Stillbirth
Flowers
By: Kathy Gardner Enough time has passed now and your flowers have become a source of discomfort for me. I take such care to pick them out to water them to trim their stems to arrange them to find the perfect ribbon and wrap them up And in those moments I am happy. bringing you…
Read MoreKiller White
By: Kathy Gardner When I think of you I think of color Perfect, tiny, pink colors. You were a perfect, tiny, pink baby whose weight I could barely feel on my chest– 2 lbs and 15 oz of hope, dashed away. I held you in my arms, stung by disbelief cradling the remnants of a…
Read MoreWhy?
By: Kathy Gardner it is hard to answer grief. ‘how are you doing? can I bring you anything? are you hanging in there?” they seem like such gentle and hollow questions, when pitted against a mother’s horror– my daughter is less than a mile away but I will never smell her milky breath at 3…
Read MoreLetters to Heaven
By: Sabrina Ivy My Sweet Alivia Rose, You are the first thing I think of every morning when I wake. You are the last thing on my mind when I go to sleep. Countless times I think of you throughout the day. My heart longs for you. My arms ache for you. Despite all the…
Read MoreOn Love, Loss and Having Babies
By: Anna Eastland It’s funny that what people so often emphasize about babies is how much work they are. How they will take over your life and make it difficult. How they should generally be avoided in order to live a life of comfort and success. But I can honestly say that the hardest thing…
Read MorePregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness: Alivia’s Story
By: Sabrina Ivey October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. 1 in 160 pregnancies end in stillbirth. Every day in the United States, approximately 70 babies are born still and silent. That’s 70 mothers and fathers who leave the hospital empty handed. 70 families making funeral arrangements…
Read MoreAutumn’s Story
By: Kelsey Bell “It’s a girl!” Those three words were music to our ears. After having two perfectly healthy boys, we were more than ready to welcome a daughter into our family. I instantly began picturing what it would soon be like to have someone at home that I could relate to for once and…
Read MoreReturning To Work After Loss
By: Marissa Steinhoff My world had stopped, completely shut off for 8 full weeks. I would sit in my house, avoiding the outside world and the looks of despair from others. My home was the place I felt most comfortable, most human. I knew that inside the walls of my home I was loved by…
Read MoreThings We Wish Others Understood About Grief And Child Loss
By: Sabrina Ivy Death invaded our lives in a way that has irrevocably changed us. We can never go back to who we were before. We are painfully aware of how different we are now. We know what death looks like on our child. We know what death smells like. We know what death feels…
Read MoreWhat We Keep In Our Hearts
By: JoAnn Cantrell It was a cold day in April when our infant twin boys arrived too soon, after I had carried them nearly six months. Ironically, it was the same time of year that the crocuses were making their comeback after a harsh winter. Like the flowers, my babies were early in blooming, yet…
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