Today's Times features a heartbreaking story about perinatal hospice programs, which help parents who choose to carry fetuses diagnosed with fatal conditions to term cope with the grief and trauma associated with the loss. The article starts off on—get this!—an unhappy note!

The day after Alaina Kilibarda was born, her breathing started to falter, as her family knew it might. During the pregnancy, doctors had told James and Jill Kilibarda that their baby had a lethal genetic problem that would probably end her life within hours of birth. ...Having learned through the hospice to make the most of the time they had with their child, Alaina's parents held her and told her things that people reveal to their children spontaneously and haphazardly over a lifetime. Into the October night, as her breathing halted and resumed, they explained how they met in Texas, though both were from Minnesota, and that they fell for each other at first sight. "And we told her that we'll let her go," Mrs. Kilibarda said, "and that it's O.K. to go."

And then it gets even more upbeat! ("The Kilibardas' daughter survived that first night and is now 20 weeks old. But her parents realize those anxious early hours may be replayed when she dies, probably before she reaches preschool.")

And best of all, if two thousand words of this stuff isn't enough for you, there's seven minutes of streaming video about the story! Thanks, Times! We didn't feel like our regular crying jag this morning got enough tears out of us.

A Place to Turn When a Newborn Is Fated to Die [NYT]