New Blogs Submitted This Week

A warm welcome to the following Bloggers:

• Rollercoaster of Love
• Roo and The Girls
• Little Dog Blog or Diversions From Infertility
• Pregnancy Journeys After Loss

Friday Blog Roundup

Although I know there are some men here (fathers in mourning), the fact is that most of the bloggers in this little part of the ether are women. We like to talk. We need to talk. And talk, and talk and talk. It's a form of therapy for us. Reliving, analysing, re-visiting, re-hashing, venting - it's what we do. Sharing the things in our heads - the wonderful and the horrible and everything in between - is how we make it through the tormented days that aren't easy, the ones that sneak up on us when we were sure we were doing so well. And it's how we celebrate the good days, the healing first steps, the leaps and bounds, the joys of new pregnancies or simply the first glimmer of hope and joy since the crushing weight of sorrow descended upon us.

Talking is good. And there's so much of it in the blogs listed to the right it feels cruel to only select a few of the millions of beautiful words to highlight here each week. But the ones that want to be here leap out at me. And I can't resist them.

Like Rachel. She lost her first child to miscarriage at only 10 weeks just three months ago. She is pregnant again, and this week wrote a beautiful post thanking everyone who has stopped by her blog and offered support when she needed it most.

Because that's what we do, isn't it? We rally around each other in a stunning display of support unlike any I think I've ever seen in "real life". Complete strangers brought together by common sorrow, but not so broken that they can't somehow find a way to offer comforting words of help and hope to other mothers and fathers who are struggling with loss and the crippling grief that follows.

And Rachel? Yes, she's very grateful for the support. But why did she start her blog in the first place?

"The day I started this blog, I was feeling really low. I had no idea how many people were in similar situations as me, I just knew I didn't want anyone else to go through this. I wanted to document how I was feeling and my healing process so that others could learn."

So that others could learn. Amazing.

And about that whole venting thing that we need to do sometimes? Here's a good one. Still nursing a very sore foot (a wine bottle accident that shouldn't be funny but kind of is, at least the way she tells it) Aurelia imagines how lovely it would be to give complaining mothers of living children what for...

"Kaz is still gone to camp and I miss him so much I'm practically hysterical. I'm beginning to really resent seeing these women at my school whooping it up because their kids are gone, and they are "free". I keep wanting to smack them and say, 'Hey, 3 of my kids get to visit nature 24/7, they're buried in the ground. How would you like to be THAT free, bitch?'"

It's so deliciously good, this little rant. And so very necessary sometimes, which is why blogs are so very necessary too.

Because the more you talk (write) the more you're able to work through the demons. I don't honestly know if there's enough breath in one's body (or life in one's fingers) to ever actually completely banish the demons and find total peace after the loss of a child, but I do believe that writing about it allows us to give a loud enough voice to the dark thoughts that they won't/can't drown out the sounds of happiness we can still find.

And writing helps us work through things that other people just don't get - and sometimes criticize us for. Like the way other people's pregnancies might make us feel.

The Impatient Patient talked about this earlier this week. Her 43-year old friend found herself pregnant after a few months of trying. She's never experienced infertility or loss and, in fact, doesn't even know how any of this "being pregnant" stuff actually works. Impatient Patient does though. In spades.

So how did this new pregnancy announcement affect her?

"How do I feel about it? Quite deliriously weird…. Like the universe is having another (indirect) dig at me, laughing square in my face. And that’s ok too. Really, it is. MY issues are mine, not anyone else’s."

Awesome. Seriously. I'm so tired of feeling guilty for the way I feel about other people's good news and endlessly punishing myself for feeling that inevitable "why me" sorrow mixed in with the "YAY them" joy. To have someone else say that all those "deliriously weird" feelings are "OK" is, well, excellent. Because it is okay to feel all those weird things you feel when someone passes along their good news when you're been so overburdened with your own bad.

It's normal

Impatient Patient totally gets that.

"Today I had a phone call from a friend of mine. A friend of mine who I used to be really close with but have drifted away from. She’s pregnant. She’s 43. AND you know what? I was ok. I don’t feel the need to do the disclaimer thing anymore as I had *insight* today. (you have to say insight like Lassie’s FlyGuy - you know, in-saht…. k?) Anyway, my in-saht was like a bolt. It’s about me - not anyone else. My problem dealing with pregnancy doesn’t impact my relationships with others as it’s not about them, 100%. I felt so happy for my friend, and kind of bemused as to her lack of knowledge about anything."

And finally, writing lets us ask the question we all want to scream to the heavens a zillion and one times a day. In our blogs we can ask it over and over and over again, never expecting an answer, but grateful to be able to ask it just the same. Any time we want. As many times as we need to. And in all its endless variations.

This week, Melissa asked it.

"Why?"

I don't know. I will never know, I'm sure of it. But I'll keep asking it too. And I'll keep saying "I don't know, but I'm so sorry" to everyone else who asks it.

Because that's what we do.

California MISSing Angels Bill Passed

Yes Votes
Alquist Calderon Corbett Correa Ducheny Florez Hollingsworth Kehoe Kuehl Lowenthal Maldonado Migden Negrete McLeod Padilla Perata Ridley-Thomas Scott Simitian Steinberg Torlakson Vincent Yee

No Votes
Aanestad Ashburn Cogdill Cox Denham Dutton Harman Machado Margett McClintock Romero Runner Wiggins Wyland

Absent, Abstaining, or Not Voting
Ackerman Battin Cedillo Oropeza

What happens next?

The bill moves to the California Assembly, where the legislative process begins again. The bill will likely be assigned 2, 3 or more committees in the Assembly in the weeks ahead.

Public testimony and support will be allowed -- just like in the Senate.

Assuming the bill passes the various Assembly committees, the Assembly votes. If it passes the Assembly, the bill moves to the Governor to be signed into law.

The bill is *indeed* on the right path. But we continue to need your help. You can see from above, lawmakers are hotly contesting this bill.

Some have called this "hijacking" for political reasons -- namely pro-choice/pro-life. Despite, we celebrate the bill passing the Senate yesterday and people like you helping to support it!

More in the days ahead---

Daryl Logullo
National Legislative Liaison (volunteer)
MISS Foundation

Stillbirth bill sparks squabble in Legislature
By Edwin Garcia
MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
Article Launched: 06/05/2007 01:29:29 AM PDT


SACRAMENTO - It began as a noble idea: Comfort mothers whose babies die at delivery by allowing them to purchase an official California "certificate of stillbirth."

But by the time the state Senate voted - and approved - the measure Monday, it had become a referendum on abortion rights and one of the oddest and messiest fights this year in the Legislature. (continue)

Friday Blog Roundup - a shorter version and a must-read poem

I just happen to be having one of those days (my apologies, but they still come. After all this time they still come), so I'm abbreviating the blog roundup today and just asking you to take a look at this.

It's a beautiful poem by Missing One over at A Mending Heart. She lost her daughter this Mother's Day - just weeks ago. With sorrow so raw it still oozes from every pore, she somehow still managed to pen an achingly beautiful poem about what she believes makes someone a true mother.

If you have wondered, even for the briefest of moments, if you can still be called a mother if you have no living babies or if the babies you carried and lost were too small to see, read this poem.

If you're like me, it will feel like drinking an endlessly tall, ice cold glass of water on the hottest afternoon of the summer.

If you happen to know of any other soul soothing poems or passages like this one (or if you're written any of your own), please consider posting them (or links to them) in the comments.

Thank you Missing One. I needed that.

MISS Foundation Email

Dear MISS Members,

Elisabeth Kubler Ross, M.D. spent more than five decades devoted to helping the dying and the bereaved. She has helped countless people, and our entire culture, in coping with death, dying, and mourning. Much of her life was devoted to working with dying children and their families. She is a thanatological icon and hero.

Elisabeth was also a friend to the MISS Foundation, a cherished advisor. She was my beloved friend and mentor.

In honor of her upcoming birthday, July 8th, the MISS Foundation would like to offer a "One who soars (tm)" band to our members.

You can wear this in honor of your beloved child, and to recognize the legacy of Dr. Kubler-Ross' work.

Please send a SASE with two stamps to:

MISS Foundation
EKR Legacy
PO Box 5333
Peoria, Az 85385

May your Memorial Day weekend be filled with loving thoughts of your children. We also recognize those young men and women who have lost their lives in service.

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people
do not just happen."

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
July 8, 1926 to August 24, 2004

Let us never forget the gifts she left this world

Very Sincerely,
Joanne Cacciatore, PhD Cand, MSW, FT

New Blogs Submitted This Week

A warm welcome to the following Bloggers:

• Love Notes
• A Mending Heart?

Globe and Mail: Burying the unborn

CAROLYN ABRAHAM
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
May 26, 2007 at 2:24 AM EDT


On the afternoon of Feb. 3, 25 people gathered in the chapel of Smiths Funeral Home in Sarnia, Ont., to honour the passing of Angel Lynzey Burden.

The community sent flowers and cards of condolence. Angel's ashes sat on a table up front, in a decorative urn half the size of a coffee cup. (continue)



Note: This article will only be available online for a few more days, possibly a week. If you are not able to access it via the link provided, please contact us so we can email electronic copy to you.

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.

New York Time Article Update

AOL has picked up the recent New York Times article regarding the Missing Angels Bill in New York. The AOL site allows readers to comment on the article or vote on the question "Should states issue birth certificates for babies who are stillborn?"

If you wish to add your voice to the discussion, go here.

edited to add: there are currently comments on those discussion threads that are extremely hurtful, so please be aware of this if you go there!

Scrapbooking Website

For those of you who choose to scrapbook your memories of your children, you may wish to check out www.justacloudaway.com.

BBC News: Aspirin 'cuts pre-eclampsia risk'

Taking aspirin throughout pregnancy could reduce the risk of the potentially dangerous condition pre-eclampsia, a major study suggests.

A University of Sydney team analysed data on more than 32,000 women for a study published in The Lancet.

The results suggested cases of pre-eclampsia, which is caused by a defect in the placenta, could fall by 10% if aspirin was taken widely.

Experts urged caution, given the small risks linked to long-term aspirin use. (continue)

Joy for parents after babies' deaths

Having three babies die in two years meant Claire Wright dreaded Mother's Day.

But this year will be different after the birth of healthy daughter Zoe in January.

"Before she was born I was really excited and eager to bring her home," says Claire. "It seems more natural to be a mum to a living baby, than to babies who have died." (continue)

MISS Foundation Update

The MISS Foundation is featured in a prominent New York Times article on Tuesday, May 22, 2007.

A Move for Birth Certificates for Stillborn Babies

Last summer, three weeks before her due date, Sari Edber delivered a stillborn son, Jacob. “He was 5 pounds and 19 inches, absolutely beautiful, with my olive complexion, my husband’s curly hair, long fingers and toes, chubby cheeks and a perfect button nose,” she said.

The sudden shift from what she called “a perfectly wonderful healthy pregnancy” to delivering a dead infant was unfathomably painful, said Ms. Edber, 27, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Daniel. (continue)

We are grateful to the reporter, Tamar Lewin, for writing this very special story.

Unfortunately, we are also deeply disturbed by comments made by Ms. Perry Lynn Moffit which are clearly incongruent with the desires of many families experiencing stillbirth across the nation. Our position is that bereaved families of stillborn babies demand what is rightfully due them, and cannot be assuaged merely by an "informal memory certificate" offered by a hospital. This false assertion serves to undermine all of our efforts. Therefore, we reject this notion on behalf of thousands of stillbirth families around the country.

Further, we reject Ms Moffitt's characterization of the MISSing Angels Bill as suggesting that stillborn babies "become cherubs in heaven." The bill was named, instead, in honor of the many MISS Foundation children who died before their time, and embodies the more secular definitions of 'angel' including goodness, purity, and virtuousness (American Heritage Dictionary, 2007).

Ms Moffitt's unfortunate and misinformed comments aside, the article was well written, and accurately portrayed some of the complex struggles facing women, men, and families affected by the tragedy of stillbirth. We thank the courageous families interviewed in the article, and applaud the efforts of the volunteer lobbyists of the MISS Foundation working diligently in many states to pass this important legislation.

~MISS Foundation Email

MISS Foundation Press Release

Feminists Groups Finally Hear the Cries of Women Experiencing Stillbirth

Guttmacher Institute the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the ACLU...and NARAL Pro-Choice America told Stateline.org they take a neutral position on the stillborn birth-certificate issue.

"We are hopeful that the remaining 31 states will pass with relative ease now that the opposition has changed their positions," said Joanne Cacciatore, CEO of the MISS Foundation and a social scientist who studies the effects of stillbirth on women. "It is important for many, many women from an emotional, psychological, and epidemiological perspective...and this is about advocating for these mothers."

Cacciatore notes that this paradigm shift in attitudes toward stillborn babies comes, in large part, as a result of a cooperative social movement between the MISS Foundation and other grassroots groups that provide support and resources to families experiencing infant and child death. "We are not going away," Cacciatore continues. "We are prepared to take our stand. It is the least we can do for these children and their families."

Stillborn laws entangled in abortion debate
By Christine Vestal, Stateline.org Staff Writer

Every year, some 35,000 women deliver babies who die just before or during birth. A number of parents say their grief over the tragic loss is made worse because most states simply issue death certificates, never recognizing the birth of their stillborn offspring. (continue)

Updated Link

Please note that Vegetarian Mom has been forced to make her blog private. She was under attack by people who chose to use her story of loss to further their own political agendas. It is unthinkable that this would happen in a civilised society.

However, we hope that people with good intentions of honouring her and her darling baby girl will still be able to connect to her blog. If you would like to request access to her blog, feel free to email us here at the Directory. We will pass your request on to her.