Woman Told She Was Having the ‘Perfect Pregnancy.’ Then a ‘Complete Freak Accident’ Led to an Unimaginable Loss

Gina Gotthilf believed she was experiencing an ideal pregnancy — until everything changed without warning.

For much of her adult life, Gotthilf wasn’t sure she wanted children. Early in her career, she focused intensely on professional growth, rising to become a vice president at Duolingo and later co-founding Outsmart, where she now serves as chief marketing officer. At the time, she was also in a long-term relationship she didn’t see leading to parenthood, and the idea of having a baby felt impractical.

That perspective shifted when she met the man who would become her husband.

“He was completely certain he wanted kids, so naturally, I spent the first year trying to talk him out of it,” Gotthilf says. “In the U.S., choosing not to have children is discussed more openly. But in Brazil, where we’re both from, marriage and kids are seen as part of a preset life checklist. He’s such a grounded, loving person that I began to imagine a future I’d never allowed myself to picture.”

Around that same period, Gotthilf began to feel emotionally flat. She lost her sense of taste and smell, and life felt increasingly joyless. Motherhood, she says, became one of the few things that made the future feel meaningful again. When she became pregnant at 38, she was both excited and surprised.

That pregnancy ended in a first-trimester miscarriage. Six months later, she conceived again.

“When we reached the second trimester and got all the early test results back, we celebrated,” Gotthilf recalls. “At that point, the miscarriage risk drops to about one percent, and by the third trimester it’s closer to 0.05 percent. By the time our baby died, we were in the 0.1 percent.”

She describes the pregnancy as textbook perfect. Apart from mild symptoms, every test came back normal.

“Her heartbeat was always strong. She was right in the 50th percentile for everything,” she says. “I’ve never been so happy to be called ‘average.’”

Gotthilf followed every recommendation — careful nutrition, prenatal vitamins, exercise, childbirth and CPR classes, parenting books. She hosted a baby shower and even sang to her daughter while walking around Manhattan.

“This was the most prepared I’ve ever been for anything,” she says. “I didn’t love being pregnant, but I was so excited to enter this entirely new phase of life.”

Three days before her scheduled C-section, something felt wrong. She realized she hadn’t felt her baby move.

“The next morning, I felt anxious again and told my husband, ‘I guess she’s sleeping in today,’” she says. On her final workday before maternity leave, she decided to stop at an emergency care center for reassurance.

It took seven minutes to get there. Once inside, they waited nearly an hour before anyone checked for a heartbeat.

“By the time they finally did, I was in full panic,” Gotthilf says. “When I asked if there was a heartbeat, the doctor said, ‘No, I’m sorry,’ completely flat.”

Her body went numb.

“The silence in that room was suffocating — not just from the Doppler, but in the air itself. My husband looked hollow. I kept thinking I would wake up.”

On the way to the main hospital, they sat in traffic for nearly an hour, barely speaking. Gotthilf called her mother, who hoped the heartbeat had simply been missed. But Gotthilf already knew the truth: she would have to give birth to her daughter, say goodbye, and somehow survive.

Doctors later explained that it had been a rare, catastrophic accident. The umbilical cord had wrapped around the baby’s feet multiple times, cutting off circulation in the cord itself.

“It only wrapped around her feet because she was perfectly positioned for birth,” Gotthilf says. “They told me they’d never seen anything like it. It’s extremely uncommon — but it happens.”

There had been nothing wrong with the pregnancy.

“My body was perfect. She was perfectly healthy,” she says. “Every appointment ended with, ‘A-plus. Ten out of ten.’”

In the months that followed, Gotthilf leaned on her husband, her parents, and close friends. She carefully limited visits — one interaction a day at most — knowing isolation could be dangerous, but so could overwhelm.

Many people tried to offer comfort, often clumsily.

“People said things like, ‘It was meant to be,’ or ‘God knows what He’s doing,’” she says. “I know they meant well, but those words were devastating. They imply there’s a lesson here, or fairness. There isn’t.”

She spent hours reading other parents’ stories online, questioning everything she believed about fate, randomness, and meaning. During sleepless nights, she turned to ChatGPT with questions she didn’t know how to ask anyone else.

“Should I see her body? Was I a mother? Was my daughter ever born? What could I have done differently? Did doctors miss something?” she says. “Could I minimize my trauma — and would that make me a worse person?”

She also shared her story publicly so people wouldn’t send birthday congratulations days later. The response was overwhelming. Hundreds of people reached out — some she hadn’t spoken to in years, others complete strangers.

“I’m on antidepressants now. I exercise regularly,” she says. “None of that brings my daughter back. But it helps bring me back to life.”

As she slowly rebuilds, Gotthilf says her desire to be a parent remains.

“We still want to be parents,” she says. “I’m terrified of going through this again, but I’m turning 40 next year, and time matters. We’ll try again soon.”