VALDOSTA — VALDOSTA — Justice Rose Knebel, as lovely as her name, was delivered July 20, weighing 5 pounds 4 ounces, 16 inches long, and looking just like her sister, Ansley, 6, and brother Gavin, 2.

But there would only be a few hours for her parents, Megan and Chad Knebel, other family and friends to love on this little baby. Justice Rose had quit breathing at 32 weeks, just six weeks shy of her due date.

And the cause remains a mystery.

Megan sat down Monday at Southland Property Management, where she has worked eight years, and talked about her family and a nonprofit Web site which has brought her comfort.

Megan and Chad, who are both from Illinois in cities 15 minutes apart, had never met each other until they met here in 2007. Megan’s dad, Henry Jackson, was in the Air Force and moved here when she was 2. Her parents got divorced, and she and her mom, Dana Griffin, ended up staying here with her sister, Allison Moore, who was born in Valdosta.

Chad is a machinist and welder for the 23rd Equipment Maintenance Squadron at Moody Air Force Base. He and Megan met when she took a second job bartending at Rum Runners for extra income for her and her daughter, Ansley Thurmond.

“We started talking because one of his friends said, ‘Hey, Megan, aren’t you from Illinois?’ That was the starter for the conversation,” Megan said. “We got married a couple of months later in June of ’07.”

Son Gavin was born in January 2008.

“We’ve been married 3 1/2 years and he’s an awesome husband,” Megan said. “He will do anything and everything for me and the kids.

“We planned to have a third child in 2009 and planned for four months. We found out at Christmas in ’09 we were pregnant with a little girl.”

They named her Justice Rose — Justice, a name Megan had wanted since she was 14, and Rose after Chad’s mom, Rose Gates of Highland, Ill.

Megan had a normal pregnancy until she noticed on a Friday in mid-July that Justice Rose wasn’t kicking as much as she usually did.

“I thought it was the cough medicine because I was severely sick for a week,” Megan said. “We went to Dr. (Roy) Swindle at Southern OB/GYN, and they put me on a heart monitor. The heart beat was strong — in the high 140s-150s, and the doctor said we were good to go. She had actually started to kick while we were there.

“The next day, we had a baby shower, and then Monday was the last and final ultrasound. That’s when Dr. Swindle told us she didn’t have a heart beat anymore. She had passed away.

“Up until the day my doctor looked me in the eye and said, ‘There is no heartbeat,’ I had your perfect, textbook pregnancy. I’m 27 and healthy. I had no reason to think anything would go wrong. Things like this just don’t happen to healthy, normal people like me, I thought.

“I had a slow leak of amniotic fluid, and there was little fluid left when the ultrasound was done, but why it happened is still a mystery because I had had two normal pregnancies before.”

The next day, Megan went to South Georgia Medical Center where a C-section was done to deliver Justice Rose.

“She was gorgeous, 5 pounds, 4 ounces, looked just like her sister and brother.”

Quite normally, depression set in.

“I asked the ‘why’ question a lot — Why me? I realized that no parent should have to bury their child — no matter how old,” Megan said with tears in her eyes.

“There was a lot of shock. I had to go through the C-section. I had to go through the pain and postpartum, but I had no baby to hold.”

Justice Rose was born around 10 a.m., but it would be early afternoon before her mom would get out of recovery.

“I was severely dehydrated,” Megan said. “When I got to the room, I wasn’t quite ready (to hold the baby). That afternoon around 4 o’clock I got to see her and hold her.

“(Chad’s) parents (Rose and Harry Gates of Illinois) came down and my father from Texas, my sister, my stepsister (Rena Griffin), my stepbrother (Trey Griffin), both of Valdosta, and a lot of our close friends. We had way more people than (SGMC) usually allowed. They even let my daughter go up there, and they usually don’t let 6-year-olds.

“We got to keep her for about two hours and then Music Funeral Services came and picked her up from the hospital. If it had not been for my father and mother and his parents planning the funeral, I don’t know how we would have done it.”

Megan got out of the hospital on Thursday, and Justice Rose was buried that Friday morning at Riverview Memorial.

“We go out and visit her every Sunday still.

“I hadn’t heard of anyone going through this until it happened to us,” Megan said, wiping away the tears.

“The nurses on the third floor and Dr. Swindle made it very easy as far as emotionally and physically, but the most help I’ve gotten so far was from (the Faces of Loss Web site) facesofloss.com.”

The same thing that had happened to Megan happened in September to a girl she had graduated high school with and kept up with through Facebook. The girl’s son was stillborn at 32 weeks.

“We were talking on Facebook and trying to help each other get through it,” Megan said. “She was searching on the Internet and found the Web site, and I got on there. There are hundreds of women across the country that are on there sharing their stories of either miscarriages, stillborn or infant loss.

“The Web site made me feel like I wasn’t alone — I could relate to so many other people. No matter how nice the doctors and nurses were, no one in my family had ever experienced this. There’s tons of resources on the site — books you can read, online chats where you can talk to others, remembrance jewelry and pictures. A lady in Australia who has been through this drew a picture of a butterfly and puts the child’s name on the butterfly wing and sends you an e-mail copy of it.”

Megan is in the process of creating a scrapbook for Justice. Only four of the pictures taken of Justice Rose turned out well. She wishes she had known about the Web site which has a link to “Now I lay me down to sleep” of professional photographers who donate their time to come to the hospital to take pictures of the deceased babies and their loved ones.

Megan said one in every four women will experience pregnancy/infant loss at some time in their life. Even if some don’t end up experiencing it themselves, someone they know — their friend, their sister, their coworker — will, she added.

And the passing affects more than just the mother.

“The loss of a daughter is the hardest thing a father ever has to face,” Chad said. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about Justice. I still see her face every time I close my eyes.”