16 & Pregnant Star Nikkole Paulun Reveals That Her Second Child Was Stillborn, Passed Away One Month Ago
August 27, 2013 by Lindsay Cronin
Nikkole Paulun has been hiding a dark secret about her life as a mother. The former 16 & Pregnant star announced that she was expecting a child earlier this year but weeks ago, she appeared in an Instagram photo and she wasn’t pregnant. Immediately, fans wondered what had happened. Some even questioned whether or not she was pregnant to begin with. After weeks of speculation, Nikkole is finally telling her story of tragedy.
“Everything was going okay and last month, my doctor told me that if everything was okay, I could deliver on Aug. 25, which was a week before my due date,” Nikkole reveals in a new interview with Radar Online. “But then on July 27, I felt really weird all day and I kept telling my mom something didn’t feel right.”
The next day, Nikkole returned to the doctor’s office. ”We saw a doctor to try and find the heartbeat and they couldn’t find it,” she says. ”But I thought I still felt him moving, so they took me for an ultrasound and they weren’t letting me look at it when they did it. She got up to get something else, so I knew something was wrong.”
A few other doctors checked the ultrasound in order to confirm their suspicions of the baby having passed. Once it was clear that the baby had in fact died, they relayed the devastating news to Nikkole. “They just told me, ‘We’re sorry. He doesn’t have a heartbeat. We’re going to have to deliver to prevent infections and everything.’”
At 9:00 a.m. that day, Nikkole was induced and delivered her stillborn son later that evening. “I cried. I was like in shock,” Nikkole recalls. “I just couldn’t understand why and I was confused. I didn’t think that was actually going to happen.”
Although the doctors did an autopsy to see what caused the tragic turn of events, Nikkole chose not to learn what killed him and keep everything that happend private for the time being. Days later, the child, who was to be named Ashton, was cremated but no funeral was held. ”I didn’t want to tell anybody,” Nikkole explains. “I fought so hard to keep him that I was just ashamed and embarrassed.”
As for what Nikkole told her two-year-old son Lyle, she kept things simple and to the point. “We just told him that he went to heaven,” she says, “But he [doesn’t] really understand.” And neither does Nikkole. ”I’m just still confused and in shock. I did really love him.”