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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Sunday, January 11, 2009

First person

When Thelma Williams' baby died at birth, his body was whisked away and he wasn't spoken of again. It took 40 years to confront her grief and finally give a name to her lost child - James
As told to Kate Hilpern


The Guardian, Saturday 10 January 2009

I know I'm not the first woman to have found something she would rather not have discovered in her husband's suit pocket. In my case, it was a notification of the burial of our son. I didn't even know he had been buried until that moment. I had been told when I was six months pregnant that he would die the moment he left my body and somehow I just accepted it when he was whisked away and never spoken of again. This was the 1960s. You didn't talk about such things.

At least, I think it was the 1960s. That's the thing. It could have been 1970. I couldn't tell you what day it was, what season, let alone which year - such was my determination to follow the advice and forget, a task only momentarily but acutely interrupted by the burial slip.
We had another baby later on. I did everything they told me, resting almost solidly for nine months. On 26 December 1971, in the afternoon, Emma was born, a beautiful little girl weighing 7lb 13oz. Home we went with joy in our hearts and everything ahead of us.

It was only when Emma had her own baby, Millie, that it hit me. They say time heals, but there has been nothing chronological about my journey of grief. Nor anything predictable. Out of nowhere it came, threatening to drive a wedge between me and my granddaughter, a granddaughter I had loved unconditionally from the moment I knew she was conceived. But love is different from bonding, I have learned. Bonding is something I could not do with Millie until I acknowledged the loss of my baby boy. And when I had done that - and at last found a place for him to rest in my consciousness - I discovered a bond closer than I could have imagined.

It was 2004, the year before I turned 70, that Emma became pregnant. It was such wonderful news and at first I accepted my niggles of fear as normal. Doesn't every mother of a pregnant daughter worry like mad that everything will be all right? But my anxiety kept growing. Emma knew the reason immediately. Once she reached adolescence, I told her about my stillbirth. She had wanted to know why she had no brothers and sisters. I had surprised myself with how "together" I sounded when I spoke of it. I could relay the facts - facts of which I had hardly mentioned in decades - without a tear in my eye and after I told Emma, I found I could tell others too. Provided I stuck to the facts - and didn't enter the realm of feelings - I sounded like a survivor.

Emma knows me very well and as the weeks of her pregnancy totted up, she spotted the cracks in my shield. She wanted to protect me, to reassure me that everything was OK, but understandably she was starting to feel anxious too. Could what had happened to me happen to her too?

We spoke to the midwife and the specialist. They assured us that all was well. The specialist knew about the condition that befell me when I was pregnant and was shocked to hear how I was treated. He used the word barbaric. He asked if I would like to see the scan of Emma's baby for myself, so I could feel comforted. I did see the scan but I didn't feel comforted. More

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