Hug an Angel Mom Today

Today is Pregnancy, Infant, and Child loss awareness day-it makes no difference the age of the child or how they died. Take a moment to think about all the angels that have left us too soon. Hug an angel parent you know and remember, though today is a day of awareness, hope, and light, it is still very hard for a lot of parents. 1 in 4 parents know this feeling all to well. You are welcome to join the Wave of light tonight, by lighting a candle from 7pm-8pm.

When my child has died - please.......

Thank you to Paula B. from Beverly, England for sharing this - every mom whose on this journey, understands these statements all too well...

When My Child Has Died

~author is unknown but she knows she was a woman

When my child has died, please… 

• Don’t ignore me because you are uncomfortable with the subject of death. It makes me wonder if what happened means nothing to you.

• Acknowledge my pain, even if you think it shouldn’t be as great as it is… (because I’ve ‘only’ lost a baby or one of four!)

• Losing a child is one of the most difficult experiences to face and the depth of my grief will shock even me as it returns in waves. A tremendous number of emotional and physical hurts will come my way – please don’t minimize them.

• Please be aware that holidays and anniversaries will be particularly difficult times.

• If you invite me for lunch or bring a meal around (and please do) in the midst of my grief, please expect to talk about my loss. It’s all I’m thinking about and I need to talk it out; small talk neither interests nor helps just now.

• Please don’t change the subject if I start to cry. Tears and talking about it are the healthiest way for me to release my intense emotions.

• Telling me that So-and-so’s situation must have been much worse won’t make mine easier. It only makes me feel you don’t understand or can’t acknowledge the extent of my pain.

• Don’t expect that because my child is in heaven or ‘with God’ I shouldn’t be hurting. Even the most fervent believer in God would rather have their child with them. My arms ache to hold my child and I miss him or her so much. And God might not be finding favor with me right now.

• Now is not the time to tell me about your own childbirth or child’s experiences… It reminds me in the most painful way of what I’m missing.

• Don’t remind me that I’m so lucky to have other children. I am and I know it. But my pain is excruciating for this child; the others don’t take that pain away. Indeed, they can add to it because I’ve got to comfort them as well.

• No matter how bad I look, please don’t say “You look terrible.” I feel like a total failure right now and I don’t need to hear that I look awful too.

• Don’t devalue my experience or my child – the feelings of deprivation are so intense. A child who has never breathed is nonetheless missed so if I’ve ‘only’ miscarried or my child was stillborn, don’t forget he/she was a very special, unique person.

• Please don’t suggest my child can be replaced by my having more. Would you say “Don’t worry, there are plenty more fish in the sea,” to someone who had just lost their husband?

• When you ask my husband how I’m doing – please don’t forget to ask him how he’s doing too. He has also lost his child. If you ignore his hurt it suggests that his pain doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter.

Remembering Baby

~ Robin Elise Weiss, LCCE

Having your baby die at any point in gestation or after is something horrible to even comprehend. And yet millions of families are living with these memories. While after awhile they are not constant, they are there. Our minds often turn to loved ones lost at family centered times of year or during special remembrances. Family celebrations may conjure up pictures in your mind of "what if" holidays or as due dates and birth or death dates come and go.

"What if our baby had lived. She would be two this year and opening gifts and playing with boxes."

"I can't imagine being the mother to a 13 year old now..."

"Wonder what it would have been like to be the parent of a little boy."

Here are some ideas to help you remember your lost babies at this or any time of year - Ways to Remember:

Name your baby ~ Consider giving your baby a name. If it feels right or good, do it. Don't let anyone else tell you how to grieve. It doesn't matter how far along your pregnancy was or whether or not you knew the sex of your baby. This is something you can do, even years later.

Save something from the experience ~ One of the nicest things I've saved was the card and the ultrasound photos that I had mailed to my husband who was off defending his dissertation. It had actually been lost in the mail, and returned to sender. We received it about 2 weeks after we had had a D & C. On the cover of the card was a fat, giggling baby, rolling in flowers. It's a rather popular picture, and every time I see it now I think of that baby.

Create a Ritual - This was particularly helpful to me during a subsequent pregnancy. It went right along with our family Sabbath and was a special prayer form our family to say thank you for the time we had with the baby that was growing and that we were anxiously awaiting the birth. It involved a small candle and prayer. The candle stayed unlit until the very first Sabbath after the birth of that baby.

Hold a service ~ Have a memorial service for your baby. Again, no matter how long you had your baby, it's still a part of you and recognizing this publicly can be very healing. It can also allow your friends and family a chance to learn to express themselves and help you.

Send announcements ~ I've received some of the most beautiful announcements. The first one I received, I was shocked and amazed. The mother explained that she was relieved not to have to tell everyone in person, and yet it was a public way to announce the birth/death of their daughter and ask for community support.

Buy something special ~ For my last pregnancy loss, we knew nothing of the baby, and the pregnancy ended so early and violently, we had no mementos or even ultrasound pictures. I was out shopping and ran across a small rock. It was smooth, but not polished. It felt good and heavy in my hands. It had a simple message inscribed: Remember. Now it sits on my desk.

Make a donation ~ You can donate anything, time, gifts, or money. One of the sweetest things I've heard of is parents returning to the hospital where their child was born and giving a special blanket to the staff to be given to a baby born either around the anniversary time for that baby or for another grieving family.

Robin Elise Weiss, a mom herself and also a mom who has lost children, has attended hundreds of births and taught couples about pregnancy and birth. She is the author of The About.com Guide to Having a Baby, About.com Guide to Baby Care, Guarantee the Sex of Your Baby, The Everything New Mother's First Year, The Everything Pregnancy Fitness Book, The Everything Getting Pregnant Book, Everything Parenting Guide to Raising Adolescent Boys, The Complete Illustrated Pregnancy Companion, the The Better Way to Care for Your Baby

What is grieving?

~ by Cherie Houston

Sadly, those of us who have lost children all know that the death of a child is a particularly difficult kind of grief. No parent ever expects their child to die before them. It is out of the natural order of things and it is something that we all agree, should never have happened. But it does happen…
To me, it seems that it’s our own personal previous experiences of loss and grief, which affects the way we grieve for our own child. Whether our child died before they were born, or when they were an infant, young child or young adult, or a much older adult child – age doesn’t matter. We all should remember though that grief is natural and it is our own unique way of expressing how we feel and cope with losing someone who was and is so important in our life. It's OK and it's NORMAL!!!

Some people think that you can only grieve for a child who has been born alive and one that you have got to know, if only for a short while – how totally ridiculous and untrue.. As a parent, we don’t begin to love our children once they enter the world – I think we begin that relationship and that love for them as soon as we know or expect that we are expecting (even if that expecting is through adoption!)… Because of this, grief is every bit as real for those parents whose children die before or shortly after they are born..

By the same token, even though our child that died might have children or even grandchildren of their own, it doesn’t mean that their death will be less devastating to us, their parents. Yes - grieving is different for each of us, but the age and circumstance of our children’s deaths doesn’t matter – they are our children, now they are gone and we have to go on living without them physically here with us. So we grieve..
There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Each of us will grieve in our own way, at our own pace.

Grieving means accepting the reality of what has happened and learning to live with the change that has taken place in our lives and readjusting our dreams for the future. And this acceptance happens slowly...

Grieving isn't about forgetting our child who has died, it simply means we have to find a place for our child in our life and in our hearts. We find a way to remember our child, without losing our breath or feeling that seemingly unbearable heartbreaking pain that we felt when our child first died.

We know, that despite popular beliefs about grieving, that time alone does not heal. We’ve learned, that it is only through this journey of grieving that we begin to work through the terrible heartbreaking pain. For some parents, the loss of a baby or child years ago was not seen as a significant loss and for these parents, their grief may only be acknowledged years later when they least expect it.

It serves no purpose whatsoever to compare or judge the intensity of feelings involved in anyone else’s grief. We have to remember, that we are each different and our journey through grief will be different also ~ but we can and will survive ~ and how blessed we were to have had our children in our lives and for that we can and should be thankful…

Life After Loss: How The Death of A Baby Changes You Forever

Excerpt from an article written by Ann Douglas…


During those intensely painful days after my daughter Laura was stillborn, I remember feeling that I was at a crossroads in my life-that two separate paths lay before me: I could let this tragedy destroy my life and break my spirit or I could find a way to make something positive come out of my daughter's death.  Fortunately for me, I inherited the stubborn gene from my parents, so giving up on life really wasn't a viable option for me. So, by default, I gravitated toward the second alternative: finding a way to make something good come out of this most searing of losses.

While I would never have wished this on myself, the death of a baby is too big a price to pay for any personal growth experience, I have been forever changed by the experience of losing Laura. In many ways, I'm a better person than I was before that fateful day five years ago when a tiny piece of my heart was forever broken.

For one thing, I'm more compassionate. I feel an immediate bond with any parent who has experienced the death of a baby as well as anyone else who is grieving the death of someone significant in their life, be it a spouse, a parent, or a close friend.

My volunteer work with grieving parents and the articles and books I've written on miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death have allowed me to make a difference in the lives of other parents who've experienced the tragedy of losing a much-wanted baby. That means a lot to me.

I'd say I'm more aware of what it feels like to be really connected to someone-heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul. I have a very special friend whose baby died shortly after mine did. The two of us spent a lot of time together in the weeks that followed, sharing our grief about the babies who would never come home.

Another perk: I'm less of a control freak. After all, I've learned the hard way that some things are out of your control-and some things can't be fixed, no matter how desperately you want to put the pieces back together again.

I've come to terms with my fear of death. Being forced to deal with the death of my child has forced me to confront my own mortality.

I've also learned how to put things in perspective. A leaky ceiling, a missed deadline, a squabble with my husband, or a minor fender bender no longer qualify as a crisis for me. I now save the "crisis" label for the real life-and-death situations.

Finally, I'm better able to celebrate the wonder in everyday life. Rather than looking forward to that magical day when my mortgage is paid off, I reach my goal weight, and I have a book or two on the bestseller list (hey, a girl can dream, can't she?), I'm more inclined to delight in what's happening in the here and now: to savour the joy I feel when my youngest child, Ian, hugs my leg and says, "I really love you, Mom" and to enjoy the way my heart lifts when the telephone rings and there's a special friend on the other end of the line.

There are just a few of the gifts that Laura gave to me during her brief journey through my life. These gifts are her legacy to me.

Ann Douglas is the author of 21 books, including The Mother of All Pregnancy Books: The Ultimate Guide to Conception, Birth and Everything in Between, The Mother of All Baby Books: The Ultimate Guide to Your Baby's First Year, The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby, Baby Science and Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy After Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss. She is a regular contributor to ePregnancy and WebMD, and has been featured in Parenting, Working Mother, and Good Housekeeping. She is the mother of four children, ages 5 through 14, and can be contacted via her web site http://www.having-a-baby.com/

The overwhelming pain of losing an infant

~~ Cherie Houston

Today I remember my beautiful daughter Robin Marie whose stay was so very brief - only 7 months -Robin was born December 29th, 1971 and we lost her to S.I.D.S. on July 31st, 1972.  As I reflect I can't help but think of all of all the moms who share this special ache - Lisa, Jessica, Kristin, Nikki and countless others - you know who you are - the pain is always there, just below the surface - remember that special little someone who is misssing...

The ache of a young mom is different - I know because I've lost a newborn, and then a 7 month old and last fall a 36 year old and they are all very different.  The ache for a newborn and infant - that  is an ache that resonates throughout our bodies, not only in our hearts but deep within our wombs.  There are times, when we actually think we can feel that faint flutter, you remember - the one that reminds us of that very first sensation - that caused such overwhelming excitement - you wanted to scream to the world "I'm gong to be a mom".  And when we lose a child - of any age - we lose a future - dreams - hopes and endless possibilities that will never be and the loss of memories that will never occur... BUT....

There's no doubt, that once we conceive that precisous child - we are moms and will forever be moms - no matter how young or old - no matter how long we are allowed to enjoy them here on earth - we, from the moment of conception, are moms...  I'm not sure who sent me this poem or when I received it, but it is in with those special memories I had tucked away with her sister Randee Marie's (Randee had died the previous March '71) and Robin's things and I wanted to share it with those other "new moms" who are feeling that ache...

Tiny Footprints on a Mother's Heart

When a baby arrives,

be it for a moment, day, month, year or more,

or perhaps only a sweet flickering moment-

the fragile spark of a tender soul

the secret swell of a new pregnancy

the goldfish flutter known to only you-

you are unmistakeningly changed...

the tiny footprints left behind on your heart

bespeak your name as Mother.