Sunday, February 1, 2009

Stillbirth and Taxes

Well, I did our taxes yesterday. Before I filed, I thought, I should investigate to see if parents of stillborn babes get any 'special' gifts! HA! It turns out that in 2006, Granholm did indeed put a stillbirth credit for us Michiganders into play. A nice gesture, I suppose (and apparently one that other states don't have, so a very nice gesture indeed). BUT.. it's a whopping 160 bucks - so almost insulting, in my opinion..Oh, your baby died.. hmmm here have 160.. you can buy yourself a nice.. ummm... uhh... breast pump? The other thing, and the thing that I'm kind of upset about is that to file for this credit, you can NOT e-file. AND you have to attach a copy of the stillbirth certificate (do people LIE and say they have a dead baby, so they can get that huge credit or what?)... excuse me? the WHAT? Funny.. I was one of the 12 women PER YEAR (the midwife told us that they see on average 1 stillbirth a month at U of M!) that this happened to at U of M... and they didn't mention that somewhere out there is a certificate!? I remember feeling so shitty that they never brought me a birth certificate to sign.. it was such a slap in the face! MY SON WAS STILL BORN! Then I remembered the writing at the top, "certificate of LIVE birth" and I knew that certificate would never come. But they never had us fill out anything.. so I wonder if we even have this stillbirth certificate on file in Lansing? I'm going to order a couple of copies, just because I want to have them.. one more tangible item of Dresden.
I did not type in two dependents just to see what my federal return SHOULD have been.. I did last year, when i was counting my chickens before they hatched.. but I didn't do that to myself. I really think the federal government needs to do something for US! If Dresden had taken a single breath outside of my body, HE would have counted as a HUMAN BEING! I still took care of him for 9 months, We planned for him, bought things for him, like every other family that got to bring their babies home, and then had to pay for his cremation, his urns.. things parents SHOULD NEVER have to pay for.. and we don't even get a document that says he was HERE?! How about a 1 time tax deduction people? He was with us for nearly all of 2008! He was alive, he was here (I held him, felt him wiggle and hiccup inside of me.. very ALIVE and Real!) and he always will be, in the hearts of all that love him.
The end of the long winded whiney message.... sheesh!

2 comments:

Melissa said...

It really isn't fair, or right. I'm sorry.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Shannon! A still birth certificate isn't anything a parent should have to get. :-( And it IS disgusting that people would lie about that just to get $180 from the government.