Betsy Head, Sen. Chris Head’s wife, became pregnant with their third child in the late 1990s.
As her pregnancy progressed, Head said, problems were detected through ultrasound examinations. The Heads were able to undergo amniocentesis, a prenatal procedure used to detect or diagnose a fetal health condition, and discovered that their first son, who they named Nathan Christopher Head, had trisomy 18.
The condition affects the growth of different parts of a baby’s body and the effects on a baby’s body systems can be severe, according to the Virginia Department of Health. About 90% of children born with trisomy 18 die before they reach one year of age. Many die in utero.
“I was at work and I got a call when the results came in, Betsy called me in tears,” Head, a Botetourt County Republican, said Wednesday.
A devoutly Christian family, the Heads were determined to see the pregnancy through, and Betsy got to know Nathan in utero, Head said.
“During Christmas music and coming up on Easter, every time the music would play, he would move and dance,” he said.
The family had another challenge to face: Insurance, provided by Head’s employer at the time, would only have paid for the expenses they accrued — hospital bills and subsequent funeral costs — if Nathan was born alive.
Betsy went into labor seven weeks early, Head said, and when Nathan was born, he was tiny with multiple defects — one being that his esophagus did not connect to his stomach. The Heads knew he would not survive long.
“We held him and loved him for the two hours that he lived, and he died in my arms,” Head said.
Because Nathan lived for a short period of time after delivery, the Heads were able to collect insurance to cover the care Betsy and their son needed.
“Other families aren’t maybe as lucky, and if it’s a stillbirth, there are expenses that aren’t covered,” Head told the Virginia Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee on Monday morning, as he presented a bill that would have created a $2,000 tax credit for families of newborns and those who experience stillbirths.
“This is a way to try to bring some compassionate healing to folks who are going through a really tragic situation.”
When tragedy gives way to purpose
“We knew this was coming, beforehand, but we were in a place in our lives at the time that it was going to be really difficult for us to afford some of the expenses if the child was not born alive,” Head told the Senate money committee.
His family’s experience — the birth, loving, losing and grieving their child — was incredibly profound, Head said in an interview after the committee meeting, his voice heavy with emotion. It compelled him to author the bill in hopes of alleviating some of the pain and stress for other families who go through similar circumstances in Virginia.
His bill, SB789, was passed by indefinitely in a 13-1 committee vote. Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover County, was the lone lawmaker on the panel who voted against killing the bill.
Head noted, when he presented the bill, that he understood what the fate of the bill would likely be, because tax credits are not passed during the second year of a budget biennium, as a matter of policy. Regardless, Head said that he brought it up because the subject is “near and dear” to him.
His family’s experience had given Head an awareness that he said he was unsure he would have had otherwise.
“I have described the whole experience with Nathan as something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he said Wednesday.
Head plans to try again
A stillbirth is defined as a pregnancy that ends after 20 weeks, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
About 1 in 175 pregnancies, or around 21,000 pregnancies annually, end in stillbirth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There were a total of 5,182 fetal deaths in Virginia between 2015 and 2020, according to a workgroup study by the Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Team, which was published in 2022.
Head said he plans to offer a similar bill again, to establish a tax credit for families who experience a stillbirth, to be considered during next year’s biennial budget discussion.
A related bill, which removed a requirement that the Virginia Board of Health prescribe a fee to cover the administrative cost and preparation of a Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth, was enacted in 2022. Head, who was elected to the state Senate in 2023, carried that bill in the House of Delegates.
