Grief is the response of suffering a profound loss, which can be triggered by different events that disrupt or challenge our sense of normalcy. In 1988, President Ronald Regan proclaimed October as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. Losing a baby is one of the most tragic experiences anyone can endure. The loss of a child stays with parents, family, and friends forever.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are a part of the groundwork that helps us make sense of the multitude of emotions that can be experienced following a loss. The stages of grief are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling but they are not distinct stops on a straightforward timeline. Not everyone goes through all of these feelings or in a certain order. The hope is that with understanding these stages comes the insight of grief’s terrain, making us better equipped to cope with life and loss.
While navigating through grief, you can do special activities to remember and honor your baby, even if you didn’t have a chance to see, touch, or hold them. Some ideas to consider are:
• Collecting anything that reminds you of your baby. Items such as ultrasound pictures, footprints, a lock of hair, a hospital bracelet, photos, clothes, blankets, or toys. Put these items in a special box or scrapbook as a keepsake.
• Having a memorial service for your baby. A service can give you a chance to say goodbye to your baby and share your grief with family and friends. Your hospital or local organizational supports may have a service each year to remember babies who have passed.
• Writing your thoughts and feelings in a journal or writing letters or poems to your baby. Tell your baby how you feel and how much you miss them. If you enjoy art, painting a picture for them can also be therapeutic.
• Lighting a candle or saying a prayer in honor of your baby on holidays or special days, like their birthday. Do something on your own or bring family and friends together to cherish your baby.
• Planting a tree or a small garden in honor of your baby.
• Having a piece of jewelry made with your baby’s initials or birthstone.
• Donating to or volunteering for a charity in your baby’s name.
However you decide to keep your baby’s memory alive, find comfort in knowing that your way of healing may look different than your partner’s, friend’s, or family member’s way of healing and all of those experiences are valid. Many suffer in silence and yearn to know they are not by themselves on their journey. Options are always available such as processing grief with a therapist or getting involved in a local support group like Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss; 1 in 160 babies are born still; 24,000 infants die each year; Nobody needs to walk this path alone.
“After a traumatic event such as the loss of a loved one, we may feel as though our life has stopped. Nothing can go forward after this. What sense can we make of the rest of our life? Fortunately, life will pull us along, whether or not we give it our blessing. And one day, like a storm that passes, we will see light again, and realize that during all the time we felt lost in darkness and confusion, processes of healing and growth were doing their slow and often silent work. We have not lost time at all, but like the seed that has lain apparently inert in the ground all winter and now is ready to begin its springtime dance, we have been moved along in steady and unseen ways into new life. Like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon after a long darkness, we will shake caterpillar dust from our wings and realize we can fly.”
– Martha W. Hickman, Healing After Loss
