Mom Honors Late Daughter By Paying The Medical Bills For Other Parents Who Suffered Infant Loss

Jennifer Jara of Indiana lost her daughter, Jessica, who was stillborn on July 1, 2014. She knows well the pain of infant loss as well as the financial burdens that come after, which cause further challenges. Thus, she started a non-profit organization to honor her late daughter and also offer financial assistance to other grieving families, according to Today.

Jara was induced and went through 24 hours of labor before finally meeting her stillborn baby. Not only did she leave the hospital without a child, but she would then have the heartbreaking task of burying her. She was understandably heartbroken, and her grief grew even more painful when she began receiving the medical bills for Jessica’s hospital birth.

“It’s a reminder every single month. You don’t get to bring a baby home but you still have to pay this payment plan of however many dollars a month. It seems so unfair,” she recalled of how she felt at the time.

Jara now has three children — Olivia, Joaquin, and Gianna — but she still thinks often of Jessica. Years after the tragic heartbreak, she came up with the idea to start her organization — Love, Jessica.

“I sat down and thought about those days after Jessica was born. How could someone have helped me? Second to bringing my baby back to life, which nobody can do, I thought, ‘What about all the bills that come in?'”Jara said.

This non-profit raises donations to help cover the cost of the medical bills for other families who lost an infant. A family needs to only turn in an application to receive assistance and Love, Jessica will submit a payment to the hospital, taking the burden away from the parents. Love, Jessica was just started this month on July 1 and already it has offered financial assistance to five different grieving families. The date July 1 was chosen intentionally as it would have been Jessica’s 6th birthday.

Jara explained that this non-profit not only offers support to parents who need it more than ever, but it also helps keep Jessica’s memory alive.

“It makes it seem like it didn’t just happen in vain,” she said.

As The Inquisitr previously reported, Joy-Anna Duggar opened up publicly in 2019 about her own experience with this kind of loss. She and her husband, Austin Forsyth, lost their daughter at 20 weeks. The child was named Annabell Elise and she was stillborn. In an emotional Instagram post — seen here — Duggar shared a photo of herself holding the tiny infant.