and he deserves to be shown as much love as possible.
Even though he was here for a short time, that doesn't diminish what he is.
""The grief never goes away — like, we're always going to miss Hunter," she said. "You can feel joy again, too, and you can feel both of those emotions at the same time, even though they're opposite. ""Dr. Kinghorn has been so incredible. She's been with our family on this entire journey, and she's cried with us and she's been so great to have by our side," she said.
"Then, I think about 'Nurse Jen' and the biggest thing that comes to mind for me with Jen is I think as a nurse it would be easy to approach each shift kind of with the mentality of, oh, it's just another day at work and kind of go through the motions. But I think about the day that Hunter was born, and she was our nurse that day and this was like the biggest day for our family.
It was the day our son passed away, it was the day that our son was born, and so it was a big day for our family, and I felt like she tried to make the day he was born the best day it could possibly be.
"The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written. Andrew Adams is an award-winning journalist and reporter for KSL. For two decades, he's covered a variety of stories for KSL, including major crime, politics and sports.
Perinatal Loss Childbirth Complications Family Grief Hospital Tribute Rare Kidney Disease
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