The day Mary Kate died: Colts center Ryan Kelly, wife Emma held daughter, kissed her and cried

ZIONSVILLE, Ind. — The questions came like cruel darts piercing their souls. The cries of newborns were all around. Their baby, Mary Kate, was dead in their arms. Colts' center Ryan Kelly and his wife, Emma, who had just endured a 36-hour labor to deliver a lifeless body, held their daughter. They kissed her forehead. They cried.

They heard the awful questions.

The people asking them weren't trying to be cruel. Those nurses and doctors at Community North were angels to them. But they had to ask. You're going to bury Mary Kate correct? Do you have a cemetery in mind? Do you know what outfit you want to bury her in?

"How do you decide what you are going to bury your baby in?" Emma said from the Kellys' home last week, as she cried. Ryan reached over to hold her hand, fighting back tears, too.

Before that, the Kellys had heard other questions. Would you want to donate her body to research? Do you want to deliver her now or come back tomorrow? When she is born do you want to hold her or have her taken away?

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All of it was so cruel, Emma said. Walking into the hospital that day to deliver Mary Kate, surrounded by women smiling and laughing, others in pain from labor, but all ready to have a live baby. Walking out of the hospital the next day, listening to joyful cries from parents and soft wails from babies, The Kellys holding in their arms only a box.

Not their baby. The Kellys had a box of mementos, Mary Kate's handprints and footprints, teddy bears and a homemade birth certificate signed by the doctors. Mary Kate wouldn't get an official birth certificate. And she wouldn't get anything official from the state saying she ever existed. Indiana gives a fetal death certificate at 20 weeks gestation. Mary Kate was 19.5 weeks when she was delivered.

"It's the most excruciating pain and the feeling of isolation and loneliness you feel walking out of there without your baby," Emma said. "You feel like you're the only two people on earth this has happened to. I labored. I did everything and I don't get my baby. It's all so cruel."

The days and weeks and months that followed felt even worse. Watching as Mary Kate was buried in a tiny gown with a bracelet that had her name on it, the same bracelet Emma has. Feelings of shame and embarrassment. Did they do something wrong, the Kellys kept asking themselves that over and over.

Then there were the people who were trying to take away their pain, who had the kindest hearts, but who said things that were so hurtful. You're young. You can try again. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe she died because something worse was going to happen to her.

All the Kellys wanted was to hear someone say that this was all a bad dream. That Mary Kate was still here.

Instead, they would wake up each morning and Mary Kate wasn't there. "It's like a constant reminder," Ryan said. They felt alone, angry and they felt gut-wrenching pain neither thought was possible.

Emma would cry and scream at the top of her lungs. Ryan was quieter in his grief. "Do you not care as much as I care?" Emma would ask Ryan. She hates now that she said that. Of course, that wasn't true.

It took time to even figure out how to get out of bed each day and put one foot in front of the other. The Colts fans and the team were wonderful, giving the Kellys days off, giving them space, giving them support and surrounding them with prayers, heartfelt messages and love.

But it took grief counseling, being open about their journey and endless tears to finally feel as if they weren't drowning. Eleven months after losing Mary Kate, the Kellys have learned how to live, even if it's a completely different life than the one they had before.

What has helped them more than anything else is giving Mary Kate the voice she never had. Doing things in Mary Kate's honor. Making her existence matter.

The Kellys have poured themselves into nonprofits and organizations that help save babies' lives – as well as ones that help parents, who have lost a baby, endure the grief.

"Ryan's and my goal for the rest of our lives, even if we have a house full of 10 living babies, is to help these moms, these parents, to give them (the support and resources) we had in the most awful of experiences," Emma said. "Something so they know they are not alone, that there are people who understand the pain it feels to lose a baby."

'It was all just too good to be true'

Ryan and Emma Kelly both grew up in West Chester, Ohio, and were athletic stars at Lakota West High, Ryan shining in football and Emma as a basketball player who went on to play at small D1 school Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

While Ryan and Emma had grown up five minutes from one another, went to the same elementary school and high school, the two had never met. Emma is three years older than Ryan, 29, so their paths didn't cross.

Instead, they met as adults at a bar late one night in Atlanta, where Emma was working for GE and Ryan was in town for a friend's wedding. They realized their hometown connection and there was a beautiful spark.

Ryan proposed to Emma on May 1, 2020, with candles, rose petals, music and a note that said, "Put on something beautiful and meet me at the dock." The two were married one year later.

Both Ryan and Emma come from strong Catholic families and, they knew immediately, they wanted to start a family, a big family, Ryan said.

On a jog one morning in August 2021, Emma noticed her breasts were hurting. She took a pregnancy test and stared at the results in shock. She walked away and came back to look again. She was going to have a baby.

Emma ran out and bought a onesie that read "Game Changer" on the front and, on the back, "Daddy." She cooked a nice dinner. She sat her phone up on the shelf in the kitchen to record this incredible moment.

When Ryan walked in after Colts practice, he noticed the phone and asked Emma, "Are you recording us?" No, Emma told him, she had that set up for something she was doing with Instagram earlier.

But Emma was acting different, Ryan said. He couldn't put his finger on it and he couldn't figure out why.

Until Emma handed him a bag with the positive pregnancy results and that onesie. Ryan stood in shock, stepping back, putting his hands up. "No way," he said. "What?" When Emma finally convinced him this was real, that they were having a baby, he picked Emma up and swung her around the kitchen.

And, Emma says, the fairy tale began.

Her pregnancy was perfect, everything seemed perfect. Emma had a little nausea and fatigue in the first trimester but, when the second trimester hit, she got a second wind. The Kellys had gotten past the scary part of their pregnancy, that first trimester. Now, they could tell people.

Emma wore a skeleton suit to a Colts game on Halloween with a baby skeleton on her belly. The Colts world responded with joy and congratulations for the parents-to-be.

"Hard Knocks" soon approached the Kellys as the couple was ready to learn the gender of their baby. The HBO series was featuring the Colts for the 2021-22 season and wanted to show players' lives off the field, too.

Inside Lucas Oil Stadium, in front of an HBO film crew, Ryan and Emma told the world in lights that flashed all around on scoreboards: "Baby Kelly is a Girl."

"It was honestly one of the happiest days of my life because we found out she was a girl and we both really wanted a girl. Ryan always said he wanted to be a girl dad," Emma said. "It was, I don't know the word, euphoric. It was all just too good to be true.

"And I say that because of where we are now."

Weeks after that "Hard Knocks" episode with the Kellys announcing their baby girl aired, Emma was in a hospital bed getting an ultrasound when the nurse stopped talking and walked out of the room to get the doctor.

'I just had a really bad feeling that day'

There is no way to know the day Mary Kate died. But the day Mary Kate died in Ryan and Emma's hearts came on a Wednesday in December when their baby was on the monitor, but her heart wasn't beating.

Ryan had been out sick the week before and it was his first day back to Colts practice. Emma was out running errands. When she got home and went to the bathroom, she noticed a little bleeding, nothing she said should have been alarming.

But Emma wasn't really feeling Mary Kate move. The night before she had told Ryan, "I'm not feeling her as much. I'm nervous." And some of her pregnancy symptoms had disappeared. Emma knew in the second trimester that could happen, but all of it put together and the blood. "I just had a really bad feeling that day," she said. "And I will never forget it."

Emma called David Thornton, the Colts' director of player engagement, the liaison between families and players. She didn't want to make that call, Emma said. Ryan needed to be at practice.

"I've got to go to the hospital. Something's up," Emma told Thornton. "Don't scare Ryan. Don't tell him anything. If, for whatever reason, he can't get ahold of me when he's out of practice, just let him know where I'm at."

As Emma drove to the hospital, she said she was hysterical. Then Ryan called. Thornton had told him. The team and Thornton knew he needed to be with Emma. "It's fine," Emma told Ryan, trying to convince him to stay at practice. "It's all going to be fine."

At the hospital, the nurse came in bubbly, chatting as she did the ultrasound, telling Emma how cute her outfit was.

"And then she just goes really quiet," Emma said. "She was like, 'You know, I'm going to go get the doctor. I don't think I'm doing this right."

Emma knew, she said. She knew that second that Mary Kate was gone. What came next was a dark blur. "The doctor came in and that was it," Emma said. "She didn't have a heartbeat."

Emma doesn't remember much after that other than being asked if she wanted to deliver Mary Kate then or come back the next day. And the doctors saying, "You have to deliver her. You're too far along."

In the hospital bed, Emma called Ryan, who was on his way to be with her. "I remember laying there and having to tell him that we lost her and that we were going to have to deliver her and not knowing what to do."

Ryan remembers how unreal it all was. They had just been working on Mary Kate's nursery the night before. They had picked out her name, a combination of women from both sides of their families -- Mary Katherine, but they would call her Mary Kate.

"And then it's over," he said.

"Everything is over in a second," Emma said. "It's like the happiest, best time and it's over in literally one second."

The Kellys went home that evening and they sobbed. They called their family and friends with words they never wanted to say. "We lost Mary Kate." Emma's doctor called and tried, as gently as she could, to lead them through what the next day would be like.

"But how do you prepare for going to the hospital the next day to give birth," Emma said. "To give birth to your daughter who you won't bring home?"

'We were really scared'

Emma was in labor for 36 hours, something she said was "awful and traumatic." Doctors had to give her elevated doses of medicine to get her to deliver Mary Kate.

"My body just fought it," Emma said, crying. "And that's even sadder, too. Your body is trying to protect your baby even though she's gone."

And then Mary Kate was born. The Kellys had been "terrified," Emma said. "We didn't want to hold her. We were really scared. We didn't want to see her. We were afraid of what she'd look like at 20 weeks."

But their doctor had told them they should take time to spend with Mary Kate. They should hold her. "She's real. She matters. You want this time."

The Kellys thank God they did. Being with Mary Kate wasn't scary. This was their baby and she was beautiful. It was a surreal, peaceful time in the midst of their greatest pain.

The doctors crafted a birth certificate and signed it. Mary Kate's name was written on the board and she was announced throughout the halls, her weight, length and time of delivery. The nurses dressed Mary Kate in a tiny outfit and laid her in the bassinet. They told the Kellys they could stay with her as long as they wanted. The Kellys took pictures with Mary Kate and FaceTimed their family.

And then, in one of the hardest moments of their lives, they had to force themselves to leave, to walk out of the hospital, leaving Mary Kate behind.

'You are not alone'

The next day, the Colts announced Ryan would be out due to personal reasons for the Dec. 18 home game against the Patriots. There was no way he could put on a uniform and walk into a stadium roaring with energy after what had just happened.

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But people started wondering what the "personal reason" was. Emma got messages on Instagram, not nice messages, she said. Why is Ryan out again after just being out sick?

The day of the game, Emma put out a poem “Little Butterfly” by Amy Farquhar.

"I lived my life inside youCocooned in all your loveSo mama, papa, please don't cryI'm still with you, just up above"

A few days later, Emma shared pictures from the hospital on the day of her delivery, pictures of her and Ryan holding Mary Kate.

What happened from there was unbelievable, Ryan and Emma said. They received tens of thousands of messages from people who had lost babies. "It opened up this community, this amazing community who we needed to say, 'You are not alone. This happened to us.'"

It was a community the Kellys said they wished they never had to be a part of, "but it is also some of the most beautiful, courageous people we've ever met," Emma said.

The more Emma and Ryan talked about their loss, they realized they had a voice that others don't have. They had an NFL platform and they wanted to use it to save as many babies' lives as they could.

And that is why they are telling their story now, one that never gets any easier to tell. They want people to know about an organization called Count the Kicks, whose focus is to prevent stillbirths, a program that has already saved hundreds of babies' lives.

"When they called me, the response is always, 'Yes.' We'll do whatever it takes. There are so many babies that should be here right now," Emma said. "We take this deeply personal. This is what we'll do for the rest of our lives and what we'll fight for the rest of our lives."

Helping moms track fetal movement, saving lives

Count the Kicks was founded by five women in Iowa who, in the early 2000s, all lost a baby to stillbirth or infant death. The women came together and started doing research. They learned about a study in Norway that found a 30% reduction in stillbirths by teaching pregnant women how to monitor fetal movements during the third trimester of pregnancy.

The women found other scientific studies, too, that revealed kick counting (keeping a daily record of a baby’s movements such as rolls, jabs, kicks and punches) during the third trimester is a reliable way to monitor a baby’s well-being in addition to regular prenatal visits. The CDC lists a change in baby's movement as one of 15 urgent warning signs for pregnant women.

Taking all that into account, Count the Kicks was launched in 2008 as a way to spread the message of the importance of knowing your baby's movements. To make that easier, the program offers a free app mothers can download to count their baby's movements in the third trimester. Once entered, the app creates a chart that reveals what is normal for each baby and gives mothers a way to see in black and white if there is a change in the baby's movements.

Since launching in Iowa, the state has seen a 32% reduction in stillbirths, said CEO Emily Price. "Babies in the third trimester are a lot like us as adults," she said. "If they aren't doing well, if something is causing them distress, the first thing that is going to change is their movements."

It's no different than an adult getting sick and slowing down, maybe lying on the couch or having to go to bed. But because babies are inside their mothers' wombs, it's not always as easy to tell when they are sick.

"You might not see those subtle changes unless you're really paying attention," said Dr. Kimberly Roop, president of Anthem Indiana's Medicaid team, which started using Count the Kicks earlier this year.

And those subtle changes can be crucial. "We're really trying to capture that time between when movement first slows," Dr. Roop said, "to when something catastrophic happens."

Two babies in Indiana have already been saved by Count the Kicks, said Dr. Roop. One baby would be enough for the Kellys to be involved, said Emma. But two is amazing and she hopes, like Iowa, Indiana soon sees a dramatic decrease in stillbirths.

While the Count The Kicks app wouldn't have saved Mary Kate, who the Kellys lost in the second trimester, Dr. Roop said she believes what they went through, their loss, can help show other parents why this is so important.

"Regardless of the cause, regardless of the gestational age, the loss of a baby is just something that leaves a hole in your heart," Dr. Roop said. "The Kellys are really hoping if they can bring some attention to this, they may spare other families their pain."

'These babies matter. Their lives matter'

Mary Kate is buried in a children's cemetery in Indianapolis just minutes from a river house the Kellys own. They thought a lot about where they should bury her. They thought about Ohio where the two were raised. But Indianapolis is home right now. It's been a huge chapter in their lives. And they want her close by.

Ryan and Emma go to Mary Kate's gravestone all the time. They sometimes have a picnic with her, they talk to her, they cry for all the things she never got to be or do.

When Mary Kate was delivered, a blue butterfly was put on the hospital door, Ryan said, a sign to nurses that inside the room was a baby who hadn't survived.

The butterfly has become a symbol for the Kellys, a symbol of Mary Kate. Ryan put a blue butterfly on his Pro Bowl helmet last season. "The butterfly has come to us in so many ways," Emma said.

On a particularly tough day not long ago, Emma was walking when a blue butterfly landed on her hand. It's when she is out in nature that she feels Mary Kate most, Emma said.

"It sounds weird but there is an overwhelming sense that she is there, that she is there with you," Emma said. "And you feel it not all the time. But times when I need it the most, I absolutely feel her."

Mary Kate has changed the Kellys forever. In an instant, they said, they were transformed. They shed the skin of the people they were, the people who had the fairy tale life, the perfect wedding, the NFL player, the beautiful wife, the sweet baby girl on the way.

When Mary Kate died, a part of them died, too, Emma said. But it was the part that needed to die. The part where little things, trivial things, petty things, mattered.

"We had to learn this lesson and I'm so grateful for it because I don't want to spend my time, our time, doing things that just don't matter or worrying over things that don't matter," she said. "What matters is these babies. These babies matter. Their lives matter. We have to do more. We have to do better."

And as the Kellys fight for research and awareness for infant mortality and, as they help other grieving parents, they are also looking forward to one day having a house full of babies, just as they dreamed on their wedding day. But no matter how many children they might be blessed with, they will never forget their first baby girl.

"Mary Kate isn't gone. She is still with us in so many ways. We think about her every single day, " Emma said. "And we will for the rest of our lives."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com.