Church helps families heal after miscarriage
Workshop gives voice to the grieving
It wasn’t until Shannon Granger miscarried a baby that she realized how impoverished the church was when it came to offering support and healing to parents grieving a miscarriage.
“In his 40 years of being a pastor, ours had never done a memorial service for a miscarried baby,” Granger said. “The tendency was to keep such an event a secret, to bear the loss alone. I realized how important it is to let others know so they can commemorate the sad event with you.”
“One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage,” said parish nurse Carol Kostiuk. “That’s one-quarter of every congregation in every church setting. It’s an unfortunate normal, and churches and society in general have not dealt well with miscarriage. Other deaths are acknowledged and processed, but miscarriage is largely ignored or dismissed, even though a baby in utero is as much a part of the family as one carried to birth.”
Granger’s miscarriage prompted her to encourage the Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon to establish a Miscarriage Awareness Committee (MAC) in 2010 to provide resources for those who lose a child through miscarriage and for those who provide support to suffering families.
MAC resources include pastoral notes on what to say to parents who experience miscarriage. “People’s comments following a miscarriage loss are often meant well, but they can be hurtful and inappropriate,” Granger said. “Among the resources is a naming ceremony, a liturgy of the word and a burial service.”
All of these resources and more can be found at www. saskatoonrcdiocese.com/ miscarriage/.
The website also offers resources to help those who experience a miscarriage to heal. A local resource is a shared monument at Saskatoon’s Woodlawn Cemetery for babies who died at or before birth.
“Parents can have the name of their child engraved on a plaque on the monument,” said Granger. “Ours just says Baby Granger. The monument is a resting place, a place to go and pray.”
Another helpful resource is Grieving the Child I Never Knew, a collection of devotional readings by Kathe Wunnenberg to help mothers grieve. “There’s good material in it,” said parish nurse Ethna Martin. “It includes Bible readings that help the person going through the journey, as well as steps toward healing. There are also pages in the book for journaling.”
The Miscarriage Awareness Committee is hosting a workshop on Saturday, Oct. 5, at Holy Spirit Parish in Saskatoon. Those attending will hear first-person stories of loss, pain, joy and life shared.
Dr. Phil Carverhill, a registered doctoral psychologist who provides counselling and therapy for individuals, couples and families, will speak on grieving a miscarriage.
His presentation will be followed by a discussion addressing questions such as: What are our fears in early pregnancy? How can we alleviate those fears? What holds us back from sharing early on the joyful news of a pregnancy? How can miscarriage affect relationships? What is important for your healing? How do men grieve differently from women?
The workshop is open to everyone — “to anyone who at any time has experienced miscarriage,” said Martin, “to any family member affected, because when there’s a miscarriage, not only Mom and Dad are affected, but siblings, grandparents and friends, as well. The workshop is also for friends of people with miscarriage, people in ministry and chaplaincy, and anyone with an open heart who is interested in learning.
“As a nurse, I’d like to see more medical people attending,” she said. “It would be a great education for them. When I was a new nursing grad, I wasn’t at all comfortable with miscarriage or caring for women with miscarriage. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing. Hopefully workshops like this will be helpful in teaching how to comfort people in that situation.”
Kostiuk believes even people who experienced miscarriage long ago would benefit from attending the workshop. “Maybe it happened 30 years ago, but they haven’t talked about it, haven’t processed it. They don’t realize that after all these years, they can still name their child.”
Granger says the fundamental purpose of the workshop is for people to gather together in faith and compassion, “to acknowledge our shared grief, to know we’re not alone, and to pray for ourselves and our babies. We want to celebrate these babies we didn’t get to meet.”