“After Iris passed, immediately, I had this extreme, visceral, motherly feeling of I needed to go and be with her,” Brittney Crystal said.
Every day for nearly the last five years, Crystal has carried her second baby, Iris, not in her arms but in her heart.
“Within two days of her passing, I was fielding really difficult conversations about what type of burial I would like for my daughter to have,” Crystal said.
Beyond the flood of emotions after her daughter’s stillbirth, a flood of questions and unexcepted expenses, all while continuing to care for her then two and half year old son.
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“Just the headstone for my daughter was $3,200, so that is $3,200 there, the extra testing, mental health counseling,” Crystal said.
Now, Iris’s story is the driving force behind potential legislation that could help around 150 families in Connecticut who experience stillbirth every year.
House Bill 5103, still in committee, would create a one-time $2,500 tax credit to put toward burial, genetic testing and mental health services. It’s already gaining bi-partisan support.
“When she went through that she realized how much more expensive it is to deliver a stillborn child than to deliver a child who goes on to come home to your family,” Rep. Aimee Berger-Girvalo said.
Berger-Girvalo, the bill’s sponsor, said the tax credit would cost the state just under half a million dollars a year, a small price for what she said could help ease the financial burden for hundreds of grieving families.
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Brittney and her husband have since had their rainbow baby girl, Opal. Her big sister’s legacy now living on in a big way.
“We all think of her as this kind of whisper in our ear and this place in our hearts that keeps us moving in the right direction,” Crystal said.
Nationwide, 23,000 families experience a stillbirth every year. Minnesota and Louisiana have both passed a stillbirth child tax credit and New York and New Jersey are also considering similar legislation.
