Marilí Rodríguez García spent several years working as a doula in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

She was called to the profession because of her first child … Adrián José …

Who died just a few days after his birth in 2009 …

Marilí came to StoryCorps to remember that time …

Marilí Rodríguez García (MRG)

MRG: The day that my baby died, the doctor told me, ‘I’m sorry, do you want to carry your baby?’ Y yo le dije, ‘Of course I want to carry my baby. Thank you.’

And I put my baby into my heart, and I was happy for the first time in that moment.

That experience, you know, it’s a kind of lesson. You’re never gonna forget that it hurts. But the thing is what are you gonna do with that hurt? Because when you lost a baby, you think that you’re gonna die too.

But you’re not gonna die. You have a lot of time to spend in this world.

So, I started to do the work of a doula because of my first birth.

And I think that in a way, being a doula is the way that I was able to move on.

I remember that I helped a woman in labor and the baby dies inside her. So I told her that the baby that she gonna see is gonna be a shocking image, but that is important, if she wants, that she hug her. To talk about the baby, to name the baby, and to think that they are parents. Because they are.

And then, many years after, I became a mom again. [laughs]

He’s a rainbow baby: it’s used to call the baby that came, después de que un primero muere. The first one’s death. The second is a rainbow kid. 

And now Emil is eight years old, and he dance, he plays the flute, and he knows that he had a brother. So, Emil Gustavo and Adrián José, they are my two kids.