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THERE IS SUPPORT FOR FAMILIES GRIEVING THE DEATHS OF NEWBORNS, WRITES JOANN CANTRELL, WHO HAS EXPERIENCED SUCH A LOSS HERSELF
There is support for families grieving the deaths of newborns writes Joann Cantrell, who has experienced such a loss herself.
When I left the hospital without my infant twin sons on that cold day in April so long ago, I was given a keepsake booklet containing imprints of their tiny feet and the only photographs of Kevin and Art, taken minutes after their births. The haunting images of my babies, lying side by side and dressed only in the hospital-issued infant T-shirts, became the only validation of a void I would never fill.
Our boys arrived too soon, after I had carried them nearly six months. Ironically, it was the same time of year that the spring crocuses were making their comeback after a harsh winter. Like the flowers, my babies were early in blooming, yet they lacked the strength to survive.
Two days after their births, my husband and I buried our babies together in a tiny coffin in a cemetery near our home. It also happened to be our wedding anniversary, a day intended for celebration rather than sorrow. I clearly remember my heart feeling as frozen as the snow-covered ground.
Even the undertaker wept as he placed their coffin near the grave, and I felt that they might as well have buried me, too. My emotions were on a wild roller coaster after the unexpected labor and delivery of our twins, followed by their deaths and making arrangements for a funeral and burial.
In the following weeks, Mother’s Day was erased from that year’s calendar, though Kevin and Art were our fourth and fifth children. Well-meaning relatives and friends attempted consolation with the inappropriate reminder that at least we had three others.
The worst part of the grieving was that people felt uncomfortable with the loss. It was confusing to acknowledge a birth while expressing sympathy over a death. My grief was expected to be temporary, as there was never time to know the babies. Support was hard to find.
My sons were born in 1990, a time when infant loss was not discussed and young mothers suffered in silence. Had it not been for a sympathetic staff at the hospital who pointed me in the direction of a local support group, I don’t know how I would have managed my grief.
The organization made an early effort to bring bereaved parents together to share their experiences.
For the longest time after, those Polaroid photographs of our babies remained in the memory book, tucked away in a closet next to my aging wedding gown, never very far from the surface.
Each time I took the book out, I was told to put it away because the photos were too sad and too difficult to look at. Advice was often to “move on and forget.” No matter how many years went by, nothing could be further from the truth than saying I never thought about the babies I lost.
Instead, I held my sons in my heart, and I never forgot. I was always “still remembering.”
Perhaps that was the reason behind the instant connection when I recently met Lauren McLean, executive director of The Still Remembered Project. The organization was founded in April 2016 by Lauren, who lost her firstborn son Emerson in 2010, and by members of seven other bereaved families from Pittsburgh and Weirton, W.Va. The Christian-based nonprofit provides bereaved families with support and encouragement for losses due to miscarriage, stillbirth or early infant death.
The organization offers hope and healing throughout all stages of the grief journey by educating and working with local medical and bereavement groups, providing remembrance keepsakes to families, holding awareness events and hosting monthly support group meetings for bereaved mothers in the Pittsburgh area. The group gives grieving families the comfort they desperately seek.
Generous volunteers and donors have joined the effort, not only providing financial resources but partnering with The Still Remembered Project by organizing events, donating materials and supplies, and helping to raise awareness of the mission to support bereaved mothers.
Among other projects, the group has created and donated keepsakes, including memory boxes, miscarriage care packages and sibling bags to a variety of hospitals in the area. Each item has meaning and importance in helping to gently encourage remembrance and the honoring of a baby who was loved. In the past year, Pittsburgh area hospitals received more than 100 memory boxes, handmade blankets, keepsake holiday ornaments, garden memorials and Angel Gowns.
Angel Gowns are created from donated wedding dresses; fabric from a dress is redesigned into a simple, tiny gown for an infant. The Angel Gowns are offered to families whose babies have passed away. Some families will have their baby baptized, blessed or photographed in the gown, while others will choose to bury their baby in the garment.
Public interest has opened the floodgates of empathy and generosity. With the support of corporations and the community, The Still Remembered Project held the inaugural Always Still Remembering Luncheon last Sunday at the Crowne Plaza Pittsburgh South. The goals of the event were to share the mission of The Still Remembered Project, raise funds for future outreach, embrace remembering, and shatter the silence associated with pregnancy and infant loss.
The Still Remembered Project has also partnered with Lamar Advertising, Highmark Caring Place and the Pittsburgh Pirates, among other businesses. To remember bereaved mothers, Lamar Advertising will display eight billboards on major highways and interstates this Mother’s Day and the Pittsburgh Pirates will hold a Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day at PNC Park on Sept. 24.
I am encouraged to know that infant loss is no longer a silent sorrow. Hearing about all of the good intentions of this organization made me want to get involved. Without a second thought, I instinctively knew that donating my own wedding gown to The Still Remembered Project was something I had to do.
The cycle of life continues, yet there are some things you never get over.
“How many children do you have?"
Any mother who has lost an infant always will answer with hesitation. Mother's Day, birthdays, anniversaries of a death or burial and particular seasons of the year continue to trigger bittersweet memories of a child missing from a family. Today, International Bereaved Mother’s Day, is another reminder.
Thinking back to the photographs of Kevin and Art in their hospital T-shirts, I initially worried that giving up my wedding gown might become another heartwrenching reminder of my loss. Yet seeing it transformed into Angel Gowns replaced the bittersweet memories with feelings of gratitude for The Still Remembered Project and the group’s outpouring of compassion and support to those in need of comfort.