To our wonderful TLC parents: It is with regret that I am letting you know that this might be my last TLC Newsletter. I do not distance myself from TLC easily. I am using vacation time through the summer, and retiring this Fall from St. Joseph’s hospital. Over the next few months we will be transitioning the leadership of the Birth Center Perinatal Bereavement services. As we go through this transition, the program may change---our goal will stay constant however: to provide support to you!
(Remember that there is always support on the Internet. Usually if you just put in GRIEF, some thing will show up on Infant loss. )
You are all in a class set apart from other parents. You are so Thankful for all that is done, and yet your experience is just one of sadness. Our hope is to make your experience a little better, but we can never “fix” it for you. We’d certainly like to, but wishing isn’t going to change it. Each and every family that the staff has worked with is special in their own way. It has been an honor for me to help with your cares. I know your lives are changed by the loss/losses you have had. Your baby will always be a part of your life, just in a different way. Never forget whether you ever have more children, that you are still a Mother and a Father! Each year celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in some special way. Celebrate the time as parents of your child. I hope that Mother’s day was celebrated in some special way and hope Father’s day will be special for all Dads’. Blessings on your lives and your futures!
Lucy
REMEMBERING PRECIOUS LIVES—Our Spring memorial service--- (For a while I thought we were going to have snow for our May memorial service as we did for our Fall one. It was a pretty blustery night but we did walk up to the TLC site. We were all grateful to be back inside out of the wind, and having some refreshments after our walk.)
In Macbeth, Shakespeare writes, “Give sorrow words—the grief that does not speak, whispers to the O’erefraught heart and bids it break.” He was pretty smart; he understood long before any of us, that grief has to be expressed in order to have healing. We need to remember our babies! We need pictures and footprints, and clothing! Things that are tangible, and can be felt and looked at. Even the tiniest miscarried infant has touched our hearts in so many ways. Maybe it was your first pregnancy or a pregnancy after years of trying to conceive. Maybe it was a pregnancy that occurred after a previous loss, so the minute there is a positive pregnancy test, plans were started, names discussed. If that pregnancy ends in a loss, that baby has to be remembered.
No one wants it to consume your life, but each baby has to be grieved over and remembered. Subsequent pregnancies may happen and it is usually the ultimate healing. However, no one knows at the time of the loss, if they will have another baby, as well at the time of the loss, parents want that baby that just died, not a different one. Therefore, memories of this present baby becomes very important. Parents who have losses in NICU, generally have more mementos that the nurses save and collect for them.
I love the little verse that I often include when I send a family a sympathy card after a miscarriage, it ends with----“you did not have the chance to share your world with your little one, but your loss is no less real, and your memories are no less precious.”
I think all moms that find out they are pregnant should start a journal. Put down your thoughts on the pregnancy. What your feelings are? How you are feeling? The good and the bad! “Today is not a good day. I am so happy to be pregnant, but I have thrown up three times this morning, and it is only 7 A.M.” or, maybe further in the pregnancy, “I felt you move today, anyway that’s what I think it was.” “I was so happy and excited that I had to go and write it in my journal right away.” You might want to put in your Doctor appointments, and how things are going. If something happens with the pregnancy then you already have many memories of your baby. Ultra sound pictures might be the only ones you have of your baby, so ask for copies.
As we take pictures of our healthy newborns, we also need pictures of our baby that died. Sometimes the hurt is too great and you can hardly stand to look at them. However, as times passes, the pictures will be so dear to you. People think taking them out of the memory box and then crying your heart out, is BAD! Tears are our greatest healer. Tears do not hurt you, they heal you.
There are times when a loss first occurs and parents are not sure what memories they want. We know from years of dealing with parents with losses that some of the things that end up being important memories are felt to be awkward or strange to parents. Most parents do not know they have the same rights to their stillborn or infant that dies in NICU as any parent has. Many times parents are afraid to let us know what they want. We are a society of people who do not understand how this special time with your baby has to last you a life time. There is no going back. There is no other time you will have with your baby. This is why we always have a memento at our Memorial services. It is something tangible to touch and hold, and remind you of your baby. (I am going to mention the Memento from our service, but the rest of the Reflections is talking about it, so I won’t include that part.) However, our mom’s got a silver or gold locket where they could place a picture of their baby and one of parents. By doing so, it is the chain that links both parents to their baby. When mom wears the locket, dad can see it and remember his baby as well. WE REMEMBER OUR PRECIOUS BABIES, FOR PRECIOUS THEY ARE! A locket worn over our hearts, remembering the joy and wonder this baby had in your life.
Remembrance (author unknown)
Remembrance is a golden chain
Death tries to break, but all in vain.
To have, to love, and then to part
Is the greatest sorrow of one’s heart.
The years may wipe out many things
But some they wipe out never,
Like memories of your little one.
When you were all together.
O, passing angel, speed me with a song, a melody of Heaven to reach my heart and rouse me to the race and make me strong. –Christina Rosetti