01/08/2026
I feel you. The system failed us, too
From Samantha Harter:
(Reposted without the picture.)
A letter to the system that failed us.
I trusted you.
That’s the part that keeps ripping me open.
I trusted you with my body, my instincts, my fear — and my baby’s life. I came to you when something felt wrong. I said the words out loud. I showed up. I asked questions. I begged without knowing I was begging.
And you didn’t listen.
You didn’t care.
You didn’t slow down or look closer or act like my fear mattered.
You made me feel small. Annoying. Dramatic. Like I was wasting your time. And because I wasn’t important enough, my daughter wasn’t either — and that realization breaks me in ways I don’t know how to repair.
Do you have any idea what it’s like to realize that your baby’s brain was injured while you were being reassured? That while I was sent home, told to sleep, told to relax, my daughter was running out of oxygen? That I will carry that knowledge for the rest of my life?
I feel betrayed. I feel robbed. I feel furious. I feel sick with grief for the version of her life that was taken before it even began. I feel rage so sharp it scares me. I feel fear that never shuts off — because once you learn how badly systems can fail you, you never feel safe again.
I replay it all. The heart rate. The yellow fluid. The frantic movements. The silence when she stopped moving. I replay the moments where someone could have acted — and didn’t.
And then I look at my daughter.
I look at how hard she works just to do what should have been easy. I look at how brave her brain is. I look at how much effort it takes her to fight through things she never should have had to fight through.
And I think: how dare you.
How dare you dismiss a mother.
How dare you choose convenience over caution.
How dare you fail to listen, and then go home to your normal lives while my child lives with the consequences.
I hate that I was made powerless.
I hate that my instincts were right.
I hate that love wasn’t enough to protect her.
But I love her more than anything I have ever loved in my life.
And that love is the only reason I’m still standing.
I will carry the truth, even if it makes people uncomfortable.
I will fight for her in every way I know how.
And I will never again let anyone convince me that my voice doesn’t matter.
Because my daughter matters.
And I am her mother.
Our daughter Sarah "River" Whitmire was a college student in pharmacy school when she died suddenly at age 20, from complications of undiagnosed Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (GPA), also known as Wegener's Disease, a rare autoimmune disease that no one knew she had. Please join our fight to help....
