How to Use the Directory

Welcome to the Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss Directory. This blog is maintained by volunteers to act like a "telephone book" for blogs dealing with the loss of a baby. It is open to anyone who has ever lost a baby in any way - we do not discriminate by age of your baby or circumstance of your loss. If you think you belong here, then we think you belong here.

When you submit your blog, it is manually added to the list, so it may take some time for it to appear on the list. When you submit your information as requested below, it is easier to spot those emails that have been redirected into the spam mail.

Blogs are listed by category of loss. This is to help you find blogs that deal with circumstances that may be similar to yours. That being said, it can be a moving and healing experience to read the blogs of people who's loss is not similar to yours. You are welcome to read any of the blogs listed here.

Though there could be literally thousands of categories of loss, we have created 4 broad categories: before 20 weeks, after 20 weeks, after birth, and medical termination. Please note that most blogs dealing with extreme prematurity are listed in the "after birth" category even though the gestational age might suggest a different category.

As a warning to those feeling particularly fragile, many of the blogs listed here discuss living children or subsequent pregnancies. In the sidebar links, those blogs are usually marked with an asterisk(*). However, the circumstances of individual bloggers will change, and sometimes the listings do not get updated. It is possible to encounter pictures of living children or pregnant bellies on the blogs listed here.

We also have a list of resources (books), online links, and online publications that you may find useful. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to see the full listing of links.

We are so sorry the loss of a beloved child has brought you here. We hope that you will find some solace within the community that has gathered.
Please help us set up this resource for grieving families by:

Welcome

A. Submitting your blog information
(Email Subject: Please Add My Blog)
  • The link to your blog
  • The title of your blog
  • The topic of your blog (see sidebar - Personal Blogs)
  • If your blog discusses living children or subsequent pregnancy after loss

B. Submitting links to helpful web resources
(Email Subject: Please Add This Link)

C. Submitting titles of helpful reading materials or videos/films
(Email Subject: Please Add This Resource)

D. Adding a link to this site from your blog

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Friday, May 25, 2007

Friday Blog Roundup - Now What?

Aside from all the obvious horrors of miscarriage, infant loss and the sometimes resulting struggle to conceive, there's the quiet little sneaking nastiness of uncertainty. It's the feeling of having no control - of being unable to move forward and unwilling to move backwards. Of being caught in limbo.

Plans are what you used to make. After a loss, you realize that plans are what people who don't know any better make. Well, people who don't know loss, anyway.

For us there's no such thing as planning to have a summer baby or waiting until after a wedding for fear of being a hugely pregnant bridesmaid. There are no guarantees anymore. There never were, I suppose, but we just didn't realize it back when the world made sense.

We know all too well what happens to the best laid plans, and because of that we can never look at pregnancy the same way again. Shattered innocence and the inability to plan with any certainly. That's what our reality is. It's just one more way your world has changed. One more thing to make sense of. One more sorrow to get used to.

Chris at Love, Hope and Faith Talks about this very thing.

"From as far back as I can remember I have always had a plan of some type. Everything I ever did was based on something else that would follow down the line."

She says it's unnerving to be out of ideas. Unnerving indeed. We are used to working hard to achieve the ends we desire, and suddenly no amount of work seems to make a difference. Life, Mother Nature, the gods, fate, the universe - something had plans of its own for us.

So, I suppose, the trick is to adjust. To use that determination to figure out the best way for you to survive and, eventually, to really and truly live again. And for everyone it's different - whatever works for you is exactly what you should do. Reading blogs of other mothers and fathers can sometimes give you incredible help and insight as you start your healing journey.

For instance there's a very beautiful post at Just A Cloud Away that urges us to watch for signs from our angels.

"The message could be a butterfly sitting on your nose for 45 seconds, an unusual, long, quiet stare from one of your other children which traveled to the depths of your soul, hearing the same song played at your child’s memorial service, seeing the first letter of their name formed by 2 airplane smoke trails, or a painting of a butterfly in the labor and delivery wall of a subsequent pregnancy."

It reminds us that we have no choice but to adjust our thinking and actively search for meaning and peace in our new, sorrow touched worlds. And yes, hunt for angel signs while we're at it.

Yes, maybe the ability to plan and to be fully in control is a thing of the past, but sorrow can't take everything away from us. There is still so much we can do. So much we can choose to do.

So many of the blog authors I read are actively engaged in charity work. For them it's a way to make something good from something so unthinkably bad. After all, loss doesn't take away that natural instinct we all have to mother - to nurture, care and help. In fact, in many ways it strengthens that desire. Which is why people like Inca work so hard to make a difference in a world she knows is so aching with sorrow.

This week she writes about the fact that her non-profit foundation in memory of her daughter Emma Grace is starting to pick up steam. Word is getting out, and you can hear the excitement in her words as she speaks about the start of the 2nd annual donation drive (Go check it out. Poke. Poke. Poke).

And you know, sometimes you just need a good laugh. Sometimes not thinking about the plans you can't make or the ones you thought you had is the very best thing you can do. A lot of the time it's the very best thing you can do lest your head implode from the sheer force of the suppressed anger, anxiety and confusions swirling around within its confines.

So after you check out Inca's sewing blog, you absolutely must read all about Karla's cats and their herpes.

So yes, planning is out the window. But there's still so much we can do, including searching for angels, helping others and laughing at the herpes cats.

There is life after loss. Even if we can't plan a damn thing anymore.

6 comments:

delphi said...

I loved Karla's post, too. It had me believing that she once worked as a writer of PSAs. Poor little herpes cats!

Thank you for pointing me in the directrion of Chris's post. I agree. I am a planner. Nothing could have prepared me for my initial difficulty getting pregnant, then losing my son and difficulty getting pregnant again. There was not a plan to follow. I am/was at the mercy of fate. Tough pill to swallow.

Thanks for this, K.

Diana said...

Hi

Diana said...

Hi. I would love to know your first name, blogger?
Control, yes, I still think I have it. Well I have the illusion that I have it. I have signed up with a life coach to assist me in correcting that. Big Challenge for me. Even having no control over the stillbirth of my son, I still feel my surroundings are all in control with what I tell it to do.
Some habits need help from others to break!!!!
Thank you for mentioning "Angel's Communicate"!! Wow our children are here and I always have my eyes, ears, and nose open. Are we crazy:) probably so. Crazy in love with our children
Have a wonderful weekend
Diana

Candy said...

With tears rolling down my face, I'd like to say that this is a beautifully written post that captures so many of my feelings. I'd also like to thank you for the "pokes". I'm not shy to say that if I had not channelled my grief into the foundation, I fear that I would have forever been a puddle of goo.

karla said...

That's interesting that you mentioned getting involved in charity work after a loss. That's exactly what I did when I never returned to work. I volunteered. It didn't matter if it was with the elderly, or a bereavement charity, or even helping with bingo to help a charity, it felt good to be doing something to help others. In the long run though, I realized that I was spending too much time helping others instead of myself and I think I used charity work as a crutch to try and forget how helpless I felt. Does that make any sense? I guess it was easier to try and help others than myself.

Alex Cooks said...

This wwas a lovely blog post