Baby Nathaniel Ezekiel Allen was due Oct. 15.

"We were happy. He was going to be our last child," said James Allen, the Goliad father. "We planned him. We were like, 'Well, this is it, three is enough.' We were waiting for him to come."

But instead of October, Nathaniel was born on May 29 - 18 weeks too early and with his umbilical cord wrapped in a knot.

Nathaniel was a stillbirth.

"This is my child," his mom, Mary Allen, said. "When we saw him, he was a child. He was 41/2 inches long. He had all his little features. He had everything. We named him ... They took him, we had our funeral and I never received a death certificate."

Mary Allen said she called Rosewood Funeral Chapel to ask about the missing death certificate a few weeks after the funeral.

The secretary, Mary Allen said, quoted a Texas law making it a requirement to file a certificate of fetal death for a fetus weighing 350 grams or more, or for a fetus of at least 20 weeks gestation.

Nathaniel did not weigh 350 grams and Mary was only 19 weeks and four days along in her pregnancy.

The secretary, Mary Allen said, told them they could not get a death certificate.

"It is heartbreaking ... You go to the doctor, you hear the heartbeat, you see the sonogram, you are past that point of miscarriage and you start thinking about names," Mary Allen said, her voice breaking with tears before she was able to continue.

"And the next minute, you go to the hospital and they say your baby is dead. And then, to top it off, later on they tell you, 'We have no record of that anymore. He was a fetal demise. He wasn't anything.' That is just appalling, to think like that," she said.

After calling Dr. Kathleen Steiner's office and getting the same response from the office staff, James Allen said the family went on a mission to change the law.

The Allen family circulated a petition to get the law changed, calling it the Nathaniel Ezekiel Law, and started a Facebook group to gain support.

Through the Texas Department of State Health Services, however, Mary Allen learned Thursday the law had been misunderstood.

Chris Van Deusen, spokesperson for the department, explained the law does require a certificate be filed for a fetus of at least 350 grams or 20 gestational weeks. If the fetus is smaller, issuing a certificate is optional.

Nancy Witte, a managing director of Rosewood, said she could not speak specifically of the Allens' case, but she is glad the issue was brought up.

"We will make sure families are more aware and we will do what we can to help them," she said. "If their doctor is willing to sign a death certificate, to show that this was a life, we will do that."

Steiner, a family practitioner at American Regional Health Center, who spoke about the case with Mary Allen's permission, said she received a death certificate from Rosewood Funeral Chapel on Thursday and was in the process of filling it out.

"It means closure," Mary Allen said. "It means that he was not just alive in our hearts, he was alive."

She said she hopes more people will know they can get a death certificate after stillbirths before 20 weeks.

"How many people have gone through this and been tossed aside? Hopefully, something great can come out of this," she said.