Bereaved Parents
The Bittersweet Song of a Wren
By: Shirley Brosius The trill of a jenny wren still sends a pang of sadness through me. Many years ago, 45 to be exact, my youngest child, my only daughter, died a few hours after her birth. It was a chilly spring, and as I hung out laundry, a jenny wren sang from a tree.…
Read MoreQuiet Heroes
By: Jennifer Haake I spent many years in a clinical capacity in healthcare. I don’t think anyone would ever disagree that nurses are the unsung heroes of medicine. For a newly bereaved parent, they are often the ones to shape where the journey begins. In my case, I was laying on a stretcher getting my…
Read MoreIn Their Darkest Moments: A Nurse’s Experience Helping Families Say Hello and Goodbye
By: Lisa Zorn Oh “you work in Labor and Delivery as a nurse you must have the best job!” This is the comment I would hear from people when they inquired about what I did. I was quick to remind them that the it’s not as glamorous as most may think, we don’t sit around…
Read MoreTo Be A Mother, All You Must Do Is Love
By: Casey Zenner What makes someone a Mother? This is something we recently talked about in one of the Ending a Wanted Pregnancy support groups I belong to on Facebook. When you think of the word Mother, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? It may be your own mom. It may…
Read MoreStill a Mother’s Day: Honoring Motherhood During the Pandemic
By: Keisha Wells Thirteen years ago, I faced my first Mother’s Day without my sons—just 29 days after they took their first and last breaths. Although a bitter-sweet celebration, I was gently supported by family and received thoughtful gifts and love on this premiere day in my motherhood. The first of so many days I…
Read MoreMothering Each Day
By: Robyn Busekrus The birds are singing and the sun is shining. When I turn the calendar to May, it brings sadness. I say to myself, “Here we go again.” This month, we honor mothers and for those of us who have been on this loss journey it is difficult. This May, my son would…
Read MoreChoosing Sunshine This Mother’s Day
By: Nikki Grayson Hello there, Beautiful Momma, I write this to you as I’m sitting in the warm sunshine, blue skies, and bright green grass. Flowers are starting to bloom, and the leaves are starting to bud. It’s that time of the year again; Spring. A season that brings many showers of rain, but also…
Read MoreBeing Childless On Mother’s Day
By: Amy Lied My first Mother’s Day without Asher was only 3 months after he died. That day was soul-crushing, to say the least. I was a mother but the child who gave me that title, wasn’t here to celebrate with me. Throughout the day, I tried to avoid social media, but when deep in…
Read MoreA Bereaved Mom is a Real Mom
By: Paige Sanderson Breakfast in bed, a card signed “Love, Mike and Holden,” and a picture of flowers created by Holden’s perfect little handprints. That’s what I was hoping my first Mother’s Day would be like. After all, it’s what I’ve been waiting for my whole life. A mom’s first Mother’s Day is supposed to…
Read MoreThe Lonely Journeys of Infertility and Quarantine
By: Stephanie Dunlap Infertility at any time can be a long, lonely journey. Being under quarantine can be a long, lonely journey. For many of us, at the beginning of the quarantine, there was a lot of unknown. Unknown about what all of this will look like, what our days will be like, how our…
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