What This Family Did After Losing 5 Babies in a Year Will Make You Sob

By Murphy Moroney

Clarissa Osborn, a mom from Spanish Fork, UT, went through any parent's worst nightmare when she tragically lost five daughters in a single year. But despite her family's painful loss, they're determined to honor their kids by giving back to their community.

The trouble began when Osborn was pregnant with her second child. When she and her husband, Jason, went to the baby's 20-week appointment, they got some devastating news: their daughter had a rare heart condition called truncus arteriosus as well as a potential chromosome deletion syndrome.

The Osborn family knew that the journey ahead would be difficult. When they gave birth to the girl, named Shanna, a month early, they arranged for her to have open-heart surgery one week later.

After flying their newborn to Salt Lake City for the surgery, the Osborns were allowed to bring their newborn home after a month of recovery. And though she had feeding and oxygen tubes, little Shanna seemed to be recovering well until she reached 3 months old. Clarissa and Jason woke to noise coming from Shanna's room and realized their baby was cold to the touch. Despite their efforts to do CPR, Shanna passed away later that evening.

After mourning the loss of Shanna, Clarissa was delighted to learn she was pregnant again — with quadruplets. Although the pregnancy got off on the right foot, Clarissa went into labor at 23 weeks and had to deliver all four babies via C-section. Sadly, the babies were extremely underdeveloped and ended up passing away within a few days of being born due to lung issues and brain bleeds from being born so early.

While the Osborn family underwent heartbreaking loss over the course of the year, they decided to give back to their community in their children's honor.

After Shanna passed away, the Osborns started the Shanna Kay Osborn Foundation to help teens who have survived heart defects like Shanna's pay for college. So far this year, the foundation has already awarded two kids $500 each.

The family also took their charity a step further and donated four sets of baby clothes they received from the TV show Random Acts to Intermountain Healing Hearts, a group that helps families who have kids with serious heart problems.